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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Japan

Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants in Japan Will Soon Use a Fry-Cooking Robot

TechMagic, a Tokyo-based restaurant robotics startup, has signed a development deal with Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan to build a robot to automate the entire process of cooking french fries.

According to company CEO Yuji Shiraki, preliminary testing of the TechMagic fry robots is complete and is the company is moving into the development phase, where they will focus on productization and in-store installation. The fry-bot will manage fry-feeding, frying, bagging, storing, and arranging the french fries. The company is also working to reduce the size of the frybot so as to enable deployment into space-contrained spaces of existing Kentucky Fried Chicken locations.

Shiraki says they are aiming to introduce the robot in some Japanese locations by this fall.

Spoon readers may recall that TechMagic has already been working with restaurant operators to deploy its back-of-house food robots in restaurants in Japan. I had a chance to visit one, the P-Robo, last September when I was in Tokyo for Smart Kitchen Summit Japan. The robot is a multi-function robot that automates nearly the entire process of creating pasta. It preps the sauces and toppings, heats the noodles (which are pre-cooked and frozen, standard for noodle and pasta restaurants), combines it all in a spinner, and then delivers the meal down along a conveyor belt to the plating station. From there, the meal is plated and a human does the final prep for delivery to the customer. Afterward, the robot washes and cleansthe prep bowls. The entire process takes less than two minutes.

You can see the P-Robo in action below:

TechMagic Pasta Robot: Noodle cook, saucing, plating all in one minute.

The Tokyo restaurant where P-Robo slings pasta is owned by the Pronto Corporation, a subsidiary of Japan food and beverage conglomerate Suntory. When I interviewed Shiraki last summer, he indicated that they were also working with a large well-known Japanese food brand (presumably KFC Japan) and noodle giant Nissin.

For those wondering if this move means we’ll see KFC deploy robots stateside, I wouldn’t hold your breath, mainly because KFC Japan is operated by Mitsubishi, whereas the U.S. fried chicken chain is operated by the holding company Yum Brands.

Softbank Brings Yo-Kai, Servi & Pepper Together to Demo End-to-End Roboticized Food Service

Last week, the robotics division of Japanese tech and energy conglomerate Softbank showed off a future in which food service robots work hand in hand to deliver a meal to the customer.

The demo featured a Yo-Kai ramen vending machine, a Servi server robot from Bear Robotics, and Softbank’s own Pepper humanoid robot acting as a host and entertainer. The announcement and demo were part of a newly focused effort by Softbank Robotics to position itself as a robotics integrator.

The demo took place in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, at Softbank’s robot restaurant proof of concept store, Pepper House. As seen in the video below, the process flow for a food order starts with the consumer ordering on an app. From there, Yo-Kai starts preparing the ramen, and a cartoon version of Pepper appears on the screen preparing the ramen. Once the ramen is ready, Pepper sends a notification to Servi to approach the Yo-Kai. From there, a human removes the ramen from the Yo-Kai and places it on Servi’s tray, and Servi brings the hot ramen to the customer’s table.

ラーメン調理ロボット自動販売機　注文、調理、配膳すべて自動化 SoftBank Ramen robot vending machine, order,cook,serving ,automated

According to the Japanese publication Robotstart, Softbank envisions the installation of a robot hand on the Servi in the future to eliminate the need for a human server.

The demo is an interesting illustration of a fully automated robotic future. Most implementations of food robotics today involve single robots that automate only a portion of the food service process, whether prep, cooking or serving food itself. We haven’t seen many examples of the interconnection between the various parts of the process, mainly because startups building these machines tend to focus on the part of the process. Softbank hopes to change that by providing integration services to combine all the pieces into one integrated service offering.

If other more mature industries are any indication, the arrival of integration services to the food robotics business is a relatively natural evolution of a currently nascent industry. Other tech sectors like enterprise IT, telecom, and retail tech all have evolved integration consulting industries, and it’s not hard to imagine some of the more prominent players in adjacent spaces moving to become food robotics integrators like Softbank. The ability to tie together disparate robotic systems from different companies will become relatively commonplace and a necessary step to push the food robotics space beyond the small niche it resides in today and will be instrumental in building the fully automated restaurant concepts of tomorrow.

Autonomous Restaurant Startup Yo-Kai Express Expands in Japan, Announces New Investors

This spring, Yo-Kai Express ramen vending machines showed up at Tokyo Station, Haneda Airport, and Shibaura Parking Area. During its Japanese debut, the company worked with Ippudo to sell bowls of the hugely popular ramen chain’s noodles through its automated mini-restaurants.

And sell noodles they did. According to Yo-Kai CEO Andy Lin, during the first week, the Tokyo station machine sold a hundred bowls of ramen per day. That strong demand apparently impressed Ippudo enough to not only greenlight more Yo-Kai machines distributing their ramen in the near future, but to also invest in the company.

