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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Crown Coffee

See (Through) LG’s Transparent OLED Display on Crown Coffee’s Robotic Kiosk

When it comes to robot baristas, the robot itself usually takes center stage. I mean, those articulating arms are doing the actual work of making a latte. But with Crown Coffee’s Ella robot coffee kiosk, the wall in front of the robot is just as cool because it is actually a transparent display.

The transparent OLED display is made by LG, and shows off full motion video and graphics. But because of the transparent nature of the display, you can also see through the video action to watch the robot concocting your drink.

We actually covered Ella and its transparent display last year, but this week, LG Information Display Singapore posted a (promotional) video to LinkedIn giving us a better, more polished look at the technology.

Aside from being cool, it’s easy to see how this type of display could help robot baristas generate additional revenue. The colorful displays will undoubtedly attract eyeballs and could run sales for particular drinks and snacks, upsell items after you place an order, or even run third-party advertisements, without impacting how the actual robot operates.

While robots are very cool, they still have yet to fully prove themselves in the marketplace. Cafe X shut down all of its robot baristas last year (though the airport locations are starting to open back up), and Briggo was quietly sold to Costa Coffee with no fanfare or indication of what the sale price was. That’s typically not a good sign.

I still think there’s a bright future for robotic kiosks (we’re actually hosting a full day virtual summit to discuss food automation — you should join us!), especially in high-traffic areas like airports and malls where people want drinks quickly. Robots can churn out consistent drinks all day and night, and they are also contactless, which will most likely remain important even as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes.

The transparent displays make even more sense for co-branded robotic kiosks. It’s not hard to imagine how a Starbucks branded robot would take advantage of this technology to run a steady stream of ads and promotions.

Right now, the only place to see Ella’s transparent display in action is at its installation in Singapore. As it rolls out more locations, Crown Coffee plans to have a mix of owned and operated machines as well as licensed kiosks. As more robots come online, it’s apparent how cool the transparent display will be.

The Great Vending Reinvention: The Spoon’s Smart Vending Machine Market Report

Thanks to advances in hardware, the internet of things, and food preparation, vending machines today are basically restaurants in a box. They offer high-end cuisine in minutes, require minimal setup time, and have the on-board computing smarts to manage inventory and communicate any issues that arise.

With these capabilities, it’s no wonder the vending machine category was valued at more than $30 billion in 2018, according to Grandview Research, and was anticipated to have a CAGR of 9.4 percent from 2019 through 2025.

Had this report been written even just a few months ago, the main takeaway would have been that vending machines are perfect for high-traffic areas that operate around the clock: airports, corporate offices, college dorms, and hospitals.

But we’re living in a world continuously being shaped and reshaped by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Right now, some form of shelter-in-place orders blanket most of the U.S. Global air travel volume has plummeted, so airports are not busy. Non-essential businesses are closed and people are working from home, not office buildings. And colleges may not hold in-person classes until 2021.

While on the surface, those factors suggest vending machine companies will be yet-another sector wiped out by coronavirus, there has actually never been a better time for the automated vending machine industry. The small footprint and high-end food these devices offer are perhaps more important than ever at a time when minimizing human-to-human contact in foodservice is paramount to doing business. That makes the vending machine market uniquely positioned to capitalize on a post-pandemic world.

This report will define what the automated vending machine space is, list the major players, and present the challenges and opportunities for the market going forward.

Companies profiled in this report include Alberts, API Tech/Smart Pizza, Basil Street, Blendid, Briggo, Byte Technology, Cafe X, Chowbotics, Crown Coffee, Farmer’s Fridge, Fresh Bowl, Le Bread Xpress, Macco Robotics, TrueBird, and Yo-Kai Express.

This research report is exclusive for Spoon Plus members. You can learn more about Spoon Plus here.

With Ella, Crown Coffee is Transparent About its Robot Barista Ambitions

I know I should probably be more focused on the robot part of Crown Coffee’s “Ella.” Ella is, after all, a robot barista. But watching a video of Ella in action that the company posted to Linkedin, I can’t stop staring at the machine’s screen. It’s transparent but still displays messages about orders. The words just float in front of the articulating arm that swirls around making coffee.

That transparent OLED screen is made by LG, but as Crown Digital IO Founder and CEO Keith Tan told me by phone this week “It was just a prototype. LG wasn’t even selling them.” Somehow, Tan convinced LG to give him a pre-production version of the display, to which Crown added touch capabilities.

Based in Singapore, Crown Coffee started off in 2016 as a regular chain of human-powered cafes before Tan got the idea to add robotics into the service mix last year. Ella comes in three different sizes and can serve a variety of coffee, tea and iced drinks. It also makes up to 200 coffees per hour. Drinks can be ordered and paid for via touchscreen on the machine or with a mobile app.

So far, Ella has just one installation in Singapore and has made a number of appearances serving coffee at large events.

Ella joins the ranks of other robot baristas around the world including Briggo, Cafe X, TrueBird, MontyCafe, Rozum Cafe and Fibbee. They all offer the same basic value proposition: good coffee served quickly in high-traffic areas. But in the age of COVID-19, Ella, and all of the robot baristas also offer something more appealing than a faster latte. They offer a contactless way to get your morning joe.

Robots, as I’ve been repeating for the past couple of months, don’t get sick. In an age of social distancing and facemasks, that lack of human touch could be appealing to a global population that has watched a viral outbreak sicken and take so many lives.

Crown Coffee is currently bootstrapped, and the company plans to both own and operate its machines as well as lease them out with a rev-share to outside locations. Like other robot barista companies, Crown Coffee is targeting high-volume areas like airports and train stations.

Unlike a lot of its competitors, Tan says that coffee is just the beginning. “All this groundwork will evolve Ella into other use cases like food,” Tan said. “The lowest hanging fruit is coffee, tea and soft serve.”

While there is a lot of competition in the robo-barista world, it’s still pretty spread out around the world. Given the small footprint of each of these machines, and how many people love their java, the automated coffee space doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.

In the meantime, I’ll be watching out for Ella, and then watching that screen.

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post inaccurately stated that LG added the touch capabilities to the screen. This technology was added by Crown. We regret the error.