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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Behind the Bot

Aitme is Building a Robot Restaurant Kiosk in Berlin

As vaccinations roll out around the world, one area to watch is office buildings and corporate campuses. Specifically, what physical workplaces will look like.

For instance, will big corporate campuses have cafeterias? Pre-pandemic, those made sense (for big companies), but do they now? Will there be enough workers to justify the high cost of running a cafeteria, and will workplace kitchens need to be re-designed with more contactless interactions in mind?

It’s against this backdrop of unknowns that we’re seeing companies like Aitme appear. Based in Berlin, Aitme (eye-t-me) is building a fully autonomous restaurant kiosk. The current version of the kiosk is 8 sq. meters (86 sq. ft.), but the next iteration has already shrunk that size down to 4 sq. meters (43 sq. ft.).

Inside, the Aitme holds 40 hot and cold ingredients and has a menu of 10 different meals, including pasta bolognese, tahini protein bowl and curries. There are articulating arms to grab ingredients and rotating induction bowls to heat and mix meals. Customers order via attached tablet, and Aitme can make 120 meals in an hour. The machine is self-cleaning and only needs to be re-stocked once a day.

Unlike Mezli, which is building out its own robo-restaurant brand, Aitme is strictly a B2B play, aiming to be the new automated cooks for office cafeterias. If one were to be installed in, for example, Google, the menu could be customized and branding on the kiosk would be Google’s with a small “powered by Aitme” visible somewhere.

Aitme shares some robo-qualities with other players in the standalone automated cooking space. Both RoboEatz and Karakuri have fully robotic restaurant kiosks, but both are looking to license their technology out to third-party restaurants.

Aitme may be more appealing to businesses than office food delivery services because Aitme can run around the clock. With delivery, workers are locked into eating a particular time. Aitme can cook up a hot meal anytime of day or night.

Additionally, Aitme is also contactless, so offices would have fewer human-to-human vectors of transmission as they figure out appropriate worker schedules and social distancing.

Aitme has raised €3 million (~$3.5M USD) and has one contract to install one of their kiosks at an undisclosed customer. The company aims to have five more units sold and produced this year.

Want to know more about the future of food robotics? Join us at ArticulATE, our virtual food automation summit, happening on May 18.

Mezli Building a New Robo-Restaurant in a Shipping Container

Shipping containers area already being used to make hip residential homes, and in the not too distant future, you’ll see them pop up as fully automated robo-restaurants, too.

Mezli is the latest startup working on such a robot-restaurant-in-a-box concept. The San Francisco Bay Area startup has already launched the restaurant part of the equation, operating a human-powered Mezli that makes Mediterranean-style bowl meals out of a ghost kitchen in San Mateo, California.

But at the same time, Mezli is also busy building its robotic restaurant. When completed, the container restaurant will be fully autonomous, cooking, plating and packaging the food. The first version of the robotic Mezli will hold 15 ingredients and will be able to place items inside a container rather than just mixing them altogether or layering them on top of one another.

Mezli Co-Founder and CEO Alex Kolchinski told me by video chat last week that a robo-Mezli can go 48 hours or make 300 meals (whichever comes first) before needing to be serviced by a human. Kolchinski wouldn’t disclose what types of heating/cooking methods it was using, but did say that the robot allows users to write their name (or whatever) in sauce on their food. Once cooked and packaged up, food will be deposited in a cubby that a user will unlock with their phone. By using robotics, Kolchinksi plans to keep costs down and be able to serve meals for as little as $4.99.

When asked whether Mezli was a technology company or a restaurant company, Kolchinski was quick to say they were definitely a food company. Mezli has developed its own menu and plans to focus on launching its own line of Mezli robo-restaurants.

This owner/operator approach is a little different from Highpper, an Israeli company that is also building a fully autonomous restaurant in a shipping container. Instead of creating its own chain of restaurants however, Highpper is licensing its technology out to other restaurant brands (first up will be a pizza restaurant launching in June).

Mezli is still very early on in it’s ambitions, Kolchinski couldn’t even say how many meals its robot will be able to make in an hour. But the company has secured a pre-seed round of funding and plans to bring its first robot-powered Mezli online in just over a month.

If Mezli’s first autonomous spot is a hit, there’s a good chance a shipping container restaurant will be popping up in your neck of the woods someday soon.

