Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Macco Robotics

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.

Macco Robotics’ New “DBot” Modular Restaurant Robot Delivers Food and Disinfects

As restaurants around the world begin the process of re-opening, some of the (many) issues they will have to grapple with is keeping their establishments clean and reducing human-to-human contact. Macco Robotics wants to do both with its forthcoming Dbot.

The “D” in Dbot actually does double duty in this case, as it stands for “disinfect” and “delivery” (duh). The main part of the Dbot is a mobile base on wheels that uses lidar and computer vision to autonomously map out and navigate around the inside of a restaurant. Different modules can be attached to the top of the base, such as a sprayer, which mists out disinfectant, and a tray module for carrying food and drinks to tables.

This means a restaurant could spend its open hours shuttling food to customers without human servers (reducing a vector of transmission), and then turn into a sprayer at the end of the day. (Macco said that the robot can also be controlled manually, should a location require disinfecting in hard-to-reach places.)

It is this modularity, according to Macco Robotics’ CTO Kishhanth Renganathan, that will make Dbot stand out in what is becoming the quickly commoditized space of restaurant server robots. “It’s not just a delivery bot,” Renganathan said to me over the phone this week, “You are just buying one robot for two different applications.”

But will this flexibility be enough to entice cash-strapped restaurants devastated by the global pandemic and ensuing lockdowns? Bear Robotics’ Penny offers a swappable tray system, but there’s no reason it couldn’t offer some kind of sterilizer add-on. And if restaurants want a robot with a proven track record, they may look more towards Kennon Robotics in China, which has 6,000 robots already in use in restaurants and other hospitality venues.

If a restaurant wants to go with robots, what it chooses may just come down to price. Keenon’s robot can be leased for roughly $1,500 – $1,600 a month. Renganathan said that Macco will offer a lease as well, though pricing was not set yet.

In addition to swappable functions, another thing that sets the Dbot apart is how it fits in with Macco’s long-term vision. The company’s ultimate goal is to make a full-on, autonomous robotic restaurant experience. The Kime will one day leave its stationary kiosk to become a free-wheeling chef, and will hand off food to the Dbot, which will take it out to the tables. No human contact at all.

That vision is still off in the distance, though, and we need to get through this pandemic first. For restaurants planning on re-opening this summer, the Dbot will be available starting in July/August of this year.

Macco Robotics Beer-Pouring Kime-bot has Big Kitchen Plans

Macco Robotics’ Kime robot bartender probably won’t be able to dispense homespun, sage advice like a human, but it can definitely pour you a beer.

Made by Seville, Spain-based Macco Robotics, Kime is a humanoid food and beverage serving robot. Measuring about 2 square meters, the Kime features a robotic head and torso and has two articulating arms that can be used to grab and dispense beverages.

If you’ve ever worked in a bar, you know you can’t just shoot a beer straight into a glass; there is some subtlety to it. The Kime’s hands pull the tap appropriately and angles the glass properly for a correct pour. Macco Robotics CTO, Kish Renganathan, told me by phone this week that the Kime can pour one beer in 23 seconds.

Portugal gas company, Prio, trialed the Kime at one of its gas stations last year. Why you would want to serve up cups of beer to people getting gas and out for a drive is a little beyond me, but hey, Europeans do things a little differently. Renganathan said that for its next phase of testing, Prio is looking to shuttle the one kiosk between different gas stations and have it serve up other beverages like fountain drinks, milkshakes and even grab fresh made food items.

The Kime is also being used by a Spanish beer brand, though Macco actually switched things up a bit for that trial. Instead of being a stationary kiosk, Kime was attached to a cart and used as a rolling robot beer machine for events like festivals.

What’s interesting about the Kime is that the company is sticking with the humanoid form. When it comes to automation, you typically have something like the Cafe X, which also uses articulating arms to add some theatricality as it pours and serves drinks, or you have something that’s more embedded automation like the Briggo, which uses rails and dispensers hidden inside the machine.

Given that the Kime is being used for events and fast service locations like convenience stores, I would assume that embedded automation would deliver the speed and volume necessary to keep up with orders. But Renganathan laid out a bigger vision for me.

“Our vision is to make a humanoid for cooking,” Renganathan said, admitting that swiveling arms might be less efficient. The kiosk, in this case, is a contained environment in which the robot can learn to manipulate different food and drink. “Our goal is to take the robot outside and leave it in the kitchen to assist the chef.”

That’s a pretty big goal. Huge companies like Samsung and Sony don’t even seem to be thinking that big. While their visions of kitchen assistants do feature robotic arms, they are attached to a cabinet, and not to a free-roaming autonomous humanoid.

Right now, Macco is self-funded, and it’ll have to raise a sizeable chunk o’ change to make that vision a reality. Now we’ll have to wait to see if Macco will be raising a glass in celebration of its success, or pouring one out for another food robot demise.