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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Robotics, AI & Data

Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants in Japan Will Soon Use a Fry-Cooking Robot

TechMagic, a Tokyo-based restaurant robotics startup, has signed a development deal with Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan to build a robot to automate the entire process of cooking french fries.

According to company CEO Yuji Shiraki, preliminary testing of the TechMagic fry robots is complete and is the company is moving into the development phase, where they will focus on productization and in-store installation. The fry-bot will manage fry-feeding, frying, bagging, storing, and arranging the french fries. The company is also working to reduce the size of the frybot so as to enable deployment into space-contrained spaces of existing Kentucky Fried Chicken locations.

Shiraki says they are aiming to introduce the robot in some Japanese locations by this fall.

Spoon readers may recall that TechMagic has already been working with restaurant operators to deploy its back-of-house food robots in restaurants in Japan. I had a chance to visit one, the P-Robo, last September when I was in Tokyo for Smart Kitchen Summit Japan. The robot is a multi-function robot that automates nearly the entire process of creating pasta. It preps the sauces and toppings, heats the noodles (which are pre-cooked and frozen, standard for noodle and pasta restaurants), combines it all in a spinner, and then delivers the meal down along a conveyor belt to the plating station. From there, the meal is plated and a human does the final prep for delivery to the customer. Afterward, the robot washes and cleansthe prep bowls. The entire process takes less than two minutes.

You can see the P-Robo in action below:

TechMagic Pasta Robot: Noodle cook, saucing, plating all in one minute.

The Tokyo restaurant where P-Robo slings pasta is owned by the Pronto Corporation, a subsidiary of Japan food and beverage conglomerate Suntory. When I interviewed Shiraki last summer, he indicated that they were also working with a large well-known Japanese food brand (presumably KFC Japan) and noodle giant Nissin.

For those wondering if this move means we’ll see KFC deploy robots stateside, I wouldn’t hold your breath, mainly because KFC Japan is operated by Mitsubishi, whereas the U.S. fried chicken chain is operated by the holding company Yum Brands.

Flytrex & CAU Plot Nationwide Roll Out of Drone Food Delivery After Getting FAA Approval

Flytrex, a startup specializing in on-demand delivery of food and retail items, and partner Causey Aviation Unmanned (CAU), announced today they had received Standard Part 135 Air Carrier Certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) according to an announcement sent to The Spoon. According to the FAA, Part 135 “certification is the only path for small drones to carry the property of another for compensation beyond visual line of sight.”

With this notch in its belt, Causey and Flytex become just the fifth group to receive Part 135 certification, joining Amazon/Prime Air, Google/Wing, UPS, and Zipline. According to the company, this certification will allow Flytrex to complete long-range commercial drone deliveries across the U.S. and expand its delivery service to all eligible back and front yards nationwide.

“We live in an era of instant gratification, where consumers want to get their food or goods faster, more reliably, more economically and more sustainably – and drone delivery has risen to the occasion,” said Yariv Bash, Flytrex CEO. “Flytrex’s continued success delivering to customers throughout North Carolina and Texas has put us ahead of the curve. With this certification, we look forward to bringing our super swift, sustainable and safe airborne delivery systems to every backyard across the U.S.”

Flytrex and CAU currently have five operational delivery stations in North Carolina and one in Texas, delivering tens of thousands of items to hundreds of thousands of homes. Flytrex says it has worked closely with regulators, including participating in the FAA’s UAS Integration Pilot Program and BEYOND initiative, to ensure the highest safety standards for drone delivery.

In case you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to order food delivery via a Flytrex drone, it’s a somewhat involved process that factors in a safety and viability analysis of each customer’s backyard. First, the company analyzes available space in a given backyard, whether there are power lines, and once a safety review is passed, the address is added to the Flytrex flight network.

