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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Behind the Bot

The Origin Story Behind OMM, the Countertop Egg-Making Robot from Bridge Appliances

A few years ago, Lance Lentini was a year out of college when he started working at DEKA Research & Development, a technology development firm. This wasn’t just any engineering firm; it was the incubation hub for Dean Kamen, one of America’s most renowned inventors, responsible for a plethora of inventions such as the Segway, the iBOT wheelchair, and the dispensing technology used in the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine.

And it was there, while working on projects like self-balancing wheelchairs and delivery drones, that Lentini started to think about how automation could be used to make food production more efficient. He and a couple of coworkers started to discuss the opportunities and started to imagine what it might be like to work on their own project under their own company.

The only question was, where should they start?

According to Lentini, it was in 2020 that the concept for their first product started to come together. Around that time, Lentini and his eventual co-founders were standing in line for coffee and started to wonder what the reason was for the long wait times.

“After watching people just walk away from the line after waiting so long, we were like, ‘let’s poke and prod and see what’s really going on, what’s the biggest problem behind the counter,'” said Lentini in an interview with The Spoon.

After talking to employees at the coffee shop, they learned that eggs were often the bottleneck in the kitchen as a result of how labor-intensive they are to make. It was then they saw an opportunity to innovate.

“That was where we went down the rabbit hole of designing for restaurant owners,” Lentini said.

Lentini took the first leap. He left DEKA and began working on the idea, and within a few months, he received a small investment from a close friend. Before long, he was joined by his other co-founders (Connor White, Keller Waldron, and Chris Plankey) and built their first prototype. This prototype helped them raise a $2 million seed round in 2021 from Steve Papa, a longtime wireless industry executive and one of the original investors in Toast.

After two years of development, the company, now called Bridge Appliances, finalized its first product late last year, a robot designed to automate the preparation of eggs for breakfast sandwiches named OMM. Last month, the company was granted a utility patent for the technology in the OMM, which covers the process of cooking an egg in an end-to-end fashion in a countertop appliance.

The OMM can prepare two eggs in about two minutes, which means a single machine can handle approximately 60 eggs in an hour. The plan is to place the machines in locations ranging from small mom-and-pop shops that might only make fifty eggs on a Saturday morning to higher-volume locations that do three to five hundred eggs in a day. Those higher-volume locations, Lentini says, will have two or three machines working side-by-side.

Bridge Appliances has set up manufacturing in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, area, and they plan on rolling out the OMM to a set of trial customers over the next few months. From there, the company plans to expand into other areas within the US by the end of 2024 and early 2025. The initial business model will be a “cooking-as-a-service” model, and Lentini says Bridge will charge a nominal fee on a per-egg-cooked basis.

With his first products heading out the door, Lentini can reflect on those early days working as a freshly graduated engineer for a technology pioneer like Dean Kamen.

“Part of the reason we wanted to do this is that we just saw such a lack of innovation in this sector,” Lentini said. “And we were inspired by Dean’s interest and willingness to really try to do moonshots, and we really wanted to give this a try to build the first kind of end-to-end robotic appliances.”

“And we went, and we tried it, and it worked out.”

You can get a peak at the OMM robotic egg cooker in the video below.

Introducing OMM, Automated Egg Cooker

Israel’s Tastewise Turns Diverse Data into Real-Time Insights Using AI

Those who rely on data to make an important business decision know the adage, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Data is plentiful for those in the food world, but it is a challenge to select the correct data, understand what the information means, and how it relates to your specific situation.

Enter Tastewise, an Israeli market intelligence platform that harvests a vast—and we mean vast–array of structured and unstructured data and turns it into meaningful insights. Working with Nestle, Mars, PepsiCo, and others, Tastewise recently upped its game by adding AI capability using ChatGPT to its functionality.

In a recent interview with The Spoon, Alon Chen, Tastewise Co-Founder, and CEO explained the company’s origins. After working for Google, Chen ran into Eyal Gaon, who became co-founder and CTO. The two men discussed the gap between bringing new products to market and eventual success.

“We found very early on that 90% of innovation–tens of thousands of new products that come out to the market every single year– fail, right? CPG companies and others win up; they innovate a lot less and focus on acquisitions because they can’t keep up. We took a deeper look at this and said, why is that? “

The answer became evident to the two men. Companies, especially in the food area, focused on retail data, which becomes stale quicker than a week-old banana. “Retail data is not good for the food industry because if something is successful and you see that on sales data, you are already 18 months too late,” commented Chen.

