Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Dishcraft

Dishcraft Launches Serve it Safe Reusable Takeout Containers as a Service

Dishcraft, the automated dishwashing as a service startup, announced today the launch of its reusable takeout container program, Serve it Safe. The new service aims to help restaurants reduce waste by serving takeout meals in sanitized, reusable containers.

Dishcraft first announced its reusable takeout container service just under a year ago. The company developed the Serve it Safe containers in collaboration with environmental nonprofit UPSTREAM. The first Serve it Safe containers will be available at Tootsie’s at the Stanford Barn in Palo Alto, California in a pilot program that will run for four weeks beginning today.

Tootsie’s will place takeout orders in the new reusable containers. When diners are finished, they can drop off the empty container in one of the Dishcraft collection bins located at or near the restaurant. Dishcraft then picks up the containers daily for cleaning and sanitizing before bringing them back to the restaurant the next day.

The reusable container service is similar to Dishcraft’s initial line of business, which is dishes as a service. Prior to the pandemic, Dishcraft was working with restaurants and cafeterias to collect, clean and return dishes on a daily basis. Dishcraft built a robot that used computer vision to automate the dishwashing process.

But then the pandemic hit and restaurants closed their dine-in operations, shifting towards delivery and takeout options. This helped the restaurant generate much needed revenue and stay in business, but definitely came at an environmental cost as single-use containers were used to package food.

It also meant Dishcraft didn’t have restaurant dishes to wash. So as startups do, the company pivoted and began developing its reusable container program. Dishcraft says the cost of its reusable containers includes daily service and is similar to what restaurants pay for disposable containers.

This is obviously a limited pilot program, but hopefully it can begin to answer some issues that immediately come to mind. Cost and ease will be paramount to both restaurants and consumers. For restaurants, the price of the containers can’t eat too much into their already-thin margins, and the containers will need to be readily available. For consumers, the process of returning the containers will need to be dead simple. No one really wants to carry around dirty dishes in their bags or backpacks when throwing out old containers is so much easier.

There is reason for optimism, however. Restaurants are already signaling their willingness to break up with single-use plastics and consumers are more aware of our plastic crisis than ever before. Perhaps Serve it Safe is actually serving itself up at just the right time.

Dishcraft Raises $20M, Adds Reuseable Takeout Container Cleaning as a Service

Dishcraft Robotics, which uses robots and AI to automate dish cleaning for high-volume eating establishments, announced today that it has raised a $20 million “Series A1” round of funding. The round was led by new investor Grit Ventures with participation from existing investors First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, Fuel Capital, and Lemnos. Dishcraft has raised $46 million in total funding to date.

When we last checked in with Dishcraft in January of this year, the company had just publicly come out with Dishcraft Daily, which is basically dishes as a service for foodservice locations like cafeterias. As we wrote back in January:

Each day, Dishcraft arrives at the end of lunch service, picks up all the dirty dishes that have been stacked into special carts, and drops off clean ones. Dirty dishes are taken back to the Dishcraft facility and loaded into the cleaning robot.

The Dishcraft robot uses computer vision, sensors, UV light and AI to detect the cleanliness of each dish as it goes through the machine. This technology, Dishcraft says, makes for cleaner plates because the machine can detect (and clean) any particles remaining that the human eye can’t.

However, the global pandemic hit shortly after the launch of Dishcraft Daily, forcing foodservice operations like corporate and college cafeterias to shut down. But rather than twiddle its thumbs to wait this whole thing out, Dischcraft adapted.

As part of today’s announcement, Dishcraft said it will use the new money to expand its daily dish delivery to now include reusable to-go containers and utensils. The reusable container program had been on the company’s roadmap, but was accelerated because takeout became the main, if only way, for foodservice companies to get meals out. But as anyone who’s ordered meal delivery during this global lockdown knows, restaurant food is packed in single-use plastic containers. That might help people eat right now, but those containers are definitely bad for the environment in the long term.

According to the press release, the reusable containers will allow cafeterias, caterers and restaurants “to offer diners individually portioned takeaway meals in reusable containers that meet health guidelines for sanitization and hygiene.” The program will start with corporate cafeterias and cafes, with to-go container return bins set up around the office. Those full bins will then be collected by Dishcraft to be sanitized every day. It’s easy to see how this could expand to colleges with bins placed around campus.

Dishcraft hasn’t fully worked out how it would integrate its to-go container program into restaurant operations, but Linda Pouliot, Founder and CEO of Dishcraft told me by phone this week that some options could be working with cities to set up designated collection areas, or even possibly Dishcraft creating its own curbside pickup service.

Restaurants and other foodservice companies are only just now coming out of quarantine and only in certain parts of the country. There are still lots of questions about exactly how they will re-open and what that will look like. One thing we do know from a recent Washington State University study is that consumers are nervous about going right back into restaurants and as my colleague Jenn Marston wrote:

Consumers surveyed for the report said that sanitation efforts like masks for servers, hand sanitizer stations, and other visible efforts, like seeing staff clean tables and chairs, will be the most important safety precautions.