The news of the expanded relationship was shared as part of a press conference and on-stage session at SKS Japan on Friday in Tokyo. In addition to the news of Ippudo’s investment (through its parent company Chikaranomoto Holdings), Yo-Kai also shared that Japan Tobacco (JT) would be participating in the funding round. JT has a significant processed food business, and Yo-Kai will begin selling the company’s TableMark udon noodles through its vending machines. The total capital invested by the two companies via the Series A round was not disclosed.

According to Yo-Kai CEO Andy Lin, both companies see Yo-Kai as a way to connect to new customers in places where they might not otherwise reach.

“We are their extension,” Lin said. “They don’t need to spend the capital. We are their micro-store.”

Yo-Kai’s Japan country manager Keiji Tsuchiya told me that CPG brands like the idea of using Yo-Kai to trial new food concepts. He said while established food companies with well-known brands might be slow to launch a new product through traditional channels, they can trial new products much more quickly and easily with Yo-Kai. Some, said Tsuchiya, even launch a “virtual” brand concept on Yo-Kai to see how consumers respond.

“For a Japanese food company, selling products with their own name brand is a long process,” Tsuchiya said. “They need to get board approval to start something. It takes one to two years. But with a virtual brand, it’s much easier.”

According to Lin, Yo-Kai plans to expand its Japan vending machine footprint from the current total of three to ten in the near future. They also plan to continue to expand in the US and are talking with other large brands in places such as Korea about entering their market.

The Spoon is Back in Tokyo for SKS Japan

The Spoon is back in Japan!

That’s right, we’re back in Tokyo this week for the sixth Smart Kitchen Summit Japan, the first time we’ve been back in person since 2019 (for obvious reasons). The event started in 2017 and has grown to become the country’s biggest conference focused on food and cooking innovation.

Over the next three days, we’ll hear from some of the country’s most innovative startups, researchers, scientists, and academics about how Japan’s food tech scene has evolved over the past few years. We’ll be talking alt protein, cellular agriculture, smart kitchen, restaurant tech, and more.

If you’d like to attend virtually, you can pick up your ticket here. We’ll also be bringing you some interviews on The Spoon, so keep an eye out for that.

Japan is one of the most innovative and exciting places in the world for culinary innovation, and we couldn’t be more excited to spend the next three days talking food tech in Tokyo. Join us!

Big in Japan: Yo-Kai Attracts Huge Press With Japanese Launch of Ramen Robot

In the middle of Japan’s busiest train station, Yo-Kai Express debuted its third ramen robot in Japan in three weeks. The new Tokyo Station robot joins other Yo-Kai Express machines installed at Haneda Airport and the Shibaura Parking Area.

If you think the unveiling of a new food robot might slip under the radar in this ramen-obsessed country, you’d be wrong. At a press conference held yesterday by Yo-Kai to unveil their latest robot and discuss their entry into Japan, over 70 members of the Japanese media showed up. The result was at least a dozen articles and news reports across broadcast and print.

The interest in Yo-Kai is understandable. After all, Japan is well-recognized as a mecca for vending machines, and here’s a new robot that makes the country’s favorite food in 90 seconds. In a few years, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Yo-Kai machines sprinkled around Tokyo and other Japanese cities to serve up hot bowls to those too busy to sit down in a local slurp shop.

While some ramen shop operators might be upset by the entry of a ramen-making robot, others see it as an exciting new opportunity, including the founder of the most popular ramen joint in Japan, Ippudo.

“A vending machine cooks hot ramen on the spot,” said Shigemi Kawahara, President, and Founder of Ippudo. “It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

Of course, Kawahara has reason to be excited. Ippudo’s Tonkotsu Ramen will soon be added to Yo-Kai’s menu.

Photo credit: Hitoshi Hokamura

Japan’s CulNet Consortium, an ‘Open Innovation Platform’ for Cell-Based Meat, Officially Launches

Last week a group of Japan-based companies announced the official launch of the CulNet Consortium, an open innovation platform for the development of cell-cultured meat in Japan and beyond. The announcement, made by Japan cell-based meat startup IntegriCulture, details the member companies and outlines the activities of the group.

The group’s platform is centered around an open innovation framework developed by IntegriCulture, one of Japan’s most visible and active startups in cellular agriculture. The Uni-CulNet framework and the Consortium plans were originally announced in May of 2020, when IntegriCulture described the framework as “a standardized cellular agriculture infrastructure” that “rapidly establishes the foundation for democratized cellular agriculture.”

The consortium’s member companies plan to cooperate across five different areas to help accelerate the sector’s overall advancement: cell source, culture medium, CulNet hardware, product bioreactor, and product processing.