Refraction AI Raises $4.2M for its Three-Wheeled Robot Delivery

Robot delivery company Refraction AI announced today that it has raised $4.2 million in new seed funding. The round was led by Pillar VC, with participation from eLab Ventures, Osage Venture Partners, Trucks Venture Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Chad Laurans (founder of SimpliSafe), Invest Michigan, and others.

Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Refraction’s take on delivery robots is between smaller rovers like those from Starship and larger autonomous vehicles like Nuro‘s. Refraction’s REV-1 robots have three wheels, are ruggedized for inclement weather, and are fast enough to travel in bike lanes.

Refraction debuted the REV-1 back in July of 2019, and started making limited lunch deliveries from Ann Arbor restaurants in December of that year. In June of 2020, right after the pandemic’s first big wave in the U.S., Refraction launched its grocery delivery service.

We’re still early into the new year, but 2021 is already been a pretty active year for delivery robots. A number of startups around the world like Ottonomy, Delivers AI and Bizero have come out of stealth. Last week Safeway announced it was piloting the use of Tortoise’s teleoperated robots for grocery delivery. And Kiwibot will be making making deliveries in Santa Monica, California as part of that city’s zero emission delivery zone.

Luke Schneider, CEO of Refraction, told me by phone last week that the company will use its new capital to start scaling up the business. Refraction currently has 25 robots in operation around Ann Arbor. Schneider said that Refraction will be adding to its fleet and doing more deliveries, and will expand either to different cities or into different retail sectors. He also said that the company will also hire more people to expand the team, and build up operations in Austin, Texas where Schneider is located (though manufacturing will remain in Michigan).

Albertsons Partners with Tortoise for Remote Controlled Robot Delivery

Grocery giant Albertsons announced today that it has partnered with Tortoise to pilot remote-controlled robot grocery delivery at two Safeway stores in Northern California.

Tortoise is a little different from other players in the robot delivery space. First, the Tortoise bot is bigger than other rover bots. It can carry 120 pounds and is meant to haul a week’s worth of groceries. Second, the Tortoise is not meant for on-demand delivery, but rather scheduled drop offs (like a weekly grocery order). Finally Tortoise is different because it is eschewing autonomous driving for full teleoperation of its robots, meaning there is a human always remotely in control as the robot travels from store to door.

Tortoise Co-Founder and President, Dmitry Shevelenko, told me by phone today that Safeway will be using the second generation Tortoise bot, which has improved functionality and a flatbed carrying platform. Orders will be placed inside Safeway-branded containers that have Bluetooth locks. Eventually, Shevelenko said that these containers will be motorized, which will allow them to slide off the flatbed of the robot and sit outside a person’s home so groceries can be dropped off even when someone isn’t there.

Safeway’s first Tortoise tests will be in the northern California towns Tracy and Windsor. As Shevelenko pointed out, these suburban locations are actually significant because it shows robot delivery is “not just an urban phenomenon.” This type of suburban location is also being targeted by Refraction and its rugged three-wheeled, bike lane-riding robot.

During these Safeway tests, Tortoise robots will be accompanied by humans, which is not uncommon as city and local government figure out how to safely deploy robots on public city sidewalks. For instance, Postmates’ autonomous Serve robot still has a human escort while making deliveries in the West Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The Tortoise partnership is just the latest in a string of automation moves for Albertsons. The company is expanding the use of robotic micro-fulfillment of e-commerce orders in the Bay Area, and more recently, it started testing a robotic kiosk in Chicago for automated curbside pickup.

Tortoise is the latest robot delivery company to officially hit the road making commercial deliveries. In addition to Postmates and Refraction, Starship and Kiwibot are also scurrying around Modesto and San Jose, respectively. For a broader picture of the robot delivery space, check out The Delivery Robot Market Report I wrote for our Spoon Plus member service.

Urbx’ Vertical Automated Grocery Fulfillment has High Ambitions

As they come to market, automated grocery fulfillment solutions are taking a number of different shapes. Companies like Takeoff Technologies and Dematic are building them into the backs of existing stores, while Kroger and Ocado are building out big, standalone smart warehouses.