You can watch the drone (and an explanation of the customer onboarding process below):

Delivery Process | Flytrex

SJW Robotics Raises $2M as It Eyes Launch of Autonomous Robotic Restaurants This Spring

SJW Robotics, a maker of autonomous robotic restaurants, has raised a $2 million seed funding round, according to an announcement sent to The Spoon. The Canadian startup’s newest round includes investments from Alley Robotic Ventures and celebrity chef Tom Colicchio.

Company CEO and cofounder Nipun Sharma told The Spoon the new investment would be used to fund the rollout of the company’s robotic kitchen system with partner Compass Canada. The two announced their partnership last summer, with Compass disclosing that they had plans to pilot three RJW robotic restaurant kitchens in select markets. According to Sharma, the first Compass autonomous kitchen pilot will launch at a hospital in the Toronto market under Compass’s Bok Choy brand this spring.

Sharma told The Spoon that the Compass deal is indicative of the company’s business model: SJW provides the robotics and AI technology via a robotics-as-a-service mode, and brand partners focus on culinary, menu development, and marketing.

During a walkthrough of the RoWok system last year, we watched as the system dropped pre-cut ingredients such as chicken cubes, green onions, and julienne carrots from segmented storage siloes in customized proportions onto a perforated steel tray. From there, the tray shuttled through a steam tunnel via a conveyor belt (“like a car in a carwash”), and the warmed food was dropped into an oiled wok for cooking. Finally, the cooked food was dropped into a bowl where sauces were added, and the meal was prepped for serving.

The new self-contained includes refrigerated storage for up to 350 meals, including all proteins, vegetables, sauces, and starches, and can make up to 60 meals per hour. According to Sharma, the units are ‘real estate agnostic’ and can be set up anywhere with proper space and utility connections.

You can watch Sharma give a tour of SJW’s RoWok system below.

A Look at the RoWok Robotic Restaurant From SJW Robotics

Watch LG’s Server Robot Bring Dishes to Customers at Popular Korean Restaurant in Georgia

One year ago, LG announced the debut of its new hospitality server robot, and now the Korean tech giant’s CLOi Servebot is showing up at restaurants like the Airang K in Johns Creek, Georgia. Since June 2022, four “LG CLOi ServeBot” robotic assistants from LG have been assisting wait staff by accompanying them to guests’ tables while carrying multiple dishes at once.

Initially, Arirang K had deployed two of the Servebots to help their employees but soon upgraded to four. “Everybody liked the first two so much that we upgraded to four LG ServeBots to maximize service levels and guarantee that every customer gets to see the robots in action,” said Miok Kim, general manager of Arirang K.

The LG Servebot has 11 hours of operating time and three shelves that hold up to 22 pounds. They also feature sensors and cameras that enable autonomous driving, obstacle avoidance, and recognition.

“As the CLOi Servebot is cruising down the path to deliver food to a table, if a chair is pulled out a little bit too far, It will notice the surroundings in the settings and direct to a different route,” said Brittany Marubio of LG.

If you haven’t seen a server bot in one of your favorite restaurants, chances are you will soon as the server-bot market pioneered by Bear Robotics is becoming more crowded. In addition to LG and Bear, solutions from Pudu Robotics and Keenon Robotics are also beginning to be deployed. Restaurants are using these robots to not only deal with understaffing but to take the burden off of employees and make their jobs safer.

“The main dishes that come on in our restaurant are mostly hot, and it can be dangerous,” said Taylor Robinson, a server at Arirang K. “So the LG Servebots are able to help us by bringing those dishes up for us and all we have to do is hand it right off at the table.”

You can see the LG Servebot in action in the video below:

LG ServeBot at Arirang K Restaurant

Yo-Kai To Debut Desktop Ramen Robot For Space-Constrained Retail Formats at CES 2023

Yo-Kai Express, a startup that makes autonomous ramen robots, will debut its latest model at CES, a desktop ramen-making machine targeted at small-format retailers such as gas stations and co-working spaces.

