Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Behind the Bot

Announcing the ArticulATE 2021 Agenda: FedEx, Manna, Gatik and More

Our second ArticulATE food robotics and automation summit is just a little more than a week away, and at the risk of sounding immodest, we have put together a stellar show. The speakers are all lined up and the agenda has been set. And we’re excited to share both with you today!

The show is May 18 and being held virtually on the Hopin platform (so you can attend from the comfort of your own home in your pajamas, if you like). Check out the lineup and get your ticket today.

ARTICULATE 2021 AGENDA

Crops and Robots: How Automation is Changing Agriculture
Farm work is hard work. Learn how autonomous robots can take over dangerous jobs and AI can help bring more efficiency to our food supply chain.
Speaking:
Louisa Burwood-Taylor, Head of Media and Research, Editor, AgFunder
Suma Reddy, CEO, Future Acres

A Conversation with FedEx
There is perhaps no name more synonomous with reliable delivery than FedEx. We’ll hear how the storied brand is using robotics to automate the last mile.
Speaking:
Aaron Prather, Senior Technical Advisor, FedEx

A Demonstration of Moley’s Kitchen Robot
The house of the future is here, at least in the kitchen, thanks to this fully autonomous cooking robot
Speaking:
Mark Oleynik, Founder, Moley Robotics

Look! Up in the Sky! Drone Delivery is Getting Real
Drone delivery promises to be the fastest way to get your hot meal delivered. What have we learned from initial trials, and what can we expect when drones become mainstream?
Speaking:
Bobby Healy, Founder and CEO, Manna
Ryan Walsh, Co-Founder and CEO at Valqari

Order Up! The Future of Restaurant Robots
From commercial kitchens to standalone canteens, commercial kitchen robots can whip up hundreds of different meals. This will change not only restaurants but will enable any retailer to become their own restaurant.
Speaking:
Barney Wragg, Founder and CEO, Karakuri
Dibyananda Brahma, Vice President Growth at Mukunda Foods

No Register? No Problem. A Deep Dive on Cashierless Checkout
Why stand in line when you can walk into a store, grab what you want and leave? We take a look at the tech powering the new wave of cashierless checkout.
Speaking:
Stacey Higginbotham, Stacey on IoT
Trinh Le-Fiedler, Founder and CEO, Nomitri
Motilal Agrawal, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, Zippin

A Live Demonstration of Alberts’ New Soup Robot
Yes, soup for you! Anytime you want it, thanks to Alberts new automated soup vending machine.
Speaking:
Glenn Mathijssen, Co-Founder and CEO, Alberts

Forget Last Mile, Let’s Get to Last Meter Delivery
There are plenty of robots that can get food to your front curb, but how about finding you inside an airport or mall? We get granular with the next phase of autonomous delivery.
Speaking:
Ritukar Vijay, Founder and CEO at Ottonomy.IO
Sven Mesecke, CEO, Sojourn

How Should Robots Roam City Streets? A Discussion with West Hollywood’s Mayor
There is a push and pull between innovation and implementation. West Hollywood has been a leader in autonomous delivery, and its Mayor will share what local governments consider as these robots roll out.
Speaking:
Lindsey Horvath, Mayor, West Hollywood

What Do VCs Like (and Dislike) in Food Robotics?
What stage of investment are food automation startups in right now? Where is the money headed? Have any investment bets paid off? Hear from the people who are cutting the checks.
Speaking:
Brita Rosenheim, Partner, Culterra Capital
Maggie Sprenger, Managing Director at Green Cow Venture Capital
Brian Frank, General Partner at FTW Ventures

Ruggedizing Robots for Imperfect Conditions
Right now, self-driving vehicle startups test their tech in sunny places like Arizona and Texas. But eventually autonomous vehicles will encounter stormy weather, literally. Here’s how they’ll handle it.
Speaking:
Ram Vasudevan, Co-Founder, Refraction AI
Richard Steiner, Head of Policy and Communications, Gatik

xRobotics Pizza Robot in action
Watch the xPizza One robot assemble the toppings on a pizza in real time.
Speaking:
Alena Tikovah, CMO xRobotics

The Ins and Outs of Successful Crowdfunding
Equity crowdfunding is a new path for startups to raise capital, but there’s no guarantee of success. Hear firsthand what it takes to run a successful equity crowdfunding campaign from startups who’ve done it.
Speaking:
Covahne Michaels, VP of Marketing, Blendid
Massimo Noja De Marco, CEO, Piestro