Which led to a two-part solution—the underpinnings of the Tastewise platform. Step one is harvesting data from myriad sources ranging from restaurant menus to recipe sites on the Web. The trick of turning raw information into actionable insights is to take structured (quantitative) and unstructured (qualitative) data and offer users easy-to-understand answers. For example, Tastewise can tell a CPG customer what customers are enjoying the latest food fad. The details of those results can go deep into the location and demographics of those trends and the foodies behind them.

“We call it the fast-moving consumer data,” Chen observed. “Fast moving consumer data, which is a whole new category that we think that is evolving today and is now being integrated into the different workflows and the tasks nig companies have in place. Tastewise is a layer of data that brings consumer preferences and needs into the food brand and the food manufacturing life cycle.”

Taking its SaaS data platform to a new level, Tastewise has added AI functionality to its product line. Called TasteGPT, users can ask such questions as:

  • What product ideas are the best fit for my Gen Z consumers?
  • What concepts should I invest my R&D budget in?
  • Where should I launch my new beverage product first?
  • Where is my competition under-represented, and what can I do about it?
  • What should the focus of my next marketing campaign be?

“AI influences how consumers choose what to eat and drink in countless ways. Consumers are also more informed than ever, and they expect us to meet their needs accurately, specifically, and on-demand,” Chen said at the March launch of the new AI capability. “TasteGPT can now help companies get closer to their consumers by capturing the pulse of culinary, nutritional, and dietary needs, and to stay competitive in a rapidly changing market.”

“Artificial intelligence is the only way to mitigate a lack of credible data by enabling organizations to make sense of vast amounts of data,” said Gaon. “With relevant AI tools, data turns into meaningful insights that drive better decision-making and innovation in real-time.”

Big in Japan: Yo-Kai Attracts Huge Press With Japanese Launch of Ramen Robot

In the middle of Japan’s busiest train station, Yo-Kai Express debuted its third ramen robot in Japan in three weeks. The new Tokyo Station robot joins other Yo-Kai Express machines installed at Haneda Airport and the Shibaura Parking Area.

If you think the unveiling of a new food robot might slip under the radar in this ramen-obsessed country, you’d be wrong. At a press conference held yesterday by Yo-Kai to unveil their latest robot and discuss their entry into Japan, over 70 members of the Japanese media showed up. The result was at least a dozen articles and news reports across broadcast and print.

The interest in Yo-Kai is understandable. After all, Japan is well-recognized as a mecca for vending machines, and here’s a new robot that makes the country’s favorite food in 90 seconds. In a few years, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Yo-Kai machines sprinkled around Tokyo and other Japanese cities to serve up hot bowls to those too busy to sit down in a local slurp shop.

While some ramen shop operators might be upset by the entry of a ramen-making robot, others see it as an exciting new opportunity, including the founder of the most popular ramen joint in Japan, Ippudo.

“A vending machine cooks hot ramen on the spot,” said Shigemi Kawahara, President, and Founder of Ippudo. “It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

Of course, Kawahara has reason to be excited. Ippudo’s Tonkotsu Ramen will soon be added to Yo-Kai’s menu.

Photo credit: Hitoshi Hokamura

Ten Chili’s Restaurants Are Now Using a Server Robot Named Rita

Want your baby back ribs brought to your table via robot?

You may be in luck as Rita the robot, a version of the Bear Robotics Servi server robot platform, has now been deployed in 10 Chili’s restaurants across the US.

The news, shared via a social media post on Linkedin, marks the latest in a string of deployments for the Bear Robotics robot over the past year. The northern California-based company has seen wins across the US in 2021, from Florida’s Sergio’s to the Country Biscuit in North Carolina to Sangam Chettinad Indian Cuisine Restaurant in Austin.

But with over 1600 locations, Chili’s is the biggest win yet for Bear Robotics, and one which looks like it’s growing quickly. Bear announced they deployed Rita to a fifth Chili’s just a week ago, and since then, new locations have been added almost daily.

The Chili’s server-bot deployment is also likely one that could signal a bigger turn towards robotics in fast-casual restaurants. Other chains are no doubt watching the rollout of Rita closely and could be planning to trial their own front-of-house bots as many continue to struggle with hiring.

