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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Here’s The Spoon’s 2019 Food Robotics Market Map

Today we head to San Francisco for The Spoon’s first-ever food-robotics event. ArticulAte kicks off at 9:05 a.m. sharp at the General Assembly venue in SF, and throughout the daylong event talk will be about all things robots, from the technology itself to business and regulatory issues surrounding it.

When you stop and look around the food industry, whether it’s new restaurants embracing automation or companies changing the way we get our groceries, it’s easy to see why the food robotics market is projected to be a $3.1 billion market by 2025.

But there’s no one way to make a robot, and so to give you a sense of who’s who in this space, and to celebrate the start of ArticulAte, The Spoon’s editors put together this market map of the food robotics landscape.

This is the first edition of this map, which we’ll improve and build upon as the market changes and grows. If you have any suggestions for other companies or see ones we missed you think should be in there, let us know by leaving a comment below or emailing us at tips@thespoon.tech.

Click on the map below to enlarge it.

The Food Robotics Market 2019:

Truebird to Launch Five Robot Micro-Cafes in NYC This Year

When we first wrote about Truebird, the quiet NYC startup building automated micro-cafes, we didn’t have many details about the company or its go-to market strategy. But I had the chance to chat with Truebird Co-Cofounder and CEO Josh Feuerstein this week, who shared with me some more information about Truebird and how his barista ‘bot fit into the competitive robo-coffee landscape.

THE ROBOT
The first thing I asked him about was about the robotic design Truebird chose. Instead of an articulating arm or a series of rails and grippers, Truebird uses magnetic “pucks” that cradle coffee cups to slide them around a glass surface. While soothing to watch, it didn’t seem to be a particularly fast method for a machine meant to sling morning cups of joe to busy people in high-traffic areas.

“We chose them for a variety of reasons,” said Feuerstein, “Chief among them, we think it is a surprisingly warm and approachable and almost magical experience. For us the experience is really important.” He went on to say that while they are designing for an elegant experience the company is “very happy” with the throughput of the machine.

The machines themselves are smaller than competitors like Briggo and Cafe X. They fit through a standard door and don’t require any plumbing, so Truebirds can be installed easily and in a wide variety of locations.

Truebird Micro-cafe

GO-TO MARKET
Truebird is focusing on New York initially, and will deploy five of its micro-cafes throughout the city by the end of this year. While the company is still determining its pricing and business model, it is a B2B play and will partner with high-volume locations like hotels, hospitals, office buildings, etc. The machines will be owned and operated by Truebird, so the company will be responsible for stocking, maintenance and service.

Feuerstein said that at some point, Truebird will probably open a location that is its own dedicated space with “four walls.”

THE COFFEE
Unlike Briggo, Truebird isn’t going so far as to select and roast its own beans (though Feuerstein didn’t rule out that possibility). Instead, the company is working with roasters in the New York area. Truebird doesn’t offer the same variety of drinks as Briggo or Cafe X as it only carries traditional dairy milk and oat milk.

THE COMPANY
Truebird is 100 percent backed by Alleycorp and has 15 employees.

Geographically speaking, there are now three high-profile coffee robot companies across the U.S. Truebird in NYC, Briggo in Austin, TX, and Cafe X in San Francisco. This doesn’t need to be a zero-sum game as there are plenty of locations around the country that could use a coffee robot to caffeinate consumers. Heck, the San Francisco Airport alone is getting two coffee robots this year. The only question remaining is which robot serves up the tastiest lattes.

If you’re interested in the future of coffee and food robots, you should definitely come to our ArticulATE Summit in San Francisco on Tuesday. C-level speakers from both Briggo and Cafe X will be there. But we literally only have a handful of tickets left, so get yours today!

Truebird Bringing its Robot-Barista Coffee to NYC

It’s the stones. They move like magic in Truebird‘s robot barista demo video, gliding across a glass surface to cradle and transport cups of coffee and lattes to waiting customers (go ahead and watch it down below, it’s mesmerizing). We’ve seen our fair share of coffee robots here at The Spoon, and at first glance, Truebird’s appears to be the least robotic.

We can’t tell you much about Truebird because not much has been written and they aren’t giving much information away. But they are a food (well, coffee) robot company, and food robots and automation are poised to drastically change how we buy our daily meals and beverages. So Truebird is a company we’ll keep an eye on, but for now, here’s what we do know:

Truebird creates automated micro-cafes, similar to Briggo and Cafe X. From the company’s Linkedin page:

We are for the busy people who love and appreciate high quality coffee, and are increasingly curious about where it comes from, and the caring hands that touched it. Through our micro-cafes, Truebird is a serene destination that provides a treat in the form of delicious coffee and a more elevated experience – but delivered efficiently, conveniently, and at a fair price for the busy individual on the move.

