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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Briggo

ArticulATE Q&A: Briggo’s Coffee Haus has Served 470,000 Cups of Robot-Made Drinks

Look in any coffee shop in any city in America (or perhaps even the world) in the morning and chances are you’ll see people lined up to get their first cup of joe. Pretty soon, however, those people could be lined up in front of a robot that automatically and tirelessly slings custom-made lattes 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Austin-based Briggo is one such company making always-open robo-baristas a reality. The company’s Coffee Haus is an automated high-tech vending machine designed to serve up morning (and afternoon, and evening, and middle of the night) fixes in high-volume areas like corporate campuses and airports.

But Briggo is more than a robotics company: it’s actually a full-stack coffee company, which also sources and roasts its own beans. This farm-to-cup approach to automated coffee was just one of the reasons we wanted to invite Chas Studor, Founder and CTO of Briggo, to speak at our upcoming ArticulATE food robot conference in San Francisco on April 16th (get your tickets today!).

But before he sits down at our show, Studor sat down for an emailed Q&A to tell us a little bit more about Briggo, the whole coffee process and why flight attendants love the Coffee Haus.

THE SPOON: What makes robots a good fit for coffee?

STUDOR: Precision and consistency are essential throughout the coffee supply chain. Some of the best coffees are already processed in highly automated dry mills in origin, and we employ sophisticated automation at the roaster. So why not create automated precision at the final step when the coffee is made.

You also create your own coffee, why did you decide to take this full stack approach.

For the best results, the ingredients and process must be designed in concert. Working with our importer and roaster partner, I spent months developing the Briggo Blend simultaneously with complementary extraction parameters. I could vary the roast level and proportion of the various origins and I would modify dosing, pre-infusion levels, temperatures and several other variables to maximize the intent of each flavor component as revealed through cuppings.

I started the company with the intent of applying emerging technology in a way that could create opportunities from farm to cup. By employing a “direct sourcing” approach, we understand how each step in the supply chain adds value, and then we apply our technology to get the most out of those beans.

In the end, we use technology to reduce waste and inconsistencies in the process, which in turn supports our partners at origin and delivers an amazing customer experience.

You recently launched at the Austin Airport, what makes airports a good fit for Briggo?

There are few other locations where speed, quality, and on-demand services are at such a premium. Being a completely automated solution, we can serve customers long after other shops close and long before they open. As you can imagine, some of our greatest advocates are the TSA agents, flight crews, and road warriors who have early schedules and limited time for coffee lines. Next time you visit the Austin Airport (or SFO later this spring), try using our Briggo app to order as you pass through security, swing past the Coffee Haus to pick up your beverage, and be on your way in minutes. Just like other venues, quality and convenience is often a trade-off, not so much at Briggo!

What kind of stats can you share about your customers? What are they buying, how often, does location impact what people purchase?

  • ~90k customers & 470k drinks served to date
  • 40% of our registered customers have bought 10 or more drinks and earned their first free loyalty beverage, taking just over 3 months to get there
  • 46% of our corporate customers have tried 3 or more unique menu items
  • 5 of our most loyal customers have purchased more than 1,000 drinks all time
  • 54% of all drinks are customized with either added flavors, dairy types, shots, sweeteners, strength, or even drink temperature

What is your favorite robot from fiction?

Rosie from the Jetson’s. I always liked her sarcasm, and we often get the “Jetson’s delivered” comment.

Cafe X and Briggo Bringing Robot Baristas to San Francisco Airport

Cafe X posted a teaser image to Instagram today, telling the world that its robot barista will be coming to the San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

The news itself isn’t that surprising. Cafe X is based in the Bay Area and already has three robo-barista locations up and running in downtown San Francisco. The company has told us before that high-traffic areas like airports are high on its list of target locations.

But it seems like there may be a robot barista battle, err, brewing at SFO. According to The Houston Chronicle, Austin, TX-based Briggo will be setting up its robotic Coffee Haus at SFO as well. The San Francisco Business Journal reported back in November that the SFO Airport Commission was on a fast track to approve a test run with Briggo when Cafe X raised its hand during a Nov. 6, 2018 planning meeting. The Business Journal writes:

“We are striving to be a very, very responsible employer in San Francisco bringing trade jobs back to the city,” Cynthia Yeung, COO of Cafe X, told the SFO commissioners at the Nov. 6 meeting. “And I want to understand why, with so little transparency, this trial program was awarded to a Texas based company?”

Evidently, this was enough to sway the commission, and Cafe X is cleared to land at SFO.

Places like airports are perfect for robot baristas, which can run all day, slinging up lattes when other locations are closed (and the robots won’t misspell your name). Briggo‘s coffee robot is already installed at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, and it’s not hard to see why Cafe X wanted to protect its home turf.