From the release:

  • Standardized culture media: Recipes that are fundamentally different from the existing media (basal media). Basal media are the raw material for all cultured cell products, and a different type is required for each kind (food, material, medical, etc.).
  • CulNet SystemTM hardware: Hardware that lets people use the CulNet SystemTM across a broad spectrum of uses, whether it’s in mass production or just at home.
  • Product bioreactors: Bioreactors that are used to make things like the products’ edible parts. We estimate that a variety of animals used as agricultural products will be a source for the cells.
  • Cell product processing: The process control that is needed to meet the products’ processing and safety requirements (cell components and culture supernatant).
  • Cell sources: The process that is used to extract and culture cells from livestock and fishery resources and the systems that enable the whole sequence of processes to be completed right where the cell sources are produced—tailoring them to their intended use, source animal species, etc.

It’s not surprising IntegriCulture and its founder Yuki Hanyu are a driving force behind a standardization push around open innovation. Hanyu has been the most visible evangelist for cell-based meat in Japan over the last few years, and his company’s ethos for open innovation was signaled by the efforts he put into building a DIY cultured meat initiative with the Shojinmeat project.

The CulNet Consortium isn’t the only industry organization gaining momentum as the cell-based meat industry matures. The Alliance for Meat, Poultry & Seafood Innovation (AMPS Innovation), an industry group focused on market education and industry advocacy, just announced an eighth member, Orbillion Bio, who joins Eat Just, Upside and Blue Nalu, among others. AMPS has been working to influence US policy to support the cultured meat industry, including a recent joint industry letter to the FDA after its call for input into the labeling framework for cell-based meat.

2Foods Launches Plant-Based Junk Food Chain in Tokyo

Veganism and flexitarianism are on the rise in Japan. According to an article by VegNews, there are currently 1,000 vegan restaurants in Japan, compared to just 400 two years ago. To address this increase in plant-forward eating in Japan, TWO inc. officially opened the first three locations of its “healthy junk food” cafe concept 2foods.

2foods is a cafe spin-off of TWO inc.’s FoodTech Park, an experimental store where consumers can experience food tech products from all over the world. (The company described it as a food-tech version of b8ta.) Currently, FoodTech Park is hosting exhibitions from companies like OmniMeat, Next Meat, and MAAHA Chocolate. It is located right next to the 2foods flagship cafe in Shibuya, Tokyo.

The café aims to merge the two worlds of familiar and comforting junk food with better-for-you plant-based ingredients. So far, its menu includes items like plant-based chicken sandwiches, sandwiches with a donut bun, ramen, curry, chocolate brownies, a variety of beverages, and donuts. All of the items are fully vegan, and some of the ingredients have a food tech twist.

For example, the vegan chocolate brownie is made from a base of brown rice flour. However, the rice is processed in a manner that the particles are broken down at a low temperature to be extra fine and retain nutrients. This allows the flour to absorb water and hold together the ingredients like eggs would, resulting in a fluffy, moist brownie with no animal-based ingredients. The same technique is used with brown rice flour to create the cafe’s gluten-free noodles.

The 2foods cafes will co-develop menu items with emerging food tech start-ups, which can also test new products and prototypes at the cafe locations. OmniMeat (previously OmniPork) and 2foods will soon be collaborating to launch an exclusive food product. Additionally, 2foods will partner with food tech start-ups to help commercialize their new products globally and distribute them to its physical stores, online store, and to other retailers at a wholesale price.

The 2foods online store and the concept’s first three physical locations are now open in different areas of Tokyo, Japan. The company plans to launch 100-150 worldwide within the next three years.

Aleph Farms’ Cultured Meat Coming to Japan Courtesy of Mitsubishi

Israel-based Aleph Farms announced today that its cultured meat is headed for the Japanese market, thanks to a new Memorandum of Understanding with Mitsubishi.

Through the new deal, Aleph Farms will provide its BioFarm platform to cultivate whole-muscle steaks, while Mitsubishi provides its expertise in biotechnology processes, branded food manufacturing and distribution throughout Japan.

In addition opening up a new market for Aleph Farms, today’s announcement is a nice bit of validation for the company’s BioFarm technology. Announced last November, Aleph says its BioFarm facility will allow it to scale the production of cull cultured cow meat affordably, bringing the price down to parity with factory farmed meat.

But Aleph will face some cell-cultured competition in Japan. Japanese company, Integriculture has its own lab meat technology and was awarded a grant by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry last year to build out a commercial cell ag facility.

While we’re only in January, the building blocks were put in place last year to make 2021 a breakout year for the technology. Last month, Eat Just made history by making the world’s first sale of cultured meat in Singapore. In Israel, Supermeat opened a test kitchen that offers cell-cultured chicken dishes in exchange for feedback from diners.

Aleph Farms even generated a bit of high-profile news itself last month when Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did a public tasting of the company’s steak.