Truebird piloted its prototype for three months at New Lab in Brooklyn, and the company’s site says “The next Truebird evolution is coming to select NYC locations later this year.”

Truebird is backed by AlleyCorp, a New York based incubator that also backed MongoDB, DoubleClick and Business Insider.

Truebird Micro-cafe

Like Cafe X and Briggo, Truebird isn’t just about the robotics. It’s also focused on quality coffee. The company lists its own coffee program manager as an employee, but how involved in the coffee part of the equation is it? Is it like Briggo, which roasts its own beans, or more like Cafe X which highly curates the coffee it offers?

We reached out to Truebird to find out more, and will update when we hear back.

What is apparent is that each of these robot coffee companies is creating its own form factor and presenting its version of automation to customers in different ways. Cafe X has its articulating arm front and center and theatricality is part of its design. Briggo’s Coffee Haus, on the other hand hides all the complex machinery. If Truebird’s prototype is any indication, its robotics are more subtle (and with the stones perhaps even more artful), but are also meant to be watched in action.

The question is how fast those stones will be able to move. The whole point of a robot-barista is to sling drinks of consistent quality in high-traffic areas, like airports. While the stones are hypnotic, they won’t calm an impatient commuter waiting on their caffeine. Truebird, however, seems to recognize this, as its own copy reads that it’s for the “busy individual on the move.”

Busy individuals who are curious about the future of robot-made coffee should come to our ArticulATE food robot summit happening on April 16 in San Francisco. We’ll have the Founder and CTO of Briggo as well as the COO of Cafe X speaking, so it’s sure to be something you won’t want to miss!

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.

Cafe X Raising $12 Million “Seed-1” Round

Cafe X, the startup that builds robot baristas, is in the process of raising a $12 million “Seed-1” round. Crunchbase News broke the story after coming across regulatory filings which showed that Cafe X has already raised $9.42 million of the new round. Cafe X Founder and CEO Henry Hu later confirmed the news with Crunchbase.

This new round is being led by famed angel investor Jason Calacanis and Craft Ventures. The $9.4 million raised so far brings the total amount raised by Cafe X to $14.5 million. We reached out to the company for any further comment as well as information about what the new funds will be used for, and will update this post when we hear back.

While Cafe X has two dedicated indoor locations in downtown San Francisco, the company recently deployed its second generation barista-bot-in-a-box on a street corner, also in downtown SF. These automated kiosks are meant to serve high-traffic areas where people can grab a (quality) cup of coffee quickly.

Cafe X isn’t alone in the robot coffee space. Austin-based Briggo, which makes the Coffe Haus, just installed its automated coffee kiosk at its latest location, in the Austin Airport. And later this summer, the robotic MontyCafe will be up and running in Russia.

Presumably, Cafe X’s new money will be used to hire out engineering and software teams and help fuel expansion, as this type of money often does. When I talked with Hu earlier this year, he said that while Cafe X has received inbound interest from all over the world for their robot barista, geographic expansion would focus first on the Bay Area.

There might be a different type of expansion possible, however. Craft Ventures also led the Series A investment round in electric scooter sharing startup Bird. Perhaps after riding one to get your afternoon latté from a Cafe X kiosk, you’ll be able to recharge it there (and maybe even earn a Cafe X discount). Or perhaps that’s just a bit of overly corporate synergistic caffeinated strategy that this new funding has me thinking.

Podcast: Designing Products For The Smart Kitchen With Matt Rolandson

What does a robot barista, smart oven and precision heated coffee cup all have in common?

They’re all technology-forward food products that product design firm Ammunition Group had a hand in creating.

I recently caught up with Matt Rolandson, a partner with Ammunition Group, to talk about designing new products for the smart kitchen and the future of food.

We’re kicking off our new season of Smart Kitchen Show, so make sure to subscribe in Apple podcasts and check out past shows here on The Spoon. You can listen to the show below, download it here or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.

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!

Cafe X Debuts 2nd Gen Coffee Robot Kiosk in Downtown San Francisco

Cafe X, the robotic coffeeshop startup, debuted its second generation robot barista kiosk on the streets of downtown San Francisco today.

Unlike other dedicated storefront locations, this new version of the Cafe X robot is a standalone kiosk that sits literally on the sidewalk at the corner of Sansome and Bush in SF’s Financial District. In addition to the updated form factor, the new version of the robot can handle multiple drink sizes (8 oz and 12 oz), clear cups, and also does nitro-infused cold brew coffee.