Unlike those other players in the space, Urbx wants its automated fulfillment center to get high — vertically speaking. The Boston-based company is working on robotic fulfillment that scales up to 150 ft. tall. While the Urbx system is tall, it only takes up 1,800 sq. ft., so it can nestle into the limited, tight real estate areas in cities. As Urbx CEO, Lincoln Cavalieri explained to me by phone this week, Urbx is “ideal for urban environments, food deserts, where property prices are high.”

Urbx has a dual go-to market strategy. First, like other automated fulfillment technology companies, Urbx will work with third-parties to integrate its automation into other stores. At the same time, Cavalieri said that the company will eventually build “thousands” of its own Urbx-branded automated markets. But these Urbx markets won’t be anything like a traditional grocery store.

The Urbx market won’t have any aisles to roam or bakery sections to get treats from. Instead, the “store” part will be a series of kiosks. Shoppers can either place their order by mobile phone or at the kiosk. Cavalieri said once an order is placed, Urbx’ robots can pack an order of 50 items in less than two minutes. (A 25-item order takes just a little over one minute.) Robots then deliver the packed items to the kiosk for the customer to take out.

Urbx will also have curbside pickup, delivery via electric bicycles and, at some point down the line, drone delivery.

All of this, however, is still a ways away. The company has only raised a seed round of funding and won’t have its first third-party implementations ready to be installed until the end of this year. Urbx hopes to have its first Urbx market developed by the end of next year.

This is certainly the right time to launch an automated fulfillment solution. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed record amounts of people into grocery e-commerce, which is expected to grow to take up 21.5 percent of total grocery sales by 2025.

As such, many retailers are accelerating their automation endeavors to keep up with e-commerce demand. Alberstons is expanding its use of automated fulfillment centers and testing out robotic pickup kiosks. And Walmart is working with three different companies to deploy automated fulfillment centers to dozens of locations this year.

With plans for its own line of supermarkets, Urbx is the most ambitious automated fulfillment startup we’ve covered so far. Now we just have to see if rollout of tall centers can match the height of its goals.

Postmates X Spun Out of Uber to Become Serve Robotics

Uber has officially spun out its Postmates X division to become its own standalone company now called Serve Robotics. The news was first reported by TechCrunch and confirms rumblings about such a move reported back in January.

Uber acquired Postmates for $2.65 billion last year, which included the Postmates X robotics unit. The Serve delivery robot is an autonomous cooler-sized rover robot currently making deliveries around the West Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

According to TechCrunch, Serve Robotics has raised an undisclosed seed round of funding led by the VC firm Neo, with participation from Uber, Lee Jacobs, Long Journey Ventures, Western Technology Investment and other investors. Serve Robotics will be led by Ali Kashani, who headed up Postmates X, will have 60 employees, and will be headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Los Angeles, and Vancouver, Canada.

Delivery robots like Serve are definitely on the rise as a number of startups come to market around the world. In the U.S. Starship, Kiwibot and Refraction all have robots making deliveries. In Russia there’s Yandex, in South Korea there’s Woowa Brothers, and in Turkey there’s Delivers AI. (For more, check out our Delivery Robot Market Report available to our Spoon Plus members.)

With all these robotic solutions plus other autonomous vehicle options, Uber doesn’t need to have its own full-stack robotic delivery solution. As I wrote last month:

“…as Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently explained on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast, his company is in the networking business. Khosrowshahi doesn’t think Uber needs to create the technology uses, it just needs access to the best technology that allows it to facilitate deliveries and ridesharing. That’s one reason Uber offloaded its autonomous driving unit at the end of last year.”

Additionally, spinning off Serve Robotics means that Uber itself does not need to devote resources to figuring out the patchwork of state, county and city laws when it comes to actually getting commercial autonomous delivery vehicles on public sidewalks and streets. The flip side of that however, is that dealing with this patchwork of regulations is something Serve will have to do on its own.

Cecilia.ai Mixes Chatbot Capabilities with Its Robot Bartender

The robot bartenders we’ve covered so far at The Spoon are either just autonomous, articulating arms (Glacierfire), or high-volume vending machines (Rotender). Cecilia.ai, the latest entrant in the autonomous cocktail-making space, went live today and “she” is serving drinks a twist.