The new machine, called the YKE Desktop, is a semi-automatic cooking machine that makes a bowl of ramen in 90 seconds. The machine is paired with an RFID-enabled freezer that holds up to 24 bowls of ramen.

“We are pleased to debut our new product : Yo-Kai Desktop, the new terminal with a smaller form factor, which can be installed anywhere – remote office, gas station, convenience stores, co-working space,” said Andy Lin, founder and CEO of Yo-Kai Express. “It’s a semi-automated machine that provides our customers more flexibility.”

In addition to showing off its newest model at CES, the company will demo a new app that enables customers to order ramen remotely. The app, which will be released to the public in the spring, allows customers to earn loyalty points, discounts, and rewards.

The news follows a busy fall for Yo-Kai, in which they expanded throughout Japan, raised additional funding, and partnered with the Japanese robotics giant Softbank to enable an integration with server robot Pepper.

For those interested in checking out the new Yo-Kai machine, they will be in the Food Tech Pavilion at CES at booth 53114.

Will AI Make For Better CPG Products? These Startups Think So

While the overall food tech market has seen a contraction in funding in 2022 as venture investors become more cautious, one area of companies that seems to continue to raise interest is those that leverage ML and other forms of AI to power CPG decision-making, product development, and core ingredient development.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen a bevy of startups raise funding, announce new products and tout their platforms for AI-powered CPG. Here are just a few examples:

NotCo

This week, NotCo, a Jeff Bezos backed startup with roots in Chile, announced a $70M Series D on a $1.5 Billion valuation. The funding will be used to launch the startup’s B2B business where it will open access to its AI platform to other CPG brands to accelerate plant-based CPG product development. The B2B platform launch comes after the company announced a new joint venture with Kraft Heinz earlier this year under which they have already launched plant-based versions of Kraft’s cheese slices.

StarDay Foods

StarDay, a startup which bills itself as a ‘next-generation food conglomerate’, just launched its third CPG product, a gut-friendly seasoned rice product. The company’s ‘Starday Insights Machine’ uses  natural language processing, machine learning models, testing capabilities, and analytical insight tools to “identify and predict trends, derisk our investments, and speed up the product development process”. The company has raised $4 million in seed funding.

Verusen

Verusen’s approach to leveraging AI is to use it to help other CPGs create more resilient supply chains. The company claims it has created $30 million in “working capital optimization” for a global CPG brand (which it doesn’t name). Verusen says its platform “leverages artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, data harmonization, and decision support to help global brands control risk, attain supply chain resiliency, and improve economies for their operations.”

Fractal AI

Fractal has created a CPG and retail-focused AI platform called Asper AI, which the company claims “unifies demand planning, sales and distribution, inventory planning, and pricing and promotion.” Fractal says its ‘autonomous decisioning platform’ can help CPG and retail companies achieve “10%+ potential growth opportunities in financial performance and more than 50% in the automation of decision-making.”

SymphonyAI

SymphonyAI has what it calls a “end-to-end, integrated AI-powered merchandising, marketing, and supply chain solutions for retailers and CPG manufacturers” which it recently used to help German retail giant Metro GMBH to optimize its SKU mix and find retail shelf space efficiencies for its Romanian storefronts.

Shiru

Shiru is building a B2B business for CPG brands who want to create plant-based meat and dairy alternatives. The company’s Flourish platform utilizes machine learning to mine a proprietary database with the goal of developing plant-based functional ingredients.

The interest in utilizing new approaches for CPG product development, supply chain optimization and ingredient discovery comes at a time of upheaval for the broader industry. Supply chain worries, persistent inflation, global geopolitical instability, and rapidly changing consumer tastes have all made modeling the future a much more difficult task, adding pressure on CPG brands and their retailers to shorten product development and planning cycles.

While it’s worth asking how many of these startups are utilizing true “artificial intelligence” or simply capitalizing on the desire among brands to re-configure their development process, there’s no doubt that leveraging the rapidly maturing and powerful AI technology that has reached the commercialization stage will be a trend that only intensifies in 2023.