Bear Robotics, founded by ex-Googler and restauranteur John Ha, has come a long way since Ha started trialing his first robot, Penny, in his own restaurant, the Kang Nam Tofu House in Milpitas, CA. A couple of years later, Bear debuted its second-generation robot Servi, and the company’s been serving up new deployments ever since.

“[Servers] are tired, they get a low salary, usually no health insurance, but they’re working really hard,” Ha told The Spoon in 2018.

In the same interview, Ha also told The Spoon he wanted to create the “Google of the restaurant field.”. With Bear’s relationship with one of the country’s biggest restaurant chains, he may just be inching closer to that vision.

Watch Flippy Make Fries at CaliBurger’s Newest Location in Washington State

Today CaliBurger announced they’d opened the first restaurant since the onset of the pandemic. The latest addition to the burger chain is in Shoreline, Washington, and to mark the importance of the occasion, the company brought a friend: Flippy the fry robot.

CaliBurger’s use of Flippy at the north Seattle location is the first deployment of Miso Robotics’ fast food robot in the Seattle market. According to the release, Flippy will start at the fry station, but the restaurant expects its new employee to be somewhat versatile:

While the Shoreline store will use Flippy for french-fry cooking initially, Flippy can also cook chicken breasts and tenders, onion rings, sweet potato waffle fries in addition to fries. The system’s image recognition technology allows for real-time quality control to prevent any food quality errors during the cooking process and before any food items reach customers.

The new CaliBurger location is also the first time the chain has deployed PopID’s pay-by-face technology. PopID, which launched its pay-by-face network in southern California last year, allows customers to create an account that ties a debit card to their biometric ID (i.e., their face). The customer can also pull up information such as favorites and loyalty points once ID’d at the point of sale.

As for Flippy, CaliBurger CEO Jeffrey Kalt had the now-standard company line we hear when a new food robot is installed in a new location: the deployment of Flippy will allow the humans to focus on customer-facing jobs and, as a result, will improve the overall guest experience.

“The deployment of Flippy enables CaliBurger to retrain our staff to spend more time tending to customer needs to better improve the guest experience, while supervising the robotic system that’s handling the cooking,” said Kalt. “This results in happier workers, more satisfied customers, and a more profitable business.”

You can watch the video of Flippy in action below:

Watch Flippy the robot make fries at Caliburger in Shoreline, Washington

Jamba and Blendid Open Second Robot Smoothie Kiosk, Eyeing More Locations

You know what they say: one robot smoothie kiosk is an experiment, two make a trend.

Ok, so while no one really says that, it is true in this case as Jamba, the retailer of health beverages and smoothie drinks, has announced the opening of its second co-branded robotic smoothie kiosk in partnership with Blendid.

The new Jamba-bot will be in Stonewood Center in Downey, CA, a shopping mall located in the broader Los Angeles metro area. The first co-branded kiosk by Jamba/Blendid, which opened in late 2020, is located in a Walmart on the outskirts of Sacramento. By opening its second location in a shopping mall, it looks like the health drink operator of nearly a thousand locations is trying out new types of venues in which it can put unattended retail bots to serve up healthy beverages. As hinted at in the release, it won’t be long before the company drops a smoothie bot in a gym or college campus:

Building on the successful 2020 opening of the first Jamba by Blendid in Dixon, CA, this is the next step in the effort to open Jamba by Blendid kiosks in additional types of venues – from big box retailers and shopping malls to gyms, hospitals, and college campuses.

Jamba operates using a franchise model, one which it plans to continue even as it enters the robotic vending era.

“After a successful launch of our first Jamba by Blendid kiosk, we’re excited to open a second test kiosk at the Stonewood Center, bringing freshly blended smoothies to mall shoppers,” said Geoff Henry, president of Jamba in the news release. “Jamba by Blendid provides an opportunity for our local franchisees to make smoothies more accessible to Jamba fans, while leveraging the latest in technology to deliver contactless food.”

With the company sticking to its primary franchise business model to fund expansion of the Jamba-bot, the possibility of a smoothie robot becomes an exciting new option for franchise entrepreneurs. Opening up potential new high-traffic venues like gyms, campuses, or even airports gives existing franchisees a new way to expand in the same city without cannibalizing their existing storefronts. It also gives them an accelerated pathway to open a location that doesn’t put them through the same hiring and construction headaches that often accompany a traditional franchise location.

