Labor Shortages, Foodservice Automation This Week in Foodservice Joseph M. Carbonara October 19, 2021
The robots have arrived. One QSR chain turns to Google to help create better guest and employee experiences. Are labor short- ages the new normal? These stories and more This Week in Foodservice. Another week goes by and another robot reports to work in a restaurant, or so it seems.
In this instance, CaliBurger plans to open a Washington restaurant that uses an auton- omous robot system to cook fries, per a release from the company. It can also cook chicken breasts and tenders, onion rings and other items. The restaurant will also feature an ordering and payment recognition system that leverages opt-in facial recognition and cashless payments. If the CaliBurger name rings familiar, it should. The company has been working with this technolo- gy for a while. And this is just the latest in a string of instances where operators have turned to robotics to offset labor and other challenges in recent months. For example, a restaurant in the Twin Cities now uses robots to run food items to tables where servers take over the last few steps. This helps the restaurant deal with labor shortages in the area. And the University of Illinois at Chicago is using robots this fall to deliver food to students on cam- pus, as reported here a few weeks ago. A concept that’s making a go with robotics, albeit in a slightly different way, is Sushi Hana in the Pacific North- west. At this restaurant, guests order food at their tables using a tablet and their sushi orders get delivered via a high-tech monorail system. The restaurant uses robotic equipment to make rice balls, too. But for all of this to work, robotics, and any other form of automation for that matter, has to provide the proper return on investment for operators, as this FE&S article notes. For years now, the foodservice industry has wondered when the use of robotics would become more wide- spread. Perhaps that time is now. For more information, reach out to B.S.E. Marketing CHOWBOTICS
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