Restaurants in a Box. The New Smart Vending Machines
Armed with advanced robotics and smarts, vending machines are reshaping where, when and how we get fresh food and drink.
Speaking:
Andy Lin, Founder and CEO, Yo-Kai Express
Ben Winston, Co-Founder and CEO, Rotender
Mark Chaney, President and CEO, Winecab

Pick, Pack, Deliver. Grocery Ramps Up Robots
The pandemic caused grocery e-commerce to skyrocket. Check out the new automated systems that will get you your grocery orders faster than ever before.
Speaking:
Andrew Benzinger, Business Development Manager, AutoStore
Dmitry Shevelenko, Co-Founder and President, Tortoise
Jeff Wells, Senior Editor, Industry Dive

To Co-Brand or Not to Co-Brand Your Robot
Are you a food company, or a technology company? The answer will determine your best go-to market strategy.
Speaking:
Mara Behrens, Head of Marketing and Design, Chowbotics (now DoorDash)

What to Know When Rolling Out Self-Driving Vehicles
Autonomous pods, cars and trucks are coming to our public streets. But it will take a combination of technology and policy before they can become widespread.
Speaking:
Nancy Lee, Community Manager, PIX
Manuela Papadopol, CEO, Designated Driver

In addition to the great cast of speakers, we also want to thank all of the sponsors who are helping make ArticulATE 2021 possible: Wavemaker Labs, Sojourn, Picnic, RoboEatz, Gastronomous, YPC Technologies, Karakuri and Le Bread Xpress.

All that’s missing from our awesome day is you. So get your ticket today and be a part of the future of food automation!

More Headlines

Trigo Partners with German Grocer REWE for Cashierless Checkout Stores – The new store will be located in downtown Cologne, Germany.

Hwy Haul Raises $10M Series A to Modernize Produce Trucking – The startup’s cloud-based startup helps connect shippers with carriers without all the paperwork.

Red to Green Ep 3: Breaking Through Resistance to Cultured Meat – One the ways of getting people to accept lab-grown meat is by making the pitch personal.

Impossible Foods Granted Child Nutrition Label, Opening Up Public School Market – The volunteer authorized by the USDA will make it easier for schools to buy Impossible products.

Miso Robotics Launches CookRight to Automate Restaurant Cooking (Without the Robot)

Miso Robotics today announced CookRight, a new software product for restaurants that delivers the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cooking of its Flippy robot — without the robotic hardware.

The new CookRight platform uses cameras mounted above a grill along with a tablet computer. The cameras look down at the food being prepared and use a combination of computer vision, thermal detection and AI to identify a cut of meat, its thickness and cooking progress. It’s the same software system used by Flippy, only instead of a providing instructions to a robotic arm, its guides a human cook. A display on the accompanying tablet shows what CookRight is “seeing” and gives instructions for each item on the grill. Miso says that CookRight currently works with burgers, chicken, fish, steak, sausage, hot dogs, and more.

Miso Robotics Chairman and President, Buck Jordan, told me by phone last week that using CookRight can help reduce foodborne illnesses by ensuring food is cooked properly, and with the guided cooking, turn just about any cook into an expert griller with no extensive culinary training.

Additionally, CookRight integrates with a restaurant’s POS and ordering systems to automate coordination of meal prep. So if an order comes in for delivery through an app like GrubHub, CookRight will know when the driver is on their way and be able to time the grilling accordingly.

With CookRight, Miso is aiming to expand its market base with a lower cost automated cooking solution than Flippy. Though the price of Flippy has steadily come down from $60,000 upfront to $2,000 a month, that’s still a lot of money for hardware that needs to be installed in existing kitchen spaces, maintained and have workers be trained on. Additionally, smaller mom n’ pop restaurants may not have the space necessary for a Flippy installation. The biggest customer for Flippy at this point has been White Castle, which will be operating the robot at 11 of its locations.

With its minimal hardware setup and a subscription cost of $100 a month, CookRight is a much more affordable option for smaller and medium-sized restaurants looking to automate some of their processes. This, in turn, will allow Miso to scale to more restaurants more quickly.

There are other players in the restaurant tech space like Dragontail Systems, which uses AI to coordinate and optimize order workflow in the kitchen. But with CookRight, Miso is taking that automated integration and optimization a step further into the actual cooking of the food.

