Here Comes the Keurig of Fro-Yo

Seemingly every new high-tech kitchen appliance hitting the market these days dreams of being “the Keurig of” some niche product, be it tortillas, craft beer, or cookies. We lazy millennials are clearly here for it — the aforementioned tortilla maker, which utilizes dough pods to churn out fresh corn or flour specimens, raised more than $100,000 on Kickstarter — so it was only a matter of time until someone unveiled the Keurig of fro-yo.

Enter Wim, a small countertop appliance that uses flash-freezing technology to churn out frozen yogurt in 10 minutes. The device uses Keurig-style “pods” that are filled with freeze-dried organic yogurt mix.

Per Bloomberg, operating the gadget is about as simple as it gets: Users just have to add milk — cow, almond, soy, whatever — and there’s literally only one button to press. The yogurt is produced inside the pod package, meaning there’s no need to wash the machine afterward. The pods currently come in nine flavors including raspberry, banana bread, brownie batter, and passionfruit (three of which are dairy free); the company also says its yogurt contains less sugar than say, Pinkberry.

Of course, all this comes at a not-insignificant cost: The Wim is $299, and the single-serving yogurt pods (referred to as “Wim-Bowls”) run from $3 to nearly $4 each depending on the quantity purchased. So while it may not exactly be a low-cost alternative to patronizing one of those self-serve yogurt shops, the convenience factor could prove awfully appealing for a certain sect of fro-yo obsessives. (And it sure seems a hell of a lot cooler than Juicero, the $400 wifi enabled juicer that was quickly discovered to be completely useless.)

• Meet Wim, a Gadget That'll Make Fast Fro-Yo on Your Kitchen Counter [Bloomberg]
• Are Cookie Pods the Slice-and-Bake of the Future? [E]
• This $400 Juicer Has One Big Flaw [E]