Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Jamba

Food Robot Roundup: Delivery Bots Explore New Areas, Yum China’s Robot-Powered Expansion

It’s been a busy few weeks for restaurant robots. In this edition of the food robot roundup, we’ve got updates on the expanding map for a couple of food delivery bots, Jamba & Blendid’s growing relationship, Yum China’s increasing reliance on robots, and more.

Let’s get to it.

Coco delivery bot expands beyond California

Coco has spread its wings. The food delivery robot startup has expanded to Austin, Texas, the first city outside of its home state of California. This expansion is thanks in part to the Series A funding round of $36 million that it raised last August. Coco launches with ten partners in Austin, including Arpeggio Grill, Bamboo Bistro, Clay Pit, DeSano Pizzeria, Tuk Tuk Thai, and Aviator Pizza.

Coco makes a four-wheeled, cooler-sized robot that delivers food and beverages. Coco prepositions its robot at merchant locations in dense city environments and advertises that it completes deliveries in 30 minutes or less. The company has indicated Austin is only its first stop in Texas as it has plans to expand to other cities in the Lonestar state.

Kiwibot, another robot delivery service, announced that they’ve raised $7.5M pre-series A funding and closed an expansion deal with Sodexo, a food services and facilities management company. They currently have 200 robots operating in 10 campuses and are on track to expand to 1200 robots and 50 locations by the end of 2022. 

Kiwibot, which was founded at the University of California, Berkeley, has long-targeted college campuses, ideal locations for food delivery robots with their dense populations of hungry college students, and protected pedestrian walkways. Besides the slew of robots making deliveries on campuses, consumer-facing food kiosks (more on that later) and autonomous retail shopping have also been moving in.

Jamba and Blendid expand to two more campuses

Jamba and Blendid have expanded their reach to two more college campuses, Georgia College and Kennesaw State University. The co-branded Jamba by Blendid smoothie kiosks offer a quick and convenient way to pick up a healthy smoothie and will be located in each school’s student union. 

University campuses are a great way for Jamba by Blendid to tap into a market that is open to using technology and usually doesn’t have easy access to healthy food like smoothies. Blendid has plans to expand its kiosks into other locations such as gyms, hospitals, and airports, which means the company will need to adapt to different customer buying behavior and preferences. At universities, Blendid offers flavors of the week or theme-based drinks to keep students engaged and coming back. 

Hyphen Raises $24 Million Series A

Hyphen, a startup that automates the back-of-house food assembly for restaurants, just announced a $24m Series A funding round led by Tiger Global.

The company’s flagship product is the Makeline, a modular robotic food assembly line. Workers focus on taking the orders and the machine combines ingredients and can generate 350+ meals per hour. KitchenOS, the software powering the Makeline, utilizes data from the robotic assembly line and other inputs to optimize workflows, recipe development, and food scheduling. 

Hyphen’s modular system means that restaurants can add or take away modules and choose ones that precisely fit their needs, such as dispensing, reheating, and mixing. According to company CEO Stephen Klein, the company currently has 11 customers who have pre-ordered the Makeline.

You can catch the Spoon’s interview with Hyphen’s CEO and co-founder Stephen Klein here. 

Yum China expands stores without workers

Image credit: Associated Press

Yum China, a Chinese restaurant group that spun off from U.S. parent Yum Brands in 2016, has expanded its number of stores while keeping its labor force the same, in part by increased use of AI and robotics. The group operates restaurants such as KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell and has increased the number of stores by 56% from 7,652 in 2016 to 11,788 in 2021. However, the company has kept the same number of employees during the same period at 420,000 full and part-time staff. 

Yum China has managed this by leveraging a variety of restaurant technology. The company has installed touch screen panels to automate the ordering process and has installed robots in its KFC to serve soft-serve ice cream in several Chinese cities. Yum has installed digital lockers store takeout orders in other locations.