If you want to see the future of automated cooking, then you should definitely check out Articulate, our food robotics and automation virtual summit happening on May 18. Buck Jordan will be speaking as will execs from restaurant robot companies like Karakuri, Blendid, Piestro and Mukunda Foods. Get your ticket today!

Beyond Burgers and Fries, Br5’s Robot Cooks Up Paella

Paella has an almost mythic quality about it. Making paella signifies some sort of special event. The dish has its own pan, for goodness sake. I addition to the technical aspects of making paella, there’s an emotional component to it. I mean , just read this bit from Fine Cooking’s paella recipe:

… paella perfection comes about when the person who is cooking it has an almost tangible affection for the dish itself, for the process of making it, and for the people who will be eating it.

If this is true, what happens when there is no person making paella. I don’t mean in a if-a-tree-falls-in-a-forest philosophical kind of way. I mean that literally a person isn’t making the dish — is a robot. The Guardian has a story up today about just that — a paella making robot from the startup be robot 5 (br5) and paella stove maker, Mimcook.

The robot automates everything a human cook would do. It adds the rice and stock, mixes, lays in the shrimp and even gets that nice crust good paella is supposed to have. All without, presumably, any tangible affection for what it is making because, well, it’s a robot.

The folks at br5 told The Guardian that its robot is merely an automated assistant. Like other food robots, br5’s machine is meant to take over some of the mundane work associated with restaurants and making food. In fact, the br5 robot is only making paella because it is hooked up to the paella stove. It can work a grill or a fryer just as easily.

We’ve covered plenty of robots that will make you all types of food such as pizza, burgers, tokoyaki and more in the development. But those are all examples of food that is meant to be cooked quickly in high-traffic areas. They can all pump out lots of food consistently around the clock. Br5’s paella bot helps illustrate how sophisticated cooking robots are getting. This arm is doing more than flipping burgers or dunking frozen fries, it’s coordinating a complex, multi-ingredient dish.

Cooking robots are only going to get even more sophisticated. Take Blue Hill Coffee’s robot, for instance. It uses computer vision to “watch” and learn from human baristas. The robot can replicate the same motions as a human and even make latte art. Whether its through computer vision or motion capture, it’s not too long from now that cooking robots will be able to download the movements of famous chefs. This means they will be able to execute more advanced techniques and make even more complex meals. This automated chef replication may be great for our eventual home cooking robots, but how will they play in restaurants?

I think it will ultimately boil down to context and quality. People at the airport probably won’t care if a robot whips up a pizza for them as they rush to make their plane. They just want sustenance. But someone paying top dollar at a fine dining establishment is shelling out that premium for a more individual experience — something that can’t just be replicated the exact same way 400 times in an hour.

Superseding all of this, of course, is whether or not the food is good. People won’t eat bad food, no matter who or what makes it. The robot may not put love into it — but if the food is good people will love eating it.

We’ll be discussing these types of weighty questions around automated artistry and convenience at our upcoming ArticulATE food robotics virtual summit on May 18th. Companies like Karakuri, Yo-Kai Express, Piestro, Mukunda Foods and more will explain their approach to food robotics and what that means for the future of restaurants. Get your ticket today to be a part of the discussion!

Bear Robotics Now Serving Houston Rockets Fans at Toyota Center

NBA fans heading to Toyota Center to see the Houston Rockets now have the option of getting drinks and snacks served by a robot. Bear Robotics announced on Linkedin yesterday that it has partnered with Levy Restaurants and the Houston Rockets to use its Servi bot at games.

The Houston Rockets posted a promotional video to its official YouTube channel, showing the Servi robot in action along with a caption saying this was the “first-ever robot-assisted food and beverage service at a stadium or arena.”

Rockets Launch First-Ever Robot-Assisted Arena Food And Beverage Service

No further details were posted either by Bear Robotics or the Houston Rockets, so we don’t know where in the stadium the robot is serving or how a person can get the robot service. UPDATE: a Levy Restaurants rep emailed us the following:

During the Rockets remaining games of the 2020-21 season, hospitality team members at Toyota Center will be assisted by an autonomous food service robot. This pilot program will start in Toyota Center’s premium all-inclusive Suite Club to allow team members to focus on providing industry-leading service to fans while the robot performs more routine and physically demanding tasks.

The robot will circulate dining spaces inside the premium space while carrying pre-packaged food and beverage items for guests to pick from. This pilot program will allow Toyota Center staff to learn more about the robot and how it could be potentially utilized in more areas next season.