How ChatGPT Is Going to Make You a Better Cook

You’ve probably heard of ChatGPT by now, the AI-powered chatbot wowing technologists, journalists, and a whole bunch of Twitter users with its ability to understand human language and give realistic human-like responses.

The New York Times called ChatGPT the “best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public” while others have speculated how the technology could change industries ranging from banking to healthcare.

Since ChatGPT has been used for everything from sending clients emails to writing poetry, I figured I’d play around with it to see how it could help me make a better cook.

The first thing I thought I’d do is see if the chatbot could help create a recipe with some interesting flavors. I asked it to make a bread recipe “using beer, chocolate and Rice Krispies” and, after a few seconds, a recipe complete with cooking instructions appeared on my screen:

Sounds good to me. I mean, who wouldn’t want a beer and chocolate bread recipe featuring Rice Krispies?

When I asked Google the same question, no recipes that featured beer, chocolate, and Rice Krispies in the ingredient list showed up. In fact, every time I asked ChatGPT for a recipe suggestion, the results were as good or better than the results from Google.

But where ChatGPT really shined is its ability to remember my previous questions and build upon those for very context-specific responses. Take, for instance, my query for a pasta recipe that featured red sauce and garlic. ChatGPT’s initial response was a recipe that looked good, but it was a recipe that could have easily been found with a Google search.

When I asked for a Keto-friendly version of the pasta recipe, ChatGPT considered the specific recipe and gave a pretty good answer about how to fit the specific dietary profile I wanted:

As you can see, ChatGPT makes the process of figuring out a meal something closer to a conversation with a chef or a culinary planner rather than the traditional process of piecing together search engine queries. In fact, I found I could build an entire meal plan using the chatbot, including things like wine pairings…

To side dishes…

And it’s not just flavor pairing and meal planning where ChatGPT shines. Because the chatbot has a wide breadth of understanding of pretty much everything, you can ask it for advice about how to use food in a variety of different situations, such as life events:

Or when someone you know may need a little pick-me-up:

Not every response is perfect, and some have noted (including ChatGPT’s creators) how the chatbot often gives answers that make no sense or appear wrong. But the hits seem much more frequent than the misses, and overall the technology looks like it can already give better responses than the traditional tools we use when looking for our next meal.

I’ll have more to say on this later, but my initial test has convinced me that an AI like ChatGPT could significantly change the way home cooks and the food companies that serve us approach meal-making. While ChatGPT doesn’t have an official API yet, it probably won’t be long before it does. Imagine a world where a foodie-focused chatbot incorporates meal planning with a shopping engine and delivery to help you instantly build a meal plan and have it deliver everything you need to your door. I’m sure Google and Amazon are thinking about it, as are creators of dedicated recipe or meal-planning apps.

So will ChatGPT replace humans or other experts who help us make great food? Probably not, at least right away.

As for what ChatGPT thinks about that question, I’ll let you read its answer:

Food Tech Weekend Podcast: Talking Food Robots With Clayton Wood

Our guest this week on our weekly food tech news wrapup is Clayton Wood, the CEO of pizza robot startup Picnic. We talk about the latest food tech news and hear Clayton’s view on where things are going in the world of food robots.

Here are the stories we discuss on this week’s show:

We also put Clayton on the food robot hot seat, asking him:

  • How would you assess the food robot marketplace in 2022?
  • Will we see some consolidation in certain areas of food robotics in 2023?
  • Predictions for the 2023 food robot market.

You can listen to this week’s pod by clicking the player below, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy!

Ottonomy Partners With Norwegian Post Office to Trial Sidewalk Robot Delivery

Ottonomy.IO, a maker of autonomous (and swervy!) sidewalk delivery robots, has partnered with Posten Norge to trial its robot in Oslo. The partnership, which also includes Nordic autonomous vehicle integrator Holo, will test how autonomous robots can improve Norway’s post office intra-logistics in city centers. Posten Norge also plans to trial Ottobots for first-mile pick-ups, receiving and delivering goods for the digital marketplace AMOI from the Aker Brygge area in Oslo.