Jamba is owned by franchise store conglomerate Focus Brands, which also owns Schlotzsky’s, Carvel, Cinnabon, and Aunt Annie’s among others. While some of the food types in their portfolio might not lend themselves to automation, it is intriguing to think about whether this push into food robotics by one of the largest franchise operators in one of its businesses could signify a broader strategy. It’s not too hard to imagine the tantalizing smell of a Cinnabon cinnamon roll wafting from an automated kiosk (a Cinnabot?) filling the terminal of an airport or college campus. I have to imagine Focus Brands – and its franchisees – are thinking the same thing.

Karakuri Semblr Food Robot To Feed Up to Four Thousand Employees at Ocado HQ

Karakuri announced today that its Semblr food-service robot is being deployed at the headquarters of British online grocery Ocado. Karakuri is partnering with Ocado (who holds a minority investment in Karakuri) and Atalian Servest, a facilities management services company to feed up to four thousand employees at Ocado headquarters in the company’s canteen.

“We are committed to making their vision a reality and that is why our investment in Karakuri goes beyond financial support and sees us opening up our canteen as a living lab for their testing. Plus we get to give our staff an experience of what the future holds for food service,” said Stewart Macguire, ​​Head-Corporate Development at Ocado Group, in the release. 

The Semblr 1 (formerly known as the DK-One) is a 2m x 2m kiosk that assembles various cold and hot ingredients into prepared meals. Like many new generation fast-prep food assembly robots, the Semblr doesn’t cook the food, but instead holds it at a proper temperature in up to 14 enclosed serving chambers and assembles a meal based on a customer’s personalized order. For the Ocado deployment, the Semblr will make Asian fusion bowls and will have 17 different ingredients from which employees can choose. The Semblr can make up to 110 meals per hour, and can make up to 4 meals concurrently

The deployment of a fast-assembly machine like the Semblr (formerly known as the DK-One) makes lots of sense for a corporate cafeteria. Because ingredients are prepped in advance, a corporate catering management company like Angel Hill can restock the machine throughout the day. In addition, the rapid pace of the robot (about 30 seconds per meal) means it can feed a lot of employees in a short amount of time.

“Putting our robot in action in a busy dining room for the first time marks a huge milestone for everybody at Karakuri,” said Karakuri CEO Barney Wragg. “We’ve come a long way in two years and our mission remains the same –   to develop robots that support the hospitality and catering industry and improve the experience for both hospitality operators and customers.

You can see a video of the DK-One in action below.

Karakuri DK-One Demo

After Almost 40 Years, Adam Lloyd Cohen is Bringing His Vision for Food Robots to Life

Back in college, Adam Lloyd Cohen had a vision.

It was 1985, and he was in Paris working on a documentary about ancient robots as a project during his senior year in college. After steeping himself in the history of automation during the day and dining on French cuisine at night, he began to think about how we might use robots to make food.

“The combination of good food and making a film on robotics stimulated the idea that, ‘hey wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow democratize access to very high-quality food?'” Cohen told me in a recent interview. “And there seemed to be no way to do that except with automation.”

But it was still the eighties, and robotics were a far cry from the AI-powered machines of today, so when Cohen graduated, he decided to set aside his vision of the future and get a job.

Still, as he navigated what would become a successful career in the 3D printing industry that included founding and selling a company, Cohen never forgot his idea about food automation and, by 2018, he decided it was time to give it a try.

“I started to hear about people working in this area, and I realized, well, the time has come.”

And so he got to work, eventually building a beta prototype of a food-making robot that he and his new company Now Cuisine trialed in late 2020. That trial helped him secure a deal with a popular burrito chain in Texas called Freebirds World Burrito, announced today, to run a three-month pilot with six new automated robotic kiosks called Takeout Stations. The robots will be deployed in different office buildings and multifamily housing units throughout Dallas.

The idea behind putting automated fresh-food-making kiosks in different locations goes back to Cohen’s original vision of making good food accessible through automation. It’s a vision his company now calls (and has trademarked) ‘Distributed Dining’.

From the announcement:

Through its vision of Distributed Dining, Now Cuisine seeks to democratize access to delicious, healthful, affordable food, making it ubiquitous and always nearby: wherever people live, work, and play. Through a connected network of Takeout Stations, Now Cuisine is working to improve nutrition, shrink food deserts, save precious time, and reduce waste, traffic, and emissions.