While this may be the first robot server at a stadium, it is not the first time stadiums — or Levy Restaurants — have employed food-related robots. Both Dodger Stadium and Diamondback’s Chase Field used Miso Robotics’ Flippy robot to fry up chicken tenders and tater tots. And Centerplate Pizza at Safeco Park used Picnic’s pizza assembling robot.

Prior to the pandemic, stadiums were actually a great place to employ automation. Stadiums are packed with lots of people who want good (not necessarily artisanal) food quickly. Robots are able to crank out a steady stream of food made consistently, without taking a break. And as vaccines roll out and stadiums cautiously re-open, robots have another benefit — contactless delivery. Removing a human server eliminates another point of human-to-human transmission, which some wary fans might find more comforting when venturing back out into the world.

If you’re a Rockets fan going to the game, see if you can spot the robot and take a picture for us! If you’re just a fan of food robotics, then you should definitely attend our ArticulATE food robotics and automation virtual summit on May 18. It’s a full day devoted to discussing the most cutting-edge innovation in the robotics space. Get your ticket today!

xRobotics’ Pizza Assembling Robot Concludes Test with Dodo Pizza

Pizza, of all things, is often at the center of advancements in food technology. You’ll find pizza at the forefront of innovation in restaurant software, autonomous delivery, NFTs, and of course, robotics. There are already a number of automated pizza making machines on the market, and jumping into that fray is xRobotics, which announced this week that it recently finished a test of its prototype at Dodo Pizza in Oxford, Mississippi.

The xPizza One robot is a self-contained, pizza assembling kiosk, which means it doesn’t cook the pizzas or stretch the dough, but instead just automates the topping process. Empty crusts are placed on squat, puck-like robots that scoot under the assembly system. As the robot moves under the machine, canisters of toppings such as sauce, cheese, pepperoni and are dispensed on top of the pizza based on the instructions given. The crust is spun as toppings drop to ensure even distribution. Once the pizza is assembled as ordered, the puck reappears where a person places the pie in an oven to be heated.

xRobotics (xPizza One) - a pizza-making robot

According to press materials sent to The Spoon, the xPizza One used in the Oxford pilot was set up to hold 11 types of toppings, which covered 90 percent of Dodo’s menu. The robot’s average productivity hit 100 pizzas per hour and over the course of the month, successfully made 472 pizzas, saving 32 hours of manual work.

Automated pizza assembly is becoming its own bustling sub-sector in the pizza world. Other players in the space include Picnic, which uses a more modular, conveyor belt-style assembly system, and Middleby, which makes the PizzaBot 5000 pizza assembler.

The pitch with all of these robot pizza players is the same: cost savings. These robots are literal machines that crank out hundreds of pizzas without taking a break. By having a robot take over the topping process, human labor can be moved to other higher-value tasks such as customer service and order expediting. In addition to potential labor savings, robots can also keep ingredient costs down because they distribute a precise, consistent amount of toppings. It’s never too much and there is no loss due to sloppiness or human error.

With this initial test completed, xRobotics is looking ahead. The company says it has 800 pre-orders from different pizza chains and operators and is prepping facilities to start mass production of the xPizza One in late 2021 or early 2022.

Video: Connected Robotics’ Restaurant Bots Prep, Cook and Clean

The last time we checked in with Japanese company Connected Robotics, it was primarily known for its OctoChef Tokoyaki robot, which creates fried octopus balls. Connected Robotics had also raised roughly $7.8 million to expand its robo-lineup, which it showed off at the Hotel Restaurant Show at the end of March.

We weren’t able to be at that convention, but came across video of Connected Robotics restaraunt bot lineup in action via a post on Linkedin over the weekend.

【2021ver.】HCJ出展概要ダイジェスト　＃ロボット​＃調理​＃AI

In the video you can see a variety of Connected Robotics’ robots performing different kitchen-related tasks: cooking noodles, grabbing food and placing it in a fryer, sliding cooked food into a display, washing dirty dishes and stacking them once they are cleaned. There’s even computer vision for what looks like inventory management and automated checkout.

Each system makes heavy use of articulating arms, and there appears to be the need for at least one set of human hands in the noodle-plating process. But overall, the robots whirr and swivel and do almost everything on their own.