Dishcraft’s sanitization service could then be attractive to restaurants looking to entice people back into their businesses. “We have such a closed system,” Pouliot said, “Our goal is that no human hand touches the dishes before it gets to the diner or plated.”

Dishcraft is available in the Bay Area, and currently counts Affirm and foodservice company Guckenheimer among its customers. Dishcraft said that it will expand the size of its dishwashing hub in San Carlos, CA.

Dishcraft Publicly Rolls Out Dishes as a Service to the Bay Area

Since Dishcraft Robotics, the robot dishwashing startup, came out of stealth last year, we’ve known that its business model would be dishes as a service. In a Linkedin post yesterday, Dishcraft Founder and CEO, Linda Pouliot talked publicly for the first time about the roll of that service, dubbed Dishcraft Daily.

Dishcraft Daily quietly launched in September of last year and is currently being used by a number of unnamed corporate campuses, cafeterias and other high-volume eating venues. Each day, Dishcraft arrives at the end of lunch service, picks up all the dirty dishes that have been stacked into special carts, and drops off clean ones. Dirty dishes are taken back to the Dishcraft facility and loaded into the cleaning robot.

As we wrote last year at the time of the company’s launch:

[Dishcraft’s robot] grabs each dish individually and inserts it into a rotating wheel. The wheel spins the dirty plate face down and into position where it’s sprayed with water and scrubbed clean in seconds. The scrubbed plate is then rotated again where cameras and computer vision software inspect it for any debris left on the plate before exiting the machine into a dishrack or going back in for another scrub.

Once outside the robot, dishes are sent to be sanitized and stacked to be shipped back out the next day.

I spoke with Pouliot by phone this week and she said since the company’s launch last year, its robot is now faster and has improved the AI function that detects dirt and other matter that might linger on the dishes. The company is opening up a new facility next month that will be able to handle dishes from up to 50,000 diners a day.

When writing about robots and automation, there is always the question of the human cost. Dishcraft’s robot is automating a job that is not only done by a person but also serves as a good entry-level job that doesn’t require a high degree of specialization.

However, restaurants are currently facing a labor shortage, with turnover as high as 150 percent. Restaurants are also grappling with increased pressure from the current administration that is cracking down on undocumented workers, a labor pool restaurants rely on.

While Pouliot wouldn’t provide specific pricing, she said that Dishcraft Daily is comparable to existing dishwashing solutions currently available to dining operators. Additionally, Pouliot claims that the Dishcraft robot’s computer vision and AI are more accurate and impartial (i.e., what constitutes “clean”) than a human to create consistently cleaner dishes.

In her post, Pouliot also said that Dishcraft can help companies with zero-waste initiatives. A corporate office feeding employees probably doesn’t have dishwashing facilities or a place to store hundreds of plates on-site. Rather than setting out single-use plates (even compostable ones may have forever chemicals in them), companies can offer reusable, clean plates.

Right now, Dishcraft is only servicing customers between San Francisco and San Jose. We’ll have to see if the land that brought us software as a service will embrace dishes as a service.

Dishcraft Comes Out of Stealth, Shows Off its New Robot Dishwasher and Dishes as a Service

We knew Dishcraft was working on a dishwashing robot, but until today, we didn’t know what it would look like. The company publicly unveiled its robot and I’ll be honest, it’s not what I was expecting.

Meant for high-volume eateries like cafeterias, there are two parts to the Dishcraft system. First, dirty dishes are dropped off and stacked vertically on a special cart. Once full, a human wheels the cart into the machine, which grabs each dish individually and inserts it into a rotating wheel. The wheel spins the dirty plate face down and into position where it’s sprayed with water and scrubbed clean in seconds. The scrubbed plate is then rotated again where cameras and computer vision software inspect it for any debris left on the plate before exiting the machine into a dishrack or going back in for another scrub. Check out this video of it in action:

Dishcraft Dishwashing Robot in Action

There are some things to note about the Dischraft system. First, it only does dishware — not glasses or silverware. Those are still done by traditional dishwashing machines. Dishcraft also doesn’t sanitize the dishes, that is done by existing machines in a cafeteria or restaurant.

But because Dishcraft is only scrubbing the dishes, it only uses cold water and the brush to clean. The water acts as a lubricant for the brush to get all the gunk off. The machine doesn’t use any chemicals and the water can be recycled. By focusing solely on the cleaning of dishes, Dishcraft says it can provide a faster, more consistent cleaning experience with better ergonomics and less breakage.

Dishcraft is part of a larger push towards automation in the restaurant industry. Miso Robotics‘ Flippy cooks food, Bear Robotics‘ Penny expedites meals and busses tables, and restaurants like Creator and Spyce are built around their respective robots. It’s not hard to envision a future where all of these robots are brought together under one automated restaurant roof.

