Flippy makes burgers, Chippy cooks fries, and Remy serves salad. Customers may not even notice them, but robots are becoming more common behind the counter in fast food kitchens.
At Food Republic, a quick-service restaurant in Vancouver, Remy looks like a giant stainless steel can. Inside, he receives orders to portion out each salad ingredient. Cucumbers roll down a tube into an exit bowl and then move along a conveyor belt to collect the next ingredient.
Ashkan Mirnabavi is the co-founder of Canadian robotics startup Cibotica, which designed Remy using artificial intelligence and machine learning. He describes it as an automated assembly line that can produce up to 300 salads per hour. “Thanks to the underlying technology, each component is dispensed accurately and precisely,” he said.
Ashkan Mirnabavi is the co-founder of Vancouver robotics startup Cibotica, which created the salad assembly robot Remy. (Nicholas Allan/CBC)
Mirnabavi, a former restaurateur herself, said Remy can help businesses create consistency, reduce customer wait times and reduce labor costs by 33 percent. Cibotica allows customers to “hire” Remy for a monthly subscription fee, and Remy said demand is promising.
“We have received numerous inquiries and purchase orders from companies in the U.S. and Canada.”
Remy is far from the only robot in fast-food kitchens. As companies deal with staffing shortages and try to cut costs, more large chains are turning to automation to make food faster and cheaper.
Robots are on the rise
Since the pandemic, there have been fewer people wanting fast-paced and demanding jobs on the front lines of the restaurant industry.
More than 250,000 restaurant workers have left jobs to find new careers by 2021, according to a report from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives.
Flippy is a robot developed by Miso Robotics in California. (Miso Robotics)
In addition to personnel shortages, labor costs are also increasing. Companies have sought solutions to fill the gap, and many of them are designed to replace human workers on the assembly line.
Domino’s is experimenting with a pizza-making machine at one of its Berlin locations. White Castle has implemented giant mechanical arms to flip burgers (nicknamed Flippy) and cook fries (Chippy) at locations across the US. At a pilot restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas, those serving McDonald’s customers are almost entirely robots.
American salad store Sweetgreen goes all in. In 2023, CEO Jonathan Neman told investors he expected every location to be automated within five years.
Making fast food faster
Chipotle Mexican Grill is also acquiring and testing several options that could launch at its Canadian locations later this year.
“They can do the same task over and over again with a very high degree of efficiency and success,” said Curt Garner, Chipotle’s chief technology officer.
The California-based company is experimenting with a machine called Autocado. It cuts avocados, pits them and scoops them out, helping to serve a batch of guacamole in half the usual time. There are plans to add machine learning capabilities to Autocado that will help it evaluate the quality of avocados without human assistance.
Garner said employees are free to focus on less repetitive tasks and move on to other kitchen or customer service duties.
Chipotle Mexican Grill introduced Autocado, a robot that cuts, cores and picks avocados. (Chipotle Mexican Grill)
Garner said things will be streamlined so the remaining staff can spend more time interacting with guests. He doesn’t expect robots to replace all workers at Chipotle because there are some things machines can’t do.
“They don’t learn like humans. They don’t adapt as well to changes in the environment.”
While the technology is still expensive, fast-food chains are beginning to consider the benefits of staff who can work around the clock and not call in sick. Equipment like the Autocado will pay for itself in one to two years, Garner said.
Restaurant jobs suitable for automation
Restaurants have traditionally lagged behind other industries in introducing industrial robots, but these robots could potentially replace 82 percent of jobs, according to an estimate from industry consultants Aaron Allen & Associates. Some experts suggest that the workforce is on track to permanently decline.
Dr. D., professor of management at George Brown College. Robin Yap warned that technology will increase innovation opportunities, but it is crucial that employers plan to retrain their employees.
Domino’s is experimenting with a pizza assembly machine produced by a startup called Picnic at one of its Berlin locations. (Picnic)
Yap suggested that companies could move their human employees into more customer-facing roles or management positions. They may also provide technical training to employees.
“Maybe now they’re becoming technicians for robots because, after all, you need maintenance. So these are machines, they don’t work forever,” he said.
Although Yap predicts robots will be ubiquitous in just a few years, he said that throughout history, workforces have been able to adapt to disruption.
“When we had typewriters, when we had telephones… all of those things caused things to change. So it’s not new that there are changes in where people are needed.”
With files from Laura MacNaughton