The new generation robotic kiosks will operate autonomously and assemble up to three dozen bowls per day, each taking about two minutes to assemble. They’ll also make a lot more than burrito bowls.

“There are all sorts of things we could be doing with the next generation,” said Cohen. “Certainly burrito bowls are of great interest, but grain bowls are fantastic. There’s potential for rice bowls, noodle bowls, and pokey bowls.”

But before the pilot program – and the rest of this vision for the future – can take place, Now Cuisine has to raise money to build the robots. To do that, Cohen is looking at venture capital, but he’s also considering crowdfunding.

“I’m intrigued by crowdfunding,” said Cohen. “Especially given the success some other folks have had in this space. But I’m going to start with more conventional approaches.”

Cohen is confident he can raise funds since he’s done it before. “For my last company, I raised about $17 million.”

Once funded, Cohen believes that it will take about ten months until the first Takeout Stations are deployed. The plan is to build the first six or so robots by hand so the engineering team can learn and stabilize the design.

From there, “the idea is to transition it to a contract manufacturer to make a lot of them,” said Cohen.

With Cohen’s long-term plan falling into place, he’s closer than ever to achieving the vision he first had while making a documentary in Paris about the future of robots.

Speaking of the documentary, whatever happened to it?

“I didn’t have enough money to finish it,” said Cohen.

Now a successful entrepreneur and no longer an aspiring documentarian, Cohen hopes for a different outcome as he works to build the future of democratized, automated food production he first envisioned had almost four decades ago in Paris.

Los Angeles International Airport Rolls Out NomNom, a Semi-Autonomous Food Delivery Robot

Los Angeles International is not my favorite airport. It’s crowded, has nine (nine!) terminals that take forever to navigate, and traffic blows once you get in your rental car and head to the Sunset Strip.

But all will be forgotten on my next trip through Los Angeles if NomNom, the airport’s new delivery robot, brings me food.

That’s right. LAX announced today it’s launching a pilot program for a 40-pound cargo bot by the name of NomNom. NomNom is a two-wheeled semi-autonomous top-loading delivery bot that moves at 6 miles per hour and uses a human guide to navigate the airport.

NomNom is being rolled out in partnership with AtYourGate, a food delivery service provider for airports that powers the food delivery service at LAX. When a consumer orders food through the airport’s food delivery portal LAX Order Now, guests at eligible terminals will be given an option to have a delivery or an additional fee. In addition, travelers will be given an estimated delivery time to ensure their food gets there before they have to rush off to catch a flight.

The robot, which uses cameras and sensors to follow its handler around the airport, is a gita, the delivery bot designed and built by Piaggio Fast Forward (PFF), a division of Piaggio Group, the maker of the Vespa scooter (could we see a Vespa delivery bot someday?). This is the second US airport to roll out a gita (Philly was first).

Airports have proven to be a favorite testing ground for food robots of all kinds. First, it was coffee bots like Cafe-X and Briggo, then came ramen, and now it looks like delivery bots are rolling in.

You can check out NomNom in the video below.

NomNom the delivery robot at LAX

Schnuck Markets to Deploy Simbe Shelf Scanning Robot to All of its Locations

Schnuck Markets announced today that it will be deploying Simbe Robotics‘ Tally shelf-scanning robot to all of its 111 locations across the U.S. This builds on the existing agreement between the two companies, which currently has Tally bots in 70 percent of Schnucks stores.

Simbe’s Tally robot is an autonomous shelf-scanning robot used to monitor a stores inventory. The robot traverses up and down aisles, using computer vision and AI to scan shelves and detect when a product is running low or has been misplaced. Tally can also monitor other issues such as pricing to ensure that sales and promotions are being executed properly.

Validating in-store inventory is more important than ever as people continue to shop for groceries online. Stores need to be more aware of what is in stock to accommodate both in-store shoppers, and customers selecting items online (where they can’t physically see store shelves or ask staff if there is more in the backroom). By automating inventory checks, Simbe says that retailers can get more accurate data and act faster to prevent out-of-stocks. In the press announcement today, Simbe said that Tally enables a 20 – 30 percent reduction in out-of-stock items.

Worth noting is that Schnuck Markets is expanding its use of shelf-scanning robots almost a year after Walmart gave up on them. Last November Walmart made headlines when it announced it was no longer using Bossa Nova’s robots to manage inventory. It was reported at the time that Walmart had found what it considered easier ways of managing inventory than using the robots.