According to The Chronicle, SFO cafes and coffee houses do $50 million a year in sales. Both robo-baristas will be installed after security in the airport in Terminal 3. Briggo will open around Memorial Day and Cafe X will launch over Labor Day.

We’ve reached out to both companies.

While both Briggo and Cafe X make robots, each is taking a very different approach. Briggo’s is more of a high-end vending machine with all the automation enclosed, and the company also roasts its own coffee. Cafe X, other other hand, puts its articulating front and center to add some theatricality to its coffee making, and curates coffee from outside roasters.

Lucky for us, we have Cynthia Yeung, COO of Cafe X and Chas Studor, Founder and CTO of Briggo speaking at our ArticulATE food robot conference happening in San Francisco on April 16 (tickets are limited, get yours now!). It’s just too bad I won’t be able to grab a robo-latte when I arrive.

Meet MontyCafe, Russia’s Robot Barista

The robot revolution is heading to Russia, courtesy of MontyCafe, a self-contained, robotic barista is opening in Moscow this summer.

MontyCafe is a lot like the Cafe X coffee robot, which recently debuted on the streets of San Francisco. It’s an enclosed kiosk roughly five feet in diameter with two articulating arms that swing about to automatically serve up cups of coffee or other beverages.

You can see MontyCafe in action in this video:

MontyCafe: first robotic cafe franchise

The MontyCafe was spun out of industrial robot company GBL Robotics. I spoke with Pavel Zhdanov, who heads up Business Development for GBL, and the way he described MontyCafe, it seemed like it was more about the robot than the coffee.

In fact, you could better describe MontyCafe as more of an open robotic platform. Zhdanov outlined MontyCafe scenarios that included food like muffins and hot dogs, and the company is even exploring the robot dispensing soft serve ice cream. This is the advantage of using robotic arms. Unlike a Briggo, which is more of a self-contained, high-end vending machine, parts on MontyCafe’s robotic arms can be swapped out to lift, hold and serve just about anything you program them to.

Zhdanov said that a MontyCafe costs $20,000 and that the company is still working on an exact business model, though he mentioned franchises and revenue share as likely possibilities. The first one will go live in Moscow’s Aviapark mall this summer. Zhdanov said the company is already fielding incoming interest from potential customers in Kuwait and Australia.

MontyCafe’s technology may not be groundbreaking, and it could even be considered lagging (it’s not plumbed directly into water lines and humans still need to clean it every night). But it does highlight how robots are poised to radically change the way we buy coffee and other consumables around the world. As mentioned earlier, Cafe X is already in two locations in San Francisco, and Briggo will launch in the Austin, TX airport next week.

The plan for all these companies is the same: use robots to make coffee in high-traffic areas. They are meant for volume production, when people want to grab a cup of coffee on the go quickly. The one disadvantage I see for MontyCafe is that the quality of the coffee being dispensed could vary from location to location. Both Briggo and Cafe X have good coffee as part of their core mission. I didn’t get that sense from Zhdanov, and if customers get weak or otherwise bad coffee from MontyCafe, they probably won’t try it again because unlike having different baristas, there is only one robot making things the exact same way every time. Though the MontyCafe’s versatility to dispense anything could help the overall business make up for any specific coffee deficiencies.

All of this coffee robot news had The Spoon founder, Mike Wolf, pondering if and when Starbucks will get into the robot barista business. Robots seem like the perfect way for Starbucks to deliver a consistent, quality, coffee experience at scale, and they are already in so many high-traffic areas, it makes sense for at least some of their locations.

Starbucks is undoubtedly exploring the idea and watching to see how people react to Cafe X and Briggo and now probably MontyCafe. If Starbucks buys into robot baristas, the robot coffee revolution won’t just be in America and Russia, it will be everywhere.

Our Robot Coffee Future is Nigh: Briggo Barista Taking Off at Austin Airport

Austin, TX will get a little more hip (as if that were possible) next week as Briggo’s robotic Coffee Haus will land at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on July 17th. Briggo says it will be the first robot coffee maker in a U.S. airport, but more importantly it’s another sign that robot baristas are on their way into the mainstream.

We profiled Briggo earlier this year and chatted with them for our Automat podcast. The Austin-based company not only builds 40 square foot craft coffee dispensing kiosks, it also selects and roasts its own specialty coffee specifically for its machines.

Briggo’s plans for the Austin airport have been public for a while, but the imminent launch of the barista bot is most interesting because it comes on the heels of Cafe X’s recent deployment of its own robot barista-in-a-box on the streets of San Francisco. Both companies are looking to create turnkey craft coffee solutions for high-traffic areas such as office buildings, campuses and airports.