In addition to automated drink-pouring, Cecilia.ai features chatbot functionality to have a “conversation” with a customer. Cecilia looks like something out of a Vegas. The machine sports a big screen with a CGI female bartender. Walk up to Cecilia and start talking to order your drink. The Cecilia.ai website provides a sample conversation that goes something like this:

CUSTOMER: Hi there.

CECILIA: Hello there, what can I get you to drink?

CUSTOMER: Any recommendations?

CECILIA: My favorite is the Rusty Ale, but it’s a bit strong.

CUSTOMER: Do you have something sweeter?

CECILIA: Sure! Try the Green n’ Tonic.

And… scene.

According to website, Cecilia can make 120 drinks per hour (with reduced chit-chat), offers conversational script customization to fit a location, hundreds of available mixes and hold 70 liters (it doesn’t specify booze or mixer ratios). Voice control means ordering is contactless, and the large screen can be used for advertising purposes.

We’ve reached out to the company to find out more details like pricing and availability, and will update this when we hear back.

There are actually a number of robot bartenders coming to market right now. In addition to the aforementioned Glacierfire bar and Rotender robot, MSC Cruises is installing a robot bartender on one on of its ships, Macco’s robot is serving beer in Spain, and Makr Shakr continues to sell its robot bartender solution.

One reason for all this automated mixology is probably, like so many other things, the pandemic. Having hundreds of strangers yell out their orders into the faces of human bartenders isn’t such a great idea any more, thanks to COVID. A robot bartender eliminates that vector of human-to-human transmission. But another reason is that robot bartenders are machines that can crank out drinks around the clock without taking a break, and they do so without spilling or overpouring (which may suck for customers but is good for a bar’s bottom line).

From what we can gather, Cecilia isn’t aimed at high-volume nightclubs and bars, but instead is more for hotels, airports, VIP lounges, etc. This makes sense since a crowded bar blasting music in the background would make it difficult for Cecilia to hear a patron order a Patron with only their voice.

The only question that remains is whether sage wisdom and funny anecdotes are programmed into her chatbot capabilities.

Mars Wrigley Launches Mobile Robotic Kiosk at ShopRite

The impulse aisle in the checkout line has long been the bane of many parents’ grocery shopping trips. While cashiers scan items and parents wait to pay, racks of candy and treats are within arm’s reach of bored kids sitting in carts.

But if you thought tempting kids with treats out checkout was rough, wait until there’s a shiny new robot wandering the grocery aisles, offering up candy.

Mars Wrigley and Wakefern Food Corp. announced last week that they are working with robot company Savioke to deploy a mobile robotic vending kiosk at ShopRite store in Monroe, NY.

According to Kiosk Marketplace, the robot, dubbed “Smiley,” plays music and dances (doing the robot, we assume) (sorry!), while offering up treats and such for sale.

There aren’t a ton of details, such as how many treats Smiley can hold, or the mechanics of how the treats are dispensed and paid for. (We reached out to Mars Wrigley for more information.)

We’ve seen these types of robots before. Self-driving robots can wheel around inside existing retail spaces to act as promotional, err, vehicles, or direct avenues. In China, FANBOT is already scurrying around cinemas, malls and hotels, selling drinks, snacks and more. And Pudutech’s robot, which is basically a series of shelves on wheels, cruise around grocery stores in Japan and the Netherlands, showcasing items that are on sale.

At the risk of tooting my own horn too loudly, automated mobile kiosks was a trend I said to look out for in 2021. So I think we’re going to see a lot more robots roaming store aisles trying to sell us stuff. Maybe their LED faces will need to show a scowl though, to keep the kids away.

Imperium Drive Comes Out of Stealth with Bandwidth-Aware Teleoperation for Robots

One of the many questions facing delivery robot startups as they come to market is how much autonomy to give the robots. Should they go full autonomous driving, even though that is more technically complex and there is still a patchwork of regulation that needs to be dealt with? Or should they go with less autonomy and use humans to help guide or even drive their robots to sidestep some of the complications that come with self-driving vehicles.

For robot delivery startups wrestling with these questions, Imperium Drive says it’s here to help. Based in Europe (the company is scattered across different countries because of the pandemic) and part of the TechStars Smart Mobility cohort, Imperium Drive makes a teleoperation system for autonomous vehicles, including the small rover robots favored by the likes of Starship, Kiwibot, Postmates and others.