Yum China’s increased reliance on automation is just one sign of the rapid adoption of restaurant technology adoption in the Chinese fast food sector. Other examples include this restaurant in Foshan, a city in Guangdong’s southern province, where a robot prepares and serves fast food dishes. Robotic arms prepare the food and then robot waiters and a conveyor-belt system deliver the food.

In case you missed it, I discussed cultural differences in openness to technology adoption in the last roundup, where I discussed the robots serving food to Olympians in Beijing. It’ll be interesting to see if the high profile of robots at the Olympics will lead to more acceptance of food robots in the United States or more hesitation.

Watch The Jamba Smoothie Robot In Action In The Middle of Stonewood Center Mall

Sometimes it’s hard to visualize something in action until, well, you see it in action.

That’s why I thought this fast-motion video clip from Blendid of their new Jamba branded smoothie robot is so interesting.

In the clip, you can see the robot sitting in the middle of the mall and shoppers convening around it as it makes smoothies. The placement of the robot in the middle of the mall walkway where you typically find iPhone case and t-shirt booths illustrates why Jamba is interested in trying this new format out. The ability to drop a smoothie bot into a mall without the traditional store opens up the option of a faster-deployed, lower cost, and less permanent build-out.

Jamba and Blendid have hinted additional locations are to come. I expect if this location goes well, we’ll see more malls added to the rollout plans for the Jambabot.

You can see how the robot makes a smoothie in the video below.

Jamba and Blendid Open Second Robot Smoothie Kiosk, Eyeing More Locations

You know what they say: one robot smoothie kiosk is an experiment, two make a trend.

Ok, so while no one really says that, it is true in this case as Jamba, the retailer of health beverages and smoothie drinks, has announced the opening of its second co-branded robotic smoothie kiosk in partnership with Blendid.

The new Jamba-bot will be in Stonewood Center in Downey, CA, a shopping mall located in the broader Los Angeles metro area. The first co-branded kiosk by Jamba/Blendid, which opened in late 2020, is located in a Walmart on the outskirts of Sacramento. By opening its second location in a shopping mall, it looks like the health drink operator of nearly a thousand locations is trying out new types of venues in which it can put unattended retail bots to serve up healthy beverages. As hinted at in the release, it won’t be long before the company drops a smoothie bot in a gym or college campus:

Building on the successful 2020 opening of the first Jamba by Blendid in Dixon, CA, this is the next step in the effort to open Jamba by Blendid kiosks in additional types of venues – from big box retailers and shopping malls to gyms, hospitals, and college campuses.

Jamba operates using a franchise model, one which it plans to continue even as it enters the robotic vending era.

“After a successful launch of our first Jamba by Blendid kiosk, we’re excited to open a second test kiosk at the Stonewood Center, bringing freshly blended smoothies to mall shoppers,” said Geoff Henry, president of Jamba in the news release. “Jamba by Blendid provides an opportunity for our local franchisees to make smoothies more accessible to Jamba fans, while leveraging the latest in technology to deliver contactless food.”

With the company sticking to its primary franchise business model to fund expansion of the Jamba-bot, the possibility of a smoothie robot becomes an exciting new option for franchise entrepreneurs. Opening up potential new high-traffic venues like gyms, campuses, or even airports gives existing franchisees a new way to expand in the same city without cannibalizing their existing storefronts. It also gives them an accelerated pathway to open a location that doesn’t put them through the same hiring and construction headaches that often accompany a traditional franchise location.

Jamba is owned by franchise store conglomerate Focus Brands, which also owns Schlotzsky’s, Carvel, Cinnabon, and Aunt Annie’s among others. While some of the food types in their portfolio might not lend themselves to automation, it is intriguing to think about whether this push into food robotics by one of the largest franchise operators in one of its businesses could signify a broader strategy. It’s not too hard to imagine the tantalizing smell of a Cinnabon cinnamon roll wafting from an automated kiosk (a Cinnabot?) filling the terminal of an airport or college campus. I have to imagine Focus Brands – and its franchisees – are thinking the same thing.