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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Robotics, AI & Data

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.

Self-Driving Delivery Speeds Up

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My 10-year old son likes to outline for me the types of mischief he and his friends will get into once they start driving. Because he is 10, it usually amounts to driving over to the Jiffy Mart to load up on gummy worms.

I, of course, play along, but in my head I’ve often thought will you even need a driver’s license in six years? I mean, won’t he just get into a self-driving car? Or, more specifically for our Spoon-y purposes, won’t a self-driving delivery car just bring a trove of gummy worms to our house?

I realize that high-tech scenario is a.) more than little indulgent for a pack of gummy worms, and b.) is probably on a timeline that is a little too aggressive. Six years (when he turns sixteen) is not that far off, and there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome. But, this week saw some developments that show that the self-driving delivery sector is accelerating.

Let’s start with the pizza, because everyone loves pizza. Domino’s announced this week that it has partnered with Nuro for autonomous pizza delivery in a Houston Texas neighborhood. Nuro’s self-driving R2 is a low-speed pod-like vehicle that only holds cargo and doesn’t even have room for a driver. Customers ordering from the participating Domino’s opt to get their pizza via R2, and when it arrives, they use a special pin to unlock the pod’s door and get their pizza.

Domino’s isn’t the only QSR chain taking a shine to Nuro. Last month Chipotle revealed that it had invested in the Nuro as part of the startup’s Series C round.

It’s easy to understand why Nuro is attracting big brands to its little delivery pod. Nuro has been doing the work when it comes to working with regulatory bodies. Both the federal government and the State of California gave Nuro greenlights to operate on public roads last year. On the technology side, the company showed last year that its R2 had been operating fully autonomously (no chase cars) in three different states for months.

Not to be left out, retail giant Walmart announced that it had invested in self-driving startup Cruise. The two companies had already been working together on autonomous grocery deliveries since November, so Walmart must like what it’s seen so far.

In addition to cash though, Walmart also provides Cruise with a scaling infrastructure. Walmart has more than 5,000 locations across the U.S. with millions of customers. That’s a huge pool of potential autonomous deliveries. Walmart is already working with Gatik for self-driving deliveries along the middle mile. Extending that autonomy out to the last mile wouldn’t be easy (home deliveries are more complex than doing the same middle mile route back and forth), but it appears to be definitely on the company’s roadmap.

And if all that weren’t enough self-driving news, on Monday Udelv announced a whole new line of Transporter delivery vehicles this week. The Transporter features a more pod-like shape (no room for humans) and will use Mobileye’s self-driving technology. The company plans to produce more than 35,000 Transporters by 2028, and has already received its first pre-order of 1,000 units.

Of course, even though there is all this exciting activity in the self-driving delivery vehicle space, there are still technological and state-by-state regulatory hoops to jump through. We will actually be discussing these types of issues at our upcoming ArticulATE food automation virtual summit on May 18. We have guest speakers from Gatik, Pix, Designated Driver and more who will tell us firsthand what the challenges and opportunities are for self-driving vehicles. Get your ticket today and enjoy it from the comfort of your home office. You can even snack on gummy worms during the show if you like (delivery not included).

Image via Les Nouvelles Fermes.

More Headlines

Les Nouvelles Fermes Raises €2M to Expand Its Aquaponics Farms – Fish and plants living in harmony in an enclosed system, growing food together.

Survey: Online Grocery Sales Back up to $9.3B in March, Pickup Remains Dominant – Curbside pickup is still the favorite among customers.

Element Farms Plans a New High-Tech Greenhouse Customized for Growing Spinach – This will be the company’s second farm, and will be a 2.5-acre facility designed specifically to grow baby spinach.

Atlast Food Co. Secures $40M Series A Round to Expand Whole Cut Plant-Based Meat Analogues – The company’s use of mycelium allows them to create a wide variety of meat alternatives like filet mignon, chicken breast, and even fish.

Ocado Invests £10M in Oxbotica to Develop Self-Driving Vehicles

UK-based grocer Ocado announced today that it has invested £10 million (~$13.8M USD) in autonomous vehicle (and fellow UK) company Oxbotica. The investment is part of an broader, multi-year deal to develop self-driving hardware and software.

For Ocado, autonomous vehicle tech could have a number of uses, from self-driving warehouse vehicles to delivery vans to smaller autonomous robots.

That Ocado bought Oxbotica to bring autonomy further up and down its tech stack makes a lot of sense. The grocer already makes autonomous smart warehouses filled with robots zipping along grids assembling items for grocery orders. It’s natural to extend that autonomy throughout its warehouses and into delivery vehicles. It’s easy to envision robots picking and packing grocery orders, which are then handed off to warehouse robot that places it in a self-driving delivery van that drives off to a customer’s house.

Ocado has also shown that it’s not shy about spending money on autonomous systems. Last year purchased Kindred Systems and Haddington Dynamics to enhance its robotics capabilities. And prior to that it led the $9 million Seed round in cafeteria robot company Karakuri.