Imperium does the whole teleoperation stack, from the software onboard the robot to the human on the other end who helps the robot navigate. Imperium lets robot companies choose how much teleoperation they want, depending on their robot’s level of autonomy. Imperium can have a human simply monitor the robot remotely in case it gets stuck or runs into trouble, or the company can plot points on a map for the robot to autonomously follow. At the far end of the spectrum, Imperium can have a human actually drive the delivery robot remotely, like a videogame.

Imperium Drive Co-Founder and CEO, Koosha Kaveh, told me by phone this week that his company’s secret sauce is its ability to operate even when network connections provide only low bandwidth. As the robot runs around town, the strength of its cellular connection will vary, sometimes offering very small pipes for data to get through.

“We’ve developed our own AI predictive engine that predicts changes of network parameters,” said Kaveh, “And we change automatically our streaming engine based on availability.”

A easy way to think about Imperium’s bandwidth technology is Netflix. The movie streaming service will detect how much bandwidth you have (e.g., a cellular connection versus wired Ethernet) and serve a movie in a resolution fit for that situation. Imperium does the same thing, just with data from the robot.

Delivery robots are actually streaming a lot of data back to their headquarters. There’s video from the robot’s on-board cameras as well as lidar and radar information. Imperium adapts what is streamed based on the amount of bandwidth. For example, if there’s very little bandwidth, Imperium can send just wireframes of the robots surroundings. Kaveh said that it can stream the relevant information a teleoperator needs at under 1MB of data.

The idea of teleoperating robots brings up the question of scale. It’s easy to understand self-driving robots scaling up to meet demand because that’s the whole point — there is no human labor to pay. Once you have the robots, they can just run around the clock with no additional cost. What happens to the economics when you have a human handling a robot?

Kaveh says Imperium has a network of inexpensive labor in Eastern Europe that it can tap into to teleoperate robots. And Imperium isn’t alone in using humans to guide robots. Kiwibot has a team of people in Colombia that plots the courses for its robots (not full-on driving). And Tortoise skipped the idea of self-driving altogether for its robots, believing it can create a Mechanical Turk style army of human gig-work teleoperators.

The fact that Imperium Drive exists is at least some indication that the delivery robot space is maturing. As we outlined in our Delivery Robot Market Report, there are many companies around the world deploying delivery robots on city streets. Imperium Drive is part of a typical business cycle for new market categories like delivery bots. It’s not creating the robots themselves, but adding a layer to make those robots run more efficiently. As robots gain traction, we’ll see more third-party add-ons like this meant to improve robot delivery operations.

Move Over, Isaac. Humanoid Robo-Bartender to Set Sail on Cruise Ship

It’s not just love that’s exciting and new on the cruise ship MSC Virtuosa. MSC Cruises announced yesterday that Rob, the humanoid, robotic bartender, is reporting for duty to pour drinks at the Virtuosa‘s Starship Club this spring (hat tip to Cruise Industry News).

Rob will be part of the futuristic integrated bar and entertainment experience offered by the Starship Club, which will also feature 3D holograms, immersive digital are and an infinity digital interactive table guests can use to explore space.

To grab a drink, guests will place their order in “vertical digital cockpits,” setting Rob to work. Rob’s articulating arms will mix and serve a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Rob also speaks eight different languages (English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese) and can adjust according to the language a guest uses when placing an order. Rob also has an LED face to convey emotions, and presumably scowl because no one will tip a robot bartender.

Rob is not the only robo-bartender serving up drinks nowadays. Glacierfire in Iceland is a bar built around its robot bartender. In Spain, Macco Robotics‘ robot serves beer. And of course, there is the Tipsy Robot slinging drinks in Las Vegas.

What’s interesting about Rob is that MSC Cruises decided to go with a full-on humanoid robot, not just articulating arms. When your bar is called “The Starship Club,” it probably makes sense to have a bartender bot that looks like what people think of a robot. But for more high-volume locations like a nightclub, the theatrics of a smiling humanoid with articulating arms could be ditched in favor of a personality-less machine that is faster.