Despite all the forward momentum, there are still a number of regulatory issues that need to be designed and implemented for this new technology. With cell cultured meat technology becoming more of a reality, expect a steady stream of announcements in the space throughout the year.

Spoon Plus Deep Dive : A Conversation With Taichi Isaku on How Japan’s Food Industry is Dealing With COVID-19

This includes Japan. To learn more about what’s going on in that country, I caught up with Taichi Isaku, the CEO of CoCooking.

I’d met Isaku in 2018 when I was in Tokyo for the second Smart Kitchen Summit Japan. Speaking to me in flawless English, Isaku told me about CoCooking’s online marketplace called TABETE which sold excess restaurant food at a discount to customers in Tokyo and other big cities. You can read about the company here in a post I wrote about their seed funding.

During our chat, we talked about how restaurants are dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, including some of the new digital strategies many are employing. We also talked about how restaurants are navigating Japan’s unique legal system and how the government is dealing with the crisis. We also discussed the ways in which consumer behavior is changing in the midst of the pandemic.

This Spoon Plus Deep Dive conversation is available only to Spoon Plus subscribers. Purchase a Spoon Plus membership to get access to this exclusive content and much more.

Robot Bartender Now Serving Drinks in Tokyo Train Station

Just when you thought Tokyo couldn’t get any more futuristic, the city’s subway system has a new robot bartender serving up drinks to commuters.

The Daily Mail reported this week that the Yoronotaki company has launched the Zeroken Robo Tavern in the Ikebukuro train station. The small pop-up opened on Jan. 23 and will run as a pilot to gauge customer reaction to the concept until March 19th.

The robot itself is just an articulating arm with an LED face. Customers enter their order via separate kiosk and then the robot whirrs into action, pouring out a beer in 40 seconds, or mixing up a cocktail for something a little stronger.

The robot is made by QBIT Robotics, which also built the Henn Na robot barista, also in Tokyo. The robot costs $82,000, which is evidently three years’ salary for an average bartender in Japan. Yoronotaki told the Daily Mail that labor shortages in Japan are part of the reason it is trying the robot out.

Japan has a greying population with more than one-third of its people over the age of 65. Many companies are working on robotic solutions to help stave off any potential labor crisis. Sony has teamed up with Carnegie-Mellon University to create food robots and has big ambitions for a robotic home cooking assistant. Connected Robots, which makes the takoyaki-cooking Octochef robot, raised raised a ¥850M ($7.8 million USD) last year to expand its food robot lineup. And in 2018, the Dawn Avatar cafe used robot servers that were operated remotely by people with disabilities.

Given how small the retail spaces in Japan can be, and the volume of people that travel Tokyo’s subway system, there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing more robot bartenders pop up across Japan.

Uber Eats to Deliver Food From Lawson Convenience Stores in Tokyo

During The Spoon’s recent trip to Tokyo, we took Anthony Bourdain’s advice and discovered the magic that is dining at Japanese convenience stores. In fact, the only thing that could have made those egg salad sandwiches any better was not having to go out in 100 degree August heat to get them.

Good news for those in Tokyo who also wilt going outside in Summer! Lawson, Japan’s third largest convenience store chain, will start offering delivery via Uber Eats. As Reuters reports:

Lawson said it will start selling around 100 products including bento boxes, fried chicken and tissue paper through Uber Eats starting on Thursday, initially for users near its stores in Shinjuku and Shinagawa before a later expansion.

Uber’s main business, ride sharing, is banned in Japan, so its food delivery business plays an outsized role over there. According to a recent Bloomberg article, Uber has partnerships with 10,000 restaurants in Japan, across ten cities in the country. Uber also has 15,000 couriers in the country, including many elderly folks who make deliveries by foot.

It hasn’t been smooth sailing for Uber since the company went public this past May. In fact, the company reported losses of $5.2 billion in its second quarter. And despite its 140 percent year-over-year growth, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he doesn’t expect Uber Eats to be profitable next year or the year after that.

This deal with Lawson won’t move the needle much on that rather grim scenario for Uber Eats, but it will make getting egg salad sandwiches a whole lot easier for those lucky people in Tokyo.

The Food Tech Show: Big in Japan

Let’s talk about Japan!

We were in Tokyo this month for the third annual Smart Kitchen Summit Japan so, naturally, this podcast is all about the magical wonderland that is the Land of the Rising Sun.

Not only did the Spoon team spend two great days talking food tech with some of the coolest thinkers and entrepreneurs in Japan and broader Asia, we also ran around Tokyo checking out food robots, eating amazing food and delighting in the wonders of the Japanese version of 7-Eleven.

You can read some of the coverage of what we found in Japan here, and if you want to meet many of those who participated in SKS Japan, make sure to come to SKS North America (use discount code PODCAST for 25% off of tickets).

As always, you can listen to the Food Tech Show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download this episode directly to your phone or just click play below.