All this automation, however, does displace human workers, which creates its own set of societal issues. Dishcraft says its robot is filling a need right now because hiring and retaining dishwashers is actually a huge problem for restaurants, and if dishes don’t get washed, an entire restaurant grinds to a halt. Dishcraft Co-Founder and CEO Linda Pouliot told me by phone that using a robot for dishwashing can create a safer work environment for people because you eliminate things like slips on wet surfaces and hot water burns from overhead hoses spraying off dishes.

For restaurants or cafeterias in need of automating their dishwashing, Dishcraft offers two options. A Dishcraft robot can be leased and installed on-site, or they can use Dishcraft’s “dishes as a service.” This “DaaS” option works much like linen service, only with plates. Dishcraft drops off enough dishware for two days (or so) worth of service and then comes and collects the dirties to wash them off-site. Dishcraft is in pilots right now, and pricing was not disclosed.

Dishcraft has raised more than $25 million to date from investors including Baseline Ventures, First Round Capital, and Lemnos. Pouliot spoke at our Articulate food robot conference earlier this year along with Miso Robotics’ CEO, Dave Zito about Building Towards Integrated Robot, Human Work Environments. You can watch the entire session here:

ArticulATE 2019: Building Towards Integrated Robot, Human Work Environments

Welp. Robots Have Knives Now, and Know How to Use Them (to Slice Onions)

Well, fellow humans, we had a good run, but our time is over. Robots have their knives out — literally — and know how to use them.

Terminator-esque teasing aside, IEEE Spectrum has a video roundup of some of cutting-edge (sorry) robotics research being done right now. Included among the videos is “Robotic Cutting: Mechanics and Control of Knife Motion,” by Xiaoqian Mu, Yuechuan Xue, and Yan-Bin Jia from Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa, USA.

You may think that having a robot to slice an onion mainly entails a big mechanical arm slamming a knife down, but you’d be wrong. The researchers created a program that combines and coordinates pressing, pushing and slicing motions. From the research paper’s Introduction:

Cutting skills such as chop, slice, and dice are mostly beyond the reach of today’s robots. Technical challenges come not just from manipulation of soft and irregularly-shaped objects, but more from doing so while fracture is happening. The latter requires planning and force control based on reliable modeling of an object’s deformation and fracture as it is being cut. The knife’s movement needs to be adjusted to progress in terms of material fracture. Its trajectory may need to be replanned in the case of an unforeseeable situation (e.g., appearance of a bone).

Robotic Cutting: Mechanics and Control of Knife Motion

As you can see from the video, this particular robot won’t be wowing crowds at a Benihana anytime soon, but it shows once again that robots are getting more proficient at higher-skilled tasks. Automation is coming for food sector jobs, and while we think of them right now in terms of flipping burgers and bussing tables, robots will be automating more and more tasks in restaurants, like prepping vegetables.

Dishcraft, for example, is still pretty tight lipped around what it’s working on, but the company has talked about building robots to do specific tasks in restaurant kitchens like prep work. Miso Robotics’ Flippy was created in part to take over dangerous tasks like working the grill and deep fryer in the kitchen, and the company has already talked about Flippy eventually chopping vegetables.

While there are still many issues to work through with the rise of robots, having them handle knives in the kitchen (and saving countless fingertips from lacerations) is probably not such a bad thing.

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:

Using AI, the Turbo Clean Robot Can Clear Dirty Dishes Off Trays

Transferring dirty plates from a busbin to a dishrack was my least favorite job when I worked in restaurants. Handling other people’s leftovers. Getting sauce on my hands or clothes. It’s honest work, but blech.

That task, however, may soon be a thing of the past. The Engineer reports that Cambridge Consultants has developed Turbo Clean, a machine that uses computer vision, AI and robotics to automatically clear dirty dishes and glassware off of trays (think: cafeteria style).

As trays loaded with dirty dishes pass under a camera, the system can identify the difference between plates, silverware and glasses. It then dispatches the appropriate robotic attachment to lift the targeted item up off the tray and deposit it into the appropriate bin for cleaning. You can see it in action in this video:

Turbo Clean: Tackling the most unloved job in the commercial kitchen from Cambridge Consultants on Vimeo.

Right now Turbo Clean is just a prototype built for a “multinational catering company,” but it’s easy to see how it could be adopted in high-volume eating facilities like hospitals, colleges or military bases.

According to Cambridge Consultants, Turbo Clean can process a tray every six seconds. And since it’s a robot, it won’t ever get tired, call in sick or take a break, so it’s another reminder that robots and automation will be eating human foodservice jobs. Clearing food trays is one of those manual repetitive tasks that are ripe for automation, but hopefully shifting that to robots will create new, more creative jobs for people.

Seeing Turbo Clean in action also makes me wonder what Dishcraft, another startup that has been quietly building robots for commercial kitchens is crating. We’ll have a chance to find out at our upcoming ArticulATE food robot conference, where we’ll be chatting with Dishcraft Founder and CEO, Linda Pouliot. It’s on April 16 in San Francisco and you should definitely clear your calendar to join us.