It also should be noted that by the time Rob debuts in April, the COVID-19 pandemic will still very much be a part of our everyday lives. As of now, the CDC recommends that all people avoid travel on cruise ships. Despite that warning, tons of people are signing up for sea vacations. Having a robot pour drinks means at least your bartender won’t get sick and won’t be a vector of transmission for other passengers.

For those who are both robot curious and brave enough to set sail, the Virtuosa will begin cruises in the Mediterranean in April before being deployed to Northern Europe in 2021.

Food Robots Are Coming to Dubai

We are on a mission at The Spoon to chronicle the rise of food robots as they pop up all over the world. Today, we spin our globe and land on Dubai, where a fully robotic cafe has been serving up drinks and delivery robots will soon be roaming the sidewalks.

Reuters has a story up this week about the Robo Cafe in Dubai, which, is exactly what you think it is: a fully autonomous eatery. The Robo Cafe has actually been in business since last year, and uses four different robots to pour drinks, grab food and bring all items to your table.

Located in what appears to be a shopping mall, the Robo Cafe has a barista bot to create coffee drinks, a bartender bot to make mocktails and juices, a food bot that grabs pastries and other prepared foods, and a cadre of waiter bots. Customers place orders via a touchscreen on the counter and the appropriate bot fulfills the order. Food and drinks are place on a waiter bot, which is a large, squat puck, which autonomously carries the the order to the customer. No humans needed (unless something breaks down).

Unlike the big robot restaurant complex run by Country Garden in China, the Robo Cafe is much smaller and appears to have more of a relaxed feel. The whole cafe is out in the open (no walls) and instead of tables, people belly up to a counter to order and enjoy their food and drink.

Later this year, however, customers may not even need to sit at the counter to enjoy their Robo Cafe coffee. The Khaleej Times reports that robot delivery startup, Delivers AI will start trialing its service in Dubai in Q3 of this year.

Delivers AI, is among the cohort of current startups using autonomous, cooler-sized robots to make food deliveries. The company, which is relatively young, is currently making deliveries in Istanbul, Turkey.

The pandemic has accelerated interest in robotics because of their contactless nature. With no humans working in the Robo Cafe, there is no human-to-human viral transmission. Same goes for those little delivery robots.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out my recent Delivery Robot Market Report that I wrote for our Spoon Plus subscription service. It outlines the key players in operation all over the world as well as their challenges and opportunities.

Orders for Food and Consumer Goods Robots Grew 56 Percent Last Year

Often when we write about the growth in food robotics, it’s based on anecdotal data. For example, over the past year robot startups have told us that thanks to COVID-19, they’ve seen a surge in demand.

Now, thanks to the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), we have some hard numbers to reaffirm what we’ve already been reporting. The A3 announced yesterday that for the first time last year, orders of robots for non-automotive purposes surpassed automotive robot orders. According to the press announcement, sales of robotic units in North America in 2020 were up 3.5 percent over sales in 2019. North American companies ordered 31,044 robotic units at a value of $1.572 billion last year.

For our specific purposes here at The Spoon, the A3 said that orders for food and consumer goods robots grew by 56 percent in 2020. And not only were more robots being ordered for the food sector, they were being used for higher-level tasks. Mark Joppru, Vice President, Consumer Segment & Service Robotics, US ABB Robotics and Machine Automation, said in the A3 press release:

In food applications, for example, where robots were traditionally used to automate simpler processes like case loading, they are increasingly being commissioned for higher value processes, like directly preparing food, resulting in improvements to food safety and hygiene. While these trends have existed for several years, COVID has changed perceptions and priorities for customers, accelerating the adoption of robotic automation.

This echoes what we’ve been hearing from food robot startups throughout the pandemic. Cleanliness and hygiene are the new priorities for the companies buying food robots. Robots provide a contactless way of preparing, ordering and delivering food, create more social distance in kitchens and can help alleviate staffing issues.

Just as important, robots are getting more sophisticated and, as Joppru points out, able to complete higher value tasks. Flippy is working the fryers at White Castle. Woowa Brothers delivery bots are integrating with elevator and security systems to increase navigation within buildings. And robot kiosks like RoboEatz can prepare 1,000 meals before needing a human to refill the ingredients.

Given the constant stream of robot news we’re been writing, it’s not too hard to imagine that this time next year, we’ll be writing about record growth for the industry in 2021.