Posten Norge looks to be all-in on this trial, going so far as creating a special page for its cute little Ottobot. The page, which features a video of Ottonomy’s robot (which you can see below), talks about the goals for the trial:

The purpose of this project is simply to learn as much as possible. We want to learn how people interact with Ottobot, the maturity of the technology, and we want to explore whether Ottobot can help solve challenges in connection with picking up and delivering goods in the city. 

Among other things, the project will give us insight into how the citizens of Oslo experience a robot in the urban environment, how do people feel about interacting with a robot, and whether it creates unforeseen challenges in our city. In addition, we need to understand which obstacles are difficult for the robot to maneuver, whether it can manage driving in Nordic weather conditions and how reliable Ottobot is in operation. 

While there’s no doubt that some of the sidewalk robot startups have struggled over the past year as a darkening economic outlook has led to cutbacks among logistics and delivery companies, Ottonomy looks like it’s faring pretty well. The company recently raised money and is showing up in airports in the US and Europe, and now, with its new partnership with one of the largest post offices, Ottonomy may have cracked open a potentially lucrative (and deep-pocketed) customer category.

Subway Debuts Smart Fridges To Sell Pre-Made Sandwiches

Can you ‘Eat Fresh’ from a vending machine?

Subway believes you can, and to that end, the sandwich franchiser has begun to roll out a new line of smart fridges in the US to sell premade Subway sandwiches. The new fridges feature “artificial intelligence and natural language processing” and are restocked daily with sandwiches from local franchisees. The new line of vending machines is a part of the company’s growing focus on non-traditional formats to target “on-the-go” customers.

Subway’s New Smart Fridge

The first smart fridge from Subway showed up this September at the University of California San Diego. According to the company, the initial feedback has been strong among franchises to install the new fridges near their stores.

While the UC San Diego fridge was the first Subway vending machine to show up in the states, the company began experimenting with vending machines last year in Singapore. The Singapore machines were also supported by Grab & Go but looked a little closer to a traditional vending machine than the newly introduced smart fridges.

In an interview with QSR Magazine, Subway’s senior VP of development Steven Rafferty said the franchisees drove the push into unattended retail solutions.

“The partner says, ‘Hey, how can we maximize our sales even in the hours when we’re not open?’” Rafferty said. “We had some success with limited trials of this in international markets, in some Asian markets specifically. But closer to home, as I said, travel plaza partners have really latched on to this and it’s really meeting the needs of our customers who are our franchisees who in turn want to meet the needs of our consumers.”

I like the idea of the Subway machines and could see them finding traction, especially in public spaces where no fresh options are available. I’d like to see the new machines offer non-sub menu options like their non-bread bowls, which could provide customers with a nice option beyond carb-heavy sandwiches.

While Subway doesn’t mention hardware partners in their announcement, I’d be surprised if they didn’t work with a technology partner to develop the fridges. If one of our Spoon readers knows who Subway may have worked with to build their fridge, drop us a line and let us know.

According to Subway, their new smart fridges will begin appearing at college campuses, airports, and hospitals. Interestingly, the company’s announcement emphasized Subway’s focus on exploring non-traditional formats, including ghost kitchens. If the unattended business begins to take off, I could see how some franchisee partners may forgo the traditional store format and build ghost kitchens to support a network of unattended offerings in their market.

Picnic Partners With Modular Kitchen Manufacturer To Deliver Pizza Kitchen in a Box

Picnic Works, a Seattle-based maker of food-making robots, today announced a new partnership with ContekPro, a manufacturer of modular kitchens. Under the newly announced partnership, the two companies will deliver custom-built, pre-fabricated kitchens to quick service operators, hotel chains, or anyone else who wants a pizza robot restaurant in a box.

