One of the defining characteristics of early successful food robots has been focus.
Whether it’s the Flippy burger-flipping robot, Bear’s front-of-house robotic waiters, or the Autocado avocado-coring and processing robot, the ability of these focused-task robots to automate one or two core functions hyper-efficiently has been a – if not the – key ingredient for success that has set these machines apart from their less successful peers.
But as the world of AI and robotics increasingly talks up humanoids as ready for primetime, are multi-function robots that more closely resemble humans – both in appearance and in their seemingly unending ability to tackle different kinds of tasks – set to take the baton as the next big thing in food robots?
If you ask Yuji Shiraki, the CEO of one of Japan’s fastest-growing tech startups and a darling of the food robotics world, the answer is a cautious yes.
The idea to build a food robot first came to Shiraki during a visit with his grandmother. Over 90 years old, Shirak’s grandmother could not cook for herself, and so he started to think about how a home cooking robot might help her. However, he soon realized that Japanese kitchens were too small to build the type of robot he envisioned, and he started thinking about building robots for restaurants.
I first met Shiraki in 2022 at his roboticized pasta restaurant in Tokyo, E Vino Spaghetti, located across from Tokyo Station. Inside, its P-Robo robot boiled pasta, heated sauces, plated dishes, and even handled cleanup, all in just over a minute.
After the pasta restaurant, TechMagic built Oh My Dot, a ramen restaurant in Shibuya, where a robotic system prepared noodles using modular flavor packs. In both cases, the goal was to test the products with real customers while showcasing the company’s robotics to potential partners.
And the partners came. The company began working with KFC Japan, Nissin Foods (the company behind Cup Noodles), and most recently announced a partnership with Lawson.
One of the key reasons for the company’s early success was that its robots were highly tailored to specific tasks like preparing pasta, ramen, or bowl food. But now, as TechMagic and Shiraki look to the future, they see a path forward built around robots that are, like humans, much more adaptable and multi-functional.
The company outlined some of those functions in a recent announcement, saying they envision humanoids expanding human “hands” and “judgment.” Specific functions include automating repetitive tasks such as serving, sorting, and transporting food in restaurants and factories; flexible food preparation that uses AI-driven “hand technology” to perform complex cooking tasks; and customer interaction, where humanoids would optimize service and store operations using emotion and behavior recognition.
Shiraki offered clues to his bigger vision for TechMagic’s humanoid plans in a post on Facebook:
“When we began developing cooking robots in 2018, many said the ‘chances of success were slim.’ Yet today, we’ve grown to the point of competing for the top global share of operating units. The hurdles for humanoid robots may be just as high, but in the long term, we believe this is an extremely rational strategy. And beyond that, the development of humanoid robots is full of dreams and romance.”
Part of Shiraki’s motivation is to help position Japan as a leader in developing humanoid robots.
“While China and the U.S. are leading the way, we intend to contribute to labor-strapped industries with a Japan-born humanoid robot and expand globally.”
He says the company is hiring and looking for partners. One of the first steps is working with existing humanoid robots such as those from Unitree in the TechMagic development lab. Shiraki even showed off a video of the Unitree robot on Facebook.
Shiraki told me they are eyeing around a three-year time horizon to develop their first humanoid for the food business and that the company is now busy raising its next funding round to help fund the development.
“TechMagic is taking the technology it has cultivated in cooking and service robots to the next level, fusing it with humanoid robotics to create a new ‘future of food’,” said Shiraki. “We aim to build a social infrastructure that frees people from boring, harsh, and dangerous tasks, enabling them to live more creatively.”
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