Both Briggo and Cafe X will own and operate their machines. In the case of Cafe X, they still want to have a human on site with each robot to help guide people and curate their coffee experience. Briggo’s approach is more hands off, using humans only for re-stocking and required maintenance.

Though Briggo and Cafe X currently only have plans to grow in their specific areas — Texas and the Bay Area, respectively — each company says they have been fielding interest from around the world. And it’s not hard to see why. Coffee baristas like these are not your grandfather’s watered-down coffee vending machine. They both craft high-end coffee drinks, do so without taking a break or calling in sick, and are built to handle high volumes of people.

When I spoke with Briggo Co-Founder and CTO, Chas Studor this year, he was insistent that Briggo is not out to kill the café or replace every barista. He believes that for times when you just want to grab a cup of coffee quickly (like at the airport), robots are better suited for the task — and if you can build a robot that creates a good latté (or cappuccino or mocha…), people will raise their coffee expectations and visit people-powered high-end coffee shops more.

We’ll have to wait and see if that logic takes off, but starting next week, any hipsters traveling between Austin and San Francisco should sample both robot-made drinks and tell us what they think!

Podcast: How Briggo Built its Robot Barista

Each week The Spoon: Automat podcast dives into the world of food-related robots and AI, and in this episode we get all frothy about coffee robots! The guest is Chas Studor, Founder and CTO of Briggo, maker of the Coffee Haus barista-in-a-box.

Studor insists Briggo is, first and foremost, a coffee company — and it’s looking for the best way to deliver a convenient, consistent cup o’ joe any time of day or night. To do that he’s brought on experts in both coffee and robotics to build a 40-foot specialty coffee machine that can be installed in office parks, airports and other retail locations.

We’ve written about Briggo before, and you can find them in a handful of locations in Texas. In our chat Studor discusses:

  • The decision to be a full-stack coffee company, sourcing and roasting its beans, and providing its own employees for maintenance.
  • The challenges of building a machine that can measure, dispense and move a cup of hot liquid around at four to five feet per second, without spilling it.
  • How its robot has perfected its foaming technique — even for alternative milks.
  • The end of misspelled names on coffee cups.

You can listen here, or subscribe to our feed in iTunes.

Briggo Says Its Robot Barista Won’t Replace Coffee Shops

At first, your local coffee shop may fear Briggo, the company that has been building robot baristas for a decade now. But Briggo co-founder and CTO Chas Studor believes that his autonomous coffee making machines will actually make existing coffee shops better.

Briggo builds the fully autonomous robotic “Coffee Haus,” which takes up just 40 sq. feet. It’s meant to go in locations high-traffic areas such as corporate campuses, factories or airports. The company has four machines in use now across Austin with another one set to go up in the Austin airport.

Customers use an on-screen menu or the accompanying app to order, customize and pay for their drinks. Drinks can be pre-ordered through the app and once made, Coffee Haus will hold each drink in its own locked area and text you a code. When you arrive, type in the code and the drink is released.

The company is on its third generation machine. Each Coffee Haus can make up to 100 drinks per hour, hold 16 drinks at a time for customers, and can dispense 800 drinks before it needs to be re-stocked. It self-cleans and sanitizes and most of its bits are connected to the Internet, so it can pinpoint where something breaks down, and constantly sends data about grinds, pours, weights and brews back to headquarters.

But Briggo actually does more than build and deploy robots: the company controls its own full-stack solution. It has an internal team of hardware and software engineers building out its platform. It sources and roasts its own beans, and has crafted its own customized blend with the help of Scott McMartin, who used to do procurement for Starbucks. When a machine needs to be replenished or serviced, a Briggo employee goes out and does it.

Drinks are certainly a popular vocation choice for robots. In addition to Briggo, Cafe X has debuted its own barista-in-a-box, while companies like 6d bytes and Alberts are building smoothie-making robots. Drinks are a good use case for robots because people want them on the go and while there is room for improvisation, drink recipes are generally consistent (a doppio is a doppio).

Based in Austin, TX, Briggo has 40 employees and raised $12 million in a Series A round. The company partners with large food service management companies and installs the machines in campuses and cafeterias. Briggo will expand to Houston and Dallas next, before it ventures outside of Texas.

I spoke with Studor at the Specialty Coffee Expo here in Seattle. While he wants Briggo to make excellent coffee, he also wants to help change the coffee industry. Briggo can help reduce waste, he says, by creating coffee on demand, and not in large batches that get thrown out because they’ve sat out too long, and also reduce the use of items like milk and sugar because they are precisely dispensed in his machine.

Studor is adamant that Briggo won’t replace coffee shops. He believes people will still want the social interaction and experience that comes with them. What he hopes Briggo will do will help make those coffee shop experiences better. Because Briggo is built for high-traffic areas, coffee shops can focus on their own business to create the best human-powered coffee shop experience.