Japan in particular is a burgeoning center for food-related robotics as the company has a greying population and is looking to automate parts of its labor force. Consumer electronics giant Sony is working on robot chefs and recently invested in Analytical Flavor Systems to help those robots combine flavors when cooking. Panasonic has also developed cooking robots in partnership with the Haidilao hotpot restaurant chain.

If you are interested in learning about — and seeing! — more food robots in action, be sure to attend our ArticulATE food robotics and automation virtual summit on May 18. We’ll have speakers from Karakuri, Mukunda Foods, Yo-Kai Express, Mezli and more! Get your ticket today!

Bancroft Automated Restaurant Services Plots Pizza Robot for Parking Lots

Parking lots are typically associated with, well parking your car, or maybe doing donuts if you’re feeling rebellious. But parking lots may soon be home to an entirely new phenomenon — pizza robots — if Bancroft Automated Restaurant Services (BARS) has its way.

BARS has developed an all-in-one pizza robot that is larger than a vending machine or kiosk, and meant to be installed in big open areas like parks, sporting events or big parking lots.

The BARS Automated Pizza Kitchen stores 96 pre-topped, par-baked pizzas, each held in a takeout tray in a humidity controlled fridge. When an order is placed either by phone or via on-board touchscreen, the automated system plucks the pizza out of the fridge, runs it under a heater to finish cooking the pizza, and secures a takeout lid on top. From there it is stored in a heated cabinet. When the user enters their pickup code, the machine grabs their pizza from the heater and dispenses it to the user. The whole process takes under three minutes. You can see a video of it in action here.

Speed Bancroft, Founder and CEO of BARS, told me via video chat last week that his pizza kitchen can be integrated with third-party delivery services (so drivers can pick up orders), and can be configured either for walk-up or drive-through customers.

The robot makes 35 twelve-inch pizzas in an hour and requires a human to re-stock and clean the machine once a day. BARS is selling its Automated Pizza Kitchen for $80,000 with a $1,000/month subscription to run it. Though the BARS pizza system is meant to be licensed out to other restaurants, the first implementations will be through BARS’ own Speedy Fresh Pizza brand, with the first installation going in in the Tigerland area of Baton Rouge, Lousiana in about six months.

Pizza is a popular option for automation companies, as a number of players are coming to market in a variety of form factors. There are vending machines like Basil Street (which makes an “Automated Pizza Kitchen” of their own) and Piestro. There are standalone kiosks like PAZZI‘s. And on the larger end is Hyper, which is making fully automated pizza restaurants in a shipping container.

The good news for all these companies is that pizza doesn’t have to be a zero sum game. Pizza is a popular food and there are plenty of places big and small to build these micro-pizzerias. And if you’re going to pick up one from a BARS robot, at least you know there will be plenty of parking.

Kroger Officially Launches its First Robotic Customer Fulfillment Center

Grocery giant Kroger officially opened the first of its automated Customer Fulfillment Centers today in Monroe, Ohio, just north of Cincinnatti. Kroger had soft-opened the facility at the beginning of March, but today marks it’s official debut.

The Monroe CFC is 375,000 square feet and is powered by Ocado‘s automation technology. The CFC features 1,000 robots scurrying around carrying food items on giant 3D grids, managed by a proprietary air-traffic control system. When an order comes in, the robots assemble the items, which are bagged and placed in a temperature-controlled van and sent out for delivery. The CFC currently services a 90-mile radius from the hub location, though that radius will increase as spokes are set up that can extend that reach.

Kroger first announced its automated CFC initiative back in 2018, well before the pandemic pushed record numbers of people into grocery e-commerce and delivery. The opening of Kroger’s first CFC couldn’t have come at a better time for the company. In a press announcement released today, Kroger said that 2020 saw its e-commerce business scale to more than $10 billion with a record digital sales increase of 116 percent.

Online grocery shopping is predicted to hit $250 billion by 2025, taking up 21.5 percent of total grocery sales. As such, the entire grocery sector has been adapting to this e-commerce shift. Stalwarts like Kroger, Alberstons and Walmart have all invested heavily in automation and order fulfillment. Amazon is building out its own chain of physical grocery stores. And there has been a massive funding spree since the start of the year on grocery related startups.

The Monroe CFC is just the first such facility Kroger is opening. The company says the next CFC to open will be in Groveland, Florida this spring. After that, the company will open CFCs in Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Frederick, Maryland; Phoenix, Arizona; Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin; Romulus, Michigan; and centers in the Pacific Northwest and West regions.