Ocado’s investment in Oxbotica actually caps off what has been a big week for autonomous vehicles. Udelv announced its new self-driving Transporter platform. Domino’s tapped Nuro to make autonomous pizza deliveries in Houston, Texas. And Walmart announced it had invested in self-driving startup, Cruise.

It’s also been a big news week for Ocado. The company’s technology powers Kroger’s Customer Fulfillment Centers, the first of which opened up in Monroe, Ohio this week. For its part, Kroger has dabbled in self-driving delivery before through a partnership with Nuro.

If you want to learn more about robotics in grocery, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our food automation virtual summit happening on May 18. There will be a number of autonomous vehicle companies as well as Karakuri speaking!

Walmart Invests in Self-Driving Car Company, Cruise

Walmart announced today that it has invested an undisclosed sum in autonomous driving company Cruise. Walmart’s investment is part of a larger $2.75 billion round of funding being raised by Cruise.

The investment comes after five months of the two companies working together. In November, Walmart announced it would pilot the use of Cruise’s self-driving vehicles for grocery delivery in Scottsdale, Arizona.

As we reported back in November, its partnership with Cruise ticked off a couple of boxes for Walmart. First, the retailer has been adding automation throughout its logistics and fulfillment stack to keep up with the increase in grocery (and other) e-commerce. Walmart is using Gatik trucks for middle-mile deliveries, adding automated fulfillment centers to its stores, and robotic curbside pickup kiosks.

But the Cruise relationship also helps with Walmart’s environmental goals. Cruise’s self-driving cars are 100 percent electric, and Walmart has a goal of achieving zero emissions across all its operations by 2040 and using 100 percent renewable energy by 2035.

Commercial use of self-driving vehicles is certainly getting a big push this year. One of Walmart’s middle-mile delivery routes in Arkansas will go full driverless this year. And just this week Udelv announced an entirely new line of Transporter autonomous delivery vehicles, while Domino’s announced it would be using Nuro’s self-driving pod vehicles for pizza delivery in Texas.

Self-driving cars on public roads still have a ways to go before they become mainstream, as there is still plenty of regulation that needs to be ironed out. But getting a financial push from giants like Walmart will certainly go a long way to getting self-driving vehicles on the road and to our doors (with groceries).

If you’re interested in the future of self-driving vehicle delivery, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our food robotic summit on May 18. Gatik, Pix and other players in the space will speak!

Voiceitt’s App Aims to Make Those with Speech Impairments Able to Use Voice Control

It’s easy to joke about digital assistants like Alexa not understanding us. But that’s because most of us take for granted that the words we speak are easily understood. For many people with non-standard speech patterns, this isn’t the case. People with cerebral palsy, stroke victims or people with lifelong speech impairments may speak in a manner that digital assistants, or even other humans can’t readily understand.

Tel Aviv, Israel startup Voiceitt is working to help fix that with its mobile app that works as an individualized electronic translator. Once installed on a phone or tablet the user trains the app by speaking different words. Once Voiceitt has learned those words, the app can then be used to “speak” on behalf of the user. The technology is voice agnostic, so it can work in whatever language the app is delivered in.

You can see it in action in this video, where the user has trained the Voiceitt app to understand how he pronounces “burger” and how that means he would like a burger served in a particular way (with cheese, etc.). When it comes time to order, he says “burger” and the phone’s loudspeaker translates the order in a way that is easily understandable by the server.

Using Voiceitt at a restaurant

Voiceitt also ties in directly with Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa. (Voiceitt is funded in part by the Alexa Fund.) In this way, Voiceitt skips the intermediary step of saying the translation out loud on the phone. Instead when a command is spoken (“Turn on the light”) Voiceitt’s app talks directly to Alexa through the API to execute the command. Turning on a light may not sound like much, but without voice control, people with cerebral palsy, for instance, are reliant on caregivers to come in and do basic tasks like turning on a light or adjusting the volume on the TV or radio.

For our purposes here at The Spoon, this also means that a person with non-standard speech could also operate connected appliances like microwaves or water faucets, or order food and groceries for home delivery.

As noted, right now Voiceitt requires each user to train the app individually. It can’t extrapolate to words beyond the trained vocabulary spoken in that particular manner. But as more people use the app, Voiceitt’s database of speech patterns grows. Over time, Voiceitt’s artificial intelligence will process its library of data, recognize more patterns to become more fluent and more of a universal translator.

As that happens, Voiceitt could then be installed on the business side of more locations. For instance at a restaurant’s drive-thru, or voice-controlled ordering kiosk. With the software built into the kiosk, users wouldn’t need the middle-man of the tablet or phone, the kiosk would translate.

Voiceitt has raised $16 million in funding so far including non-equity money from governments and other funds interested in bringing more equity to technology. The Voiceitt app will be available here in the U.S. at the end of May, with a subscription of $200 a year, but Voiceitt says it is working to partner with relevant agencies to make it more accessible to people who aren’t able to afford that cost.

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!

Udelv Launches New “Transporter” Delivery Vehicle, Will Use Mobileye’s Self-Driving Tech

Self-driving delivery startup Udelv announced today that it is launching a new “Transporter” vehicle that will use autonomous driving technology from Mobileye, an Intel company.