For those unfamiliar with Picnic’s newest partner, ContekPro builds modular kitchens for food service companies, including quick-serve restaurants, ghost kitchens, and resorts. The Portland-based company was founded in 2017 as a modular construction company and pivoted in 2019 to focus exclusively on modular kitchens after it found over half of its orders were for modular kitchens.

The deal marks the second partnership for Picnic over the last few months with a fellow Northwest startup. In August, the company announced an agreement with Minnow to offer its Pizza Station with the fellow Northwest startup’s pickup pods. The company has also been announcing a string of new trials with operators big and small for its pizza robot this year.

The combined solution from Picnic and ContekPro offers something of an answer to one of Picnic’s competitors, Hyper-Robotics, an Israel-based startup that builds shipping container food robots. Last year Hyper announced it had made a shipping container-based robot restaurant for Pizza Hut Israel (Hyper’s founder happens to be the master franchise owner for all of Pizza Hut Israel).

Whether it’s for a QSR building a small footprint drive-thru or a ghost kitchen operator expanding into new markets, modular kitchens make a lot of sense in many scenarios. For example, instead of finding land, breaking ground, and going through the often arduous process of zoning a new building, dropping a shipping container kitchen into a parking lot or some other easily accessible location can provide a much easier way to expand.

Typical ContekPro containers range anywhere from 320 square feet up to 960 square feet in size (according to ContekPro, the rendering in the announcement is 320 square feet). And while the announcement doesn’t describe the economics of a pizza-robot-in-a-box, ContekPro told The Spoon that operators can probably expect to pay from $240 thousand up to $400-$500 thousand or so for a restaurant container. As far as the cost of a Picnic, operators can expect to pay Picnic its typical robot-as-a-service monthly fees (which can range from $3,500 to $4,500 a month).

Softbank Brings Yo-Kai, Servi & Pepper Together to Demo End-to-End Roboticized Food Service

Last week, the robotics division of Japanese tech and energy conglomerate Softbank showed off a future in which food service robots work hand in hand to deliver a meal to the customer.

The demo featured a Yo-Kai ramen vending machine, a Servi server robot from Bear Robotics, and Softbank’s own Pepper humanoid robot acting as a host and entertainer. The announcement and demo were part of a newly focused effort by Softbank Robotics to position itself as a robotics integrator.

The demo took place in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, at Softbank’s robot restaurant proof of concept store, Pepper House. As seen in the video below, the process flow for a food order starts with the consumer ordering on an app. From there, Yo-Kai starts preparing the ramen, and a cartoon version of Pepper appears on the screen preparing the ramen. Once the ramen is ready, Pepper sends a notification to Servi to approach the Yo-Kai. From there, a human removes the ramen from the Yo-Kai and places it on Servi’s tray, and Servi brings the hot ramen to the customer’s table.

ラーメン調理ロボット自動販売機　注文、調理、配膳すべて自動化 SoftBank Ramen robot vending machine, order,cook,serving ,automated

According to the Japanese publication Robotstart, Softbank envisions the installation of a robot hand on the Servi in the future to eliminate the need for a human server.

The demo is an interesting illustration of a fully automated robotic future. Most implementations of food robotics today involve single robots that automate only a portion of the food service process, whether prep, cooking or serving food itself. We haven’t seen many examples of the interconnection between the various parts of the process, mainly because startups building these machines tend to focus on the part of the process. Softbank hopes to change that by providing integration services to combine all the pieces into one integrated service offering.

If other more mature industries are any indication, the arrival of integration services to the food robotics business is a relatively natural evolution of a currently nascent industry. Other tech sectors like enterprise IT, telecom, and retail tech all have evolved integration consulting industries, and it’s not hard to imagine some of the more prominent players in adjacent spaces moving to become food robotics integrators like Softbank. The ability to tie together disparate robotic systems from different companies will become relatively commonplace and a necessary step to push the food robotics space beyond the small niche it resides in today and will be instrumental in building the fully automated restaurant concepts of tomorrow.