Other retailers, however have put in-store robots to use. Giant Eagle was trialing Simbe’s Tally as well, and Woodman’s Markets was testing Badger Technologies’ robot at its stores across the Midwest.

Forthcoming Tesla Humanoid Robot Will Get Your Groceries, But Should it?

Tesla is working on a bipedal humanoid robot that will get your groceries and take over other “dangerous, repetitive, boring tasks.” Company CEO Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s robotic ambitions yesterday during the company’s AI Day.

The human-shaped robot will be 5 feet 8 inches tall, weigh 125 pounds and capable of deadlifting 150 pounds. Musk also reassured the crowd that “you can run away from it” and “most likely overpower it,” which are a couple of descriptors that are meant to be comforting but are actually just somewhat unsettling.

Tesla’s decision to go with a human-shaped robot bring up a question I asked last year — “Should food robots be humanoid?” If we are looking towards automation to make our lives easier and create more convenience, wouldn’t more distributed, industrial type machines be better? For example, is it faster to have an android wash dishes individually by robotic hand, or to have a dishwasher appliance clean them all at once? (Obviously the best solution is to have the robot load the dishwasher, but you get my point.)

Think about the grocery example Musk specifically called during his presentation. Fetching your groceries quite honestly seems like it would take longer for a bipedal robot that only moves at 5 miles per hour. Why not just autopilot a Tesla car to the grocery store to curbside pickup the food you ordered online. Sure, Tesla Bots could be useful in loading your trunk, but the car would drive itself back home. To be fair, Musk is a smart guy, so perhaps he meant the humanoid would act more like a house servant and bring your groceries from the car into your house.

But creating a humanoid robotic labor force is certainly more on-brand for the sci-fi inspired Tesla, which is also developing the Cybertruck, which looks like it was pulled from the movie MegaForce. There is theatricality to a humanoid robot, which is the reason some robot startups choose to go with the slower articulating arms. The robotic arms are part of the attraction. Watching an autonomous arm swivel about to make us drinks and meals scratches some basic itch we have to live in the future.

As part of his robot presentation, Musk envisioned a world where robots take over most of the everyday manual jobs that humans currently do. He also said that in doing so, we basically build an infinite labor force. He quickly added that if such a vision were to come to pass, there would need to be a universal basic income for displaced workers. The societal implications of an increasingly automated workforce are complex and need to be addressed sooner than later, but at least Musk is thinking of them now.

Of course, the bigger issue right now is if and when Tesla bots will actually make it to market. Sure, robots can do parkour now, but developing a smart useful robot assistant will take massive amounts of work. But, if anyone can will such vision into existence, it’s probably Musk.

Singapore: Crown Digital Installing Robot Baristas at 30 MRT Train Stations

Singapore-based Crown Digital announced yesterday that it will be installing its robotic baristas at 30 Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations in that country by the end of 2022.

Dubbed “Ella,” Crown Digital’s robo-coffee kiosk is 5 sq. meters, serves a variety of coffee and tea drinks, and can make up to 200 coffees per hour. While Ella uses an articulating arm to make and serve drinks, one of its standout features is its transparent screen that can display information about drinks, orders and even full-motion videos and graphics.

For these MRT installations, Crown Digital has collaborated with Stellar Lifestyle, which has “expertise in property and retail management, media and digital advertising solutions,” according to the Crown Digital announcement blog post. Crown Digital also wrote that Stella Lifestyle has invested an undisclosed sum in Crown Digital’s pre-Series A round of funding.

This is the second rail network that Crown Digital has partnered with, following a pilot deal with Japan’s JR East‘s train stations signed at the end of last year. With their high-traffic audiences looking for refreshment on-the-go, transit hubs like MRT stations and airports are popular target markets for robotic coffee kiosk companies that are just now coming market such as Crown Digital, Smyze, and Cafe X.

Another benefit to robotic coffee baristas in these pandemic times is that they are contactless. Robots don’t get sick, and don’t act as a vector of viral transmission the way that humans do.

While there are a number of robot baristas coming to market, we have yet to see big coffee chains jump into automation. The exception is Costa Coffee, which bought Briggo last year and re-branded those Coffee Hauses into Costa Coffee BaristaBots. Though I suspect that as more deals like Crown Digital’s start popping up, we’ll soon see other big coffee brands like Starbucks and Dunkin add their own robots as well.