The new Transporter marks a couple of shifts for Udelv. First, the Transporter abandons the company’s traditional cargo delivery van form factor in favor of a more pod-like “skateboard” vehicle. The box shape is larger than the Nuro pod, and there is no longer space for a driver. Details such as range weren’t provided, but the Transporter is capable of traveling at 65 mph.

In addition to a new shape, Udelv is also shifting strategy by licensing out the self-driving technology from Mobileye. Up until this point, Udelv had been developing its own autonomous driving system. Mobileye Drive has EyeQTM SoC-based L4 compute, sensors and software and Mobileye’s Road Experience Management AV mapping solution. The Transporters will be capable of Level 4 self-driving, point-to-point operation. Udelv’s teleoperation system will allow the vehicles to be manually controlled for more complex situations such as parking lots, loading zones, apartment complexes and private roads.

One thing the new Transporters don’t have is temperature-controlled cargo bays. When asked about that during a live video press conference last week, Udelv Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Laury said that the company decided to forego refrigeration and temperature control to save on battery power. He also said that Udelv’s existing cargo bay setup provided ample temperature control for roughly an hour, even in the 110 degree weather of Phoenix, Arizona. He also said that frozen foods should be shipped with ice packs.

While the Transporter can do consumer deliveries, Udelv is focused on B2B deliveries, calling the middle mile low-hanging fruit. As we’ve seen with Gatik, limiting delivery routes to fixed, repeatable points (e.g., distribution warehouse to store location) avoids the complications that come with consumer deliveries. This in turn can make middle-mile delivery vehicles easier to pass muster with regulatory bodies and get on the roads faster.

Udelv and Mobileye plan to produce more than 35,000 Transporters by 2028, with commercial operations starting in 2023. The companies have their firs pre-order of 1,000 vehicles from Donlen, a U.S. commercial fleet leasing and management company.

Trax Raises $640M for its Computer Vision-based Grocery Inventory Management

Trax, a computer vision company that helps physical retailers and CPG companies with inventory management, announced today that it has raised a $640 million Series E round of funding. The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and funds management by existing investor BlackRock. Other investors include OMERS and Sony Innovation Fund by IGV. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Trax to more than $1 billion.

The Trax system uses a combination of camera installations, shelf-scanning robots and computer vision to monitor products on store shelves. Product Images are sent to Trax’s cloud-based machine learning system to analyze and identify when inventory is low on store shelves, or when items are misplaced.

Trax is also used by CPG companies to help them audit store shelves to ensure they are getting the placement they paid for.

Trax, which launched its Retail Watch service in the U.S. back in October of 2020, isn’t the only company using computer vision to help stores manage inventory. Cashierless checkout systems like Grabango and Trigo promise similar, constant shelf monitoring and visibility through camera installations and advanced computer vision. And robots from Simbe and Bossa Nova offer less installation-intensive solutions.

Trax is certainly striking while the funding iron is hot. Grocery related startups have raised a bunch of money in 2021. In addition to the raft of grocery delivery startups that have secured big raises, companies that are helping physical grocery retailers are also raking in cash. Stor.AI, which helps grocers deploy online shopping services, and Shelf Engine, which helps grocers with inventory forecasting, both raised significant rounds last month.

Gatik Partners with Isuzu North America to Develop Autonomous Medium Duty Trucks

Gatik, which makes self-driving delivery vehicles for the middle-mile, announced today that it is collaborating with Isuzu North America on a project to develop and evaluate fully autonomous medium-duty trucks.

The first vehicles the two companies will work on will integrate Gatik’s autonomous driving technology into a number of Isuzu’s N-Series trucks. Together the two companies will produce SAE Level 4 delivery vehicles with redundant systems.

Gatik has had a busy 2021 so far. In February, the company announced its electrification plans and debuted its first Electric Autonomous Box Truck built on Ford Transit 350 HDs. Earlier this month, Gatik announced that it received funding from Ontario’s (Canada) Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network to help winterize its self-driving technology. (Driving in inclement weather requires a more sophisticated approach than driving in bright, sunny weather because of poor visibility, changing road conditions, etc.)

Unlike other self-driving startups, Gatik only works on autonomous vehicles for the middle-mile, which is typically between two destinations run by the same business. For example, Gatik trucks would go back and forth between a company’s distribution warehouse and a retail location. Because middle-mile routes are limited, fixed and repeatable, Gatik’s self-driving systems don’t have to deal with as many variables (new streets, different traffic patterns, etc.) as other, consumer-ended autonomous vehicles. This, in turn, helps its vehicles pass muster with regulators and allows Gatik get to market quickly. For instance, Gatik will make one of the Arkansas routes it drives for Walmart fully driverless this year.

In today’s press announcement, Gatik said that the first trucks from its collaboration with Isuzu North America will be deployed this year.

If you want to learn more about the autonomous middle mile, Gatik will be speaking at our upcoming ArticulATE virtual summit! Get your ticket today!