If you are interested in the future of grocery automation, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our virtual food robotics summit on May 18!

Kiwibot Launches V4.0 of its Delivery Robot, Partners with Knight Foundation, Chick-fil-A and Segway

Robot delivery startup Kiwibot is holding an online keynote this morning to announce the newest version of its semi-autonomous rover bot, as well as new partnerships with the Knight Foundation, Chick-fil-A and Segway.

We’ll be attending the virtual conference and will fill in more details aftewards, but here is what the company has shared with The Spoon ahead of time.

Kiwibot says that its robots have already completed more than 150,000 food deliveries. The company recently started making deliveries in Santa Monica, CA and through its relationship with Shopfiy, will be expanding across Los Angeles, San Jose, Miami, Pittsburg, and Detroit.

Version 4.0 of its robot has a whole new set of on-board cameras, lights and speakers. The Level-3 autonomous robots are equipped with sensors to detect people, traffic lights, and vehicles and are remotely supported by human teleoperators.

Kiwibot also appears to be broadening into indoor food delivery. The company said that food and drinks can be ordered through local businesses using Shopify web portals and deliveries can be made on city streets, college campuses, malls and airports. The robots will make deliveries up to a mile away, taking roughly 30 minutes and costing $1.99 per delivery.

Kiwibot has also entered into a manufacturing agreement with Segway, and, separately, will begin piloting a delivery program with Chick-fil-A. Specifics about each of these programs such as manufacturing scale or the size of the Chick-fil-A pilot were not provided ahead of time.

Again, this post will be updated with more details following Kiwibot’s press conference this morning.

Domino’s and Nuro Begin Autonomous Pizza Delivery in Texas

Domino’s today announced the launch of its autonomous pizza delivery service done in partnership with self-driving delivery company Nuro. Starting this week, customers of the Woodland Heights Domino’s location in Houston, Texas can opt to have their pizza delivered by Nuro’s R2 robot.

The R2 is a low-speed, pod-like vehicle that’s about half the size of a regular car and completely autonomous. (There isn’t even room for a human being to sit in the vehicle.) Nuro got Federal permission in February of 2020 to start driving the R2 on public roads. In April of 2020, the state of California also gave Nuro the thumbs up to drive on its public roads.

For the Domino’s partnership, customers that order from the participating location via Domino’s digital properties can opt to get their order delivered by R2. As the vehicle makes its way along the route, customers receive alerts via texts. Once the ‘bot arrives, customers use a unique PIN to open R2’s doors and grab their order. 

Autonomous delivery is currently only available on certain days and at certain times at the Woodland Heights location. Today’s press announcement did not mention if or when the pilot would expand to other Domino’s locations.

Domino’s and Nuro first started testing autonomous delivery in Houston back in 2019. The pandemic has since increased the need for more contactless forms of food delivery, making autonomous delivery vehicles an attractive option. Underscoring this, Nuro raised $500 million in November of last year. To date, the company has made deliveries for Kroger, CVS, and Walmart, in addition to Domino’s.

Domino’s, of course, is no stranger to bringing tech into the restaurant delivery process — something it was doing long before the existence of third-party delivery. The company said in today’s press release that the Houston program will help them better understand autonomous delivery’s impact on both operations at Domino’s and customer relationships. 

If you are interested in the future of self-driving delivery vehicles, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our virtual food automation and robotics summit happening on May 18!

AppHarvest Acquires Crop Harvesting Robot Startup Root AI for $60M

Controlled ag company AppHarvest announced today that it has acquired Root AI, a startup that makes AI-based robots for harvesting crops grown in indoor farms. According to the press announcement, AppHarvest is spending roughly $60 million to acquire Root AI, with $10 million in cash and the balance in AppHarvest common shares. Root AI had raised $9.5 million in funding.

Root AI makes Virgo, a universal harvester that can be configured to identify and harvest different crops such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and strawberries. Virgo’s cameras use computer vision along with an infrared laser to create a 3D color scan of an area to determine what work the robot needs to perform.

For a crop like tomatoes, the system figures out the orientation of the fruit and determines if they are ripe enough to pick. Once it “sees” which tomatoes need to be picked, Virgo selects the most efficient route to picking the fruit and then sends a robotic arm and gripper to pluck the fruit.