Similar to Briggo, Cafe X plans to own and operate its machines and place them in commercial buildings, airports and other high-traffic areas to deliver quality coffee via an automated experience. Customers can order drinks with their phone or through a tablet next to the kiosk. Just like the Cafe X stores, the kiosk will always have a human on hand to help people with the ordering process and to educate customers about the coffee choices.

Unlike Briggo, which hides its machinations within its kiosk housing and is more of a high-end machine than a traditional robot, Cafe X proudly displays its articulating robotic arm front and center behind a giant pane of clear glass. “It’s part of the experience,” Cafe X CEO, Henry Hu, told me during a visit to the kiosk today, “We want people to see the robot making the drink, so they don’t feel like they are just at a vending machine.”

As part of that experience, Cafe X has added new gestures to the robot arm, which can now do things like wave at customers after it has finished making their drink.

Hu told me that another reason they use the arm is that it’s more modular, which comes in handy if they want to change the machine. For instance, Cafe X built its own gripper for this generation robot, enabling it to handle the different types of cups and to pull the tap on the cold brew. “If we want to expand the menu or change items seasonally,” said Hu, “we can just swap parts out.”

Hu also said that the company has been fielding licensing interest in the new kiosk from around the world. For the immediate future though, Cafe X will focus on rolling out more standalone kiosks in San Francisco.

I got a hot chocolate with oat milk from the kiosk today and it was pretty delicious. And judging by the number of people who stopped, gawked and smiled as they watched the robot whip up their drinks, the Cafe X show will probably catch on.

The Food Tech 25: Twenty Five Companies Changing the Way We Eat

Here at The Spoon, we spend most days writing and thinking about those who are transforming what we eat. No matter whether a startup, big company, inventor, or a cook working on new approaches in the kitchen, we love learning the stories of people changing the future of food. So much so, in fact, that we wanted to share those companies that most excite us with our readers.

And so here it is, The Spoon’s Food Tech 25: Twenty Five Companies Changing the Way We Eat

What exactly is the Food Tech 25? In short, it’s our list of the twenty five companies we think are doing the most interesting things changing the way we create, buy, store, cook and think about food.

As with any list, there are bound to be a few questions about how we got here and why we chose the companies we did. Here are some answers:

How did we create this list?

The editors of the Spoon — myself, Chris Albrecht, Catherine Lamb and Jenn Marston — got together in a room, poured some kombucha (ed note: except for Chris), and listed all the companies we thought were doing interesting and important work in changing food and cooking. From there, we had numerous calls, face-to-face meetings and more glasses of kombucha until we narrowed the list down to those you see here.

Is this an annual list?

No, this is a list of the companies we think are the most interesting people and companies right now, in mid-2018. Things could definitely look different six months from now.

Is this list in a particular order or are the companies ranked?

No, the list is in no particular order and we did not rank the 25 companies.

Why isn’t company X on the list?

If this was your list, company X or Y would most likely be on the list (and that’s ok with us). But this is the Spoon’s list and we’re sticking to it (for now – see above).

And of course, making this list wasn’t easy. There are lots of companies doing interesting things in this space. If we had enough room to create runners-up or honorable mentions, we would. But we don’t (and you don’t have enough time to read a list like that).

So, without further ado, here is the Spoon’s Food Tech 25. If you’re the type that likes your lists all on one page, click here.


EMBER
Ember bills itself as “the world’s first temperature control mug,” which basically means you can dictate a specific temperature for your brew via the corresponding app and keep your coffee (or tea or whatever) hot for as long as you need to. The significance here isn’t so much about coffee as it is about where else we could implement the technology and relatively simple concept powering the Ember mug. The company currently has patents out on other kinds of heated or cooled dishware, and Ember has cited baby bottles and medicine as two areas in which it might apply its technology. And yes, it allows you to finally stop microwaving all that leftover morning coffee.

 


INSTANT POT
The Instant Pot is not the highest-tech gadget around, but its affordability, versatility, and speed have made this new take on the pressure cooker a countertop cooking phenomenon. It also has a large and fanatical community, where enthusiastic users share and reshare their favorite Instant Pot recipes across Facebook groups and online forums. By becoming the first new breakout appliance category of the millennial generation, the Instant Pot has achieved that highly desirable (and rare) position of having its brand synonymous with the name of the category; people don’t go looking for pressure cookers, they go looking for an Instant Pot.

 


DELIVEROO
We chose Deliveroo out of the myriad of food delivery services because of their Editions project, which uses customer data to curate restaurant hubs in areas which have unfulfilled demands for certain chain establishments or cuisine types. This model allows food establishments to set up locations with zero start-up costs, and also gives customers in more restaurant-dry areas a wide variety of delivery food options. Essentially, it’s cloud kitchens meets a food hall, with some heavy analysis to help determine which restaurants or cuisines customers want, and where. These “Rooboxes” (hubs of shipping containers in which the food is prepared) show that Deliveroo is a pioneer in the dark kitchen space, and are doing serious work to shake up the food delivery market.