Root AI - Going Cross-Crop

The acquisition makes sense for AppHarvest, which runs a 2.76 million square foot indoor farm in Morehead, Kentucky that is expected to produce roughly 45 million pounds of tomatoes each year. That facility uses an array of sensors, LEDs and other automated systems to control the entire growing process. Adding robotics harvesters to its stack seems like a logical next step for AppHarvest — particularly as the company is in the process of building out its network of farms. AppHarvest has two more farms currently under construction in Kentucky.

The company is also flush with cash, having went public via SPAC in February, giving it $435 million in “unrestricted cash” to run and grow its operations.

After the acquisition, Root AI’s 19 employees are expected to join AppHarvest, with Co-Founder and CEO Josh Lessing taking on the role of AppHarvest CTO, and Co-Founder Ryan Knopf joining as VP of technology.

What Shape Will Food Robots Take?

This is the web version of our weekly Spoon newsletter. Subscribe today to get all the best food tech news delivered direct to your inbox!

This issue of our newsletter is a bit a of a two-for-one. We’re going to talk about the future of food robotics and invite you to join us at our upcoming virtual summit — where we’ll talk about the future of food robotics.

But first, the news.

There were three stories this week that, when taken together, help form the basis of the question, What will food robots look like as they become more mainstream? For now, we’re focusing on robots that serve food and drinks, and not on the totes and rails of grocery automation. Consider these three robots:

The Revolmatic is a machine, plain and simple. Hook it up to a keg and it will just crank out beer after beer after beer. The Revolmatic can be used bare bones as a bartenders assistant, or there’s a version with a contactless payment system, turning it into a vending machine. This type of brute force pouring could definitely come in handy selling drinks at high-traffic locations like a beer garden, stadium or festival.

Piestro is making a standalone machine that can make a pizza in three minutes and hold up to nine pizzas in smart lockers for pickup. While it is a big, enclosed kiosk and makes food quickly, the clear glass allows users to watch the pizza being made adding a theatrical aspect to the process. It’s easy to imagine Piestros in an aiport or corporate campus or mall, cranking out pizzas all day.

Then there is Blue Hill, which is positioning itself as using robots to create a premium coffee experience you find at your local cafe. This robot purposely moves at the same speed and, thanks to advanced computer vision, the same movements as human baristas. This means the robot froths milk, high pours and even makes latte art just like a person. It aims to put some art into automation.

I like these three examples because they present a sort of Goldilocks scenario when it comes to food robotics. Revolmatic is all about brutalist speed and throughput, Piestro adds some colorful design and human interaction to its robot while still pumping out pies, and for Blue Hill, speed is sacrificed to make a more specialized product.

That’s not to say there is a “just right” size and shape for food robots. There is plenty of opportunity for a range of offerings. But it is worthwhile to think about what we are going to want from robots. Do we want co-bot assistants that just take over grunt work? Yes. Do we want good food produced quickly? Sometimes. Do we want artistry with our automation? Maybe? All of these answers are dependent on context (where they are located, how much time we have, etc.), and this is all new — we don’t know how users will react to robots.

But it’s these types of questions that we will be tackling at our upcoming ArticulATE food robotics and automation virtual summit on May 18. We will be talking with industry leaders about robotic topics like last (and middle) mile delivery, restaurant robots, restaurants that are robots, smart vending machines, autonomous driving, as well as the evolving rules and regulations around automation.

We have a ton of great speakers lined up including executives from FedEx, Manna drone delivery, Chowbotics/DoorDash, Zippin, Tortoise, Swisslog, Refraction AI, Gatik, Karakuri, Future Acres, Yo-Kai Express, Mukunda Foods, Pix Moving and many more.

The one day event is being held on the Hopin platform, so you can learn and participate in the day from the comfort of your own home. Get your ticket today!

Sophie’s Bionutrients Unveils The World’s First Plant-Based Burger Patty Made From Microalgae

More Headlines

Sophie’s Bionutrients Debuts New Burger Made from Microalgae – The Singapore based startup can currently make between 20 – 100 patties per week.

AeroFarms Partners With Hortifrut to Grow Blueberries, Caneberries Via Vertical Farming – The decision to grow blueberries and caneberries makes this project standout.

Squarespace Acquires Hospitality Management Platform Tock for $400M – Restaurants using Sqarespace for their website can now integrate order and guest management services.

Tracking the Next Generation of To-Go Concepts for Restaurants – This intelligence briefing for Spoon Plus looks at some some off-premises success stories to come out of the pandemic-era restaurant industry.