 

AMAZON GO
There are any number of ways that Amazon could have been included in this list, but its Amazon Go stores are what we think will be the real game changer. The cashierless corner store uses a high-tech combination of cameras and computing power, allowing you to walk in grab what you want — and leave. That’s it. At its first location in Seattle, we were struck by how seamless the experience was. As the locations broaden, this type of quick convenience has the potential to change the way we shop for snacks, (some) groceries and even prepared meal kits.

 


INGEST.AI
Restaurants have more pieces of software to deal with than ever. In addition to all the delivery platforms they are now plugged into, there have to deal with payments systems, HR software, and inventory management software. And right now, none of those applications talk to each other. Created by a former IBM Watson engineer, Ingest.ai promises to extract and connect the data from ALL of those disparate software pieces and tie them together to give restaurant owners a holistic, data-powered view of their business. It also helps them have more precise control over their business and automate tasks like food ordering and staff scheduling.

Want to meet the innovators from the FoodTech 25? Make sure to connect with them at North America’s leading foodtech summit, SKS 2019, on Oct 7-8th in Seattle.

NEXT

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.

6d Bytes Debuts New Smoothie Making Robot

Stealthy startup 6d bytes came out of hiding yesterday to debut Blendid, a fully autonomous, smoothie-making robot station. Using a combination of machine learning, machine vision and robotics, Blendid promises to deliver customizable and consistently tasting smoothies to consumers whenever they want.

Blendid is an all-in-one robotic installation that can be set up on-site in food service operations. Inside the kiosk, the robot system blends, pours and serves up smoothies. No humans are needed, except for the site operator to manage inventory and address any issues that my arise.

Customers can use a mobile app or Blendid tablets to order from a menu of drinks including Blueberry Cacao, Mango Mint and Green Warrior, with smoothies costing between $4 and $5 for a 12-ounce drink. The robot whips it together and slides it over in under two minutes.

While the wow factor for patrons might be watching the robot arm swing back and forth with precision (see video below), there is actually a lot of impressive artificial intelligence going on in the background to orchestrate the whole operation.

Blendid Station Working

Through extensive use of machine learning, Blendid tracks the amount of each ingredient in each drink. So, for example, one drink might include only 40 grams of bananas instead of 45. The user can provide feedback on their purchase, and if they happen to like the one with slightly less banana, Blendid will remember this and adjust the drink accordingly next time.

Blendid also aggregates all the data from all of its users to help make recommendations. When someone goes to order a drink the system will say “Welcome back, Would you like the usual? Or, given your taste, you might like this other drink.”

There is also a lot of machine vision going on. Every item is coded, but should someone accidentally put spinach in the blueberry bin, Blendid will “see” the difference, know that blueberries are not spinach, and adjust accordingly, understanding the new location of the spinach.

Blendid also has the capacity to self configure and self-calibrate. Basically, every component that goes into Blendid is a standalone smart IoT (internet of things) device. If an ingredient runs out, it will take that item off the menu; if a part fails, Blendid identifies what went wrong and alerts the operator. Operators can also get a live, steady stream of analytics from the machine, detailing what ingredients are being used, if any ingredients are low, how many drinks is it serving, etc.

Sadly, for smoothie connoisseurs such as myself, Blendid won’t be serving me up strawberry banana protein blasts from the comfort of my home. Each machine costs around $70,000 and is meant for large food service operations like school and corporate cafeterias, supermarkets and stadiums. Once set up, Blendid can work all day without breaks, and 6d bytes co-founder and CEO, Vipin Jain, says operators can earn their money back after just nine months.

6d bytes has been developing Blendid discreetly for the past three years. The company is based in Sunnyvale, CA, has 15 employees, and Jain says it has raised “a little less than” $4 million in venture funding. The first Blendid is now operational at the Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale California. (if you’re down there, do a taste test and let us know about it!)

Smoothies are just the start for 6d bytes. According Jain, the company’s robotic platform can be adapted to serve up hot and cold solid food. Jain is a big believer that food service and fast casual need to change and has big plans for his company

“The whole on-the-go food space has to go through a transition for better consumer experience and operator economics,” said Jain. “There are 80,000 food service locations where Blendid can go. It’s a big addressable market. Our intent is to go after these locations.”

Perhaps as it goes after them, Blendid can hook up with Cafe X and Flippy to deliver a full-on robot army to get customers through breakfast, mid-morning coffee and lunch.