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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Richard Blais

Video: Richard Blais Wants to Make a Drone Delivery Service for Donuts

During his fireside chat at the 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit, Richard Blais compared the state of food technology to something it has probably never been compared to ever before. “There’s this Biggie/Tupac thing happening in food always,” he said, using the most famous rap rivalry of all time to reflect the current tension in restaurants: old world vs. new, low-tech vs. high-tech, woodfire grills vs. robots.

Despite his culinary pedigree, Blais embraces technology in the kitchen — at least, when it can make things easier for him. At the same time, he doesn’t want robots to take over everything in the kitchen. Repetitive tasks (hello, french fry preparation), sure. Donuts delivered via drone? You betcha. (That’s a real business idea, by the way — and he’s going to call it the Dronut.)

Inviting technology into the kitchen is a delicate balancing act, though. In the end, Blais is open to most things — as long as food tastes awesome. “That’s the ultimate judge,” he said. “Is that thing delicious?”

Watch the full video of Richard Blais’ fireside chat (and find out his dairy-based DJ name) below.

Richard Blais at Smart Kitchen Summit

Look out for more videos of the panels, solo talks, and fireside chats from SKS 2018! We’ll be bringing them to you hot and fresh out the (smart) kitchen over the next few weeks.

Richard Blais is a Big Believer in Voice Interfaces

The way we interact with our kitchens is in the midst of massive changes. Guided cooking apps are helping anyone become a better cook, screens are popping up on fridges (and elsewhere), and we can control more and more appliances in the kitchen just by talking to them.

It’s this voice control that celebrity chef Richard Blais thinks will revolutionize the kitchen. In a Q&A with Uproxx, Blais said:

So, as a big tech guy and start-up enthusiast, I think we are right here — not that we have any of this technology right now, but voice activated everything I believe is — first of all, it’s already in some homes… But I think that where the commercial restaurant or kitchen very shortly will be able to see some really amazing things happen, from the business perspective as well as the cooking execution.

If I could walk into my kitchen right now, like I can in my home, and set an oven, and a fryer and a refrigerator temperature by just saying, “Hey oven, turn on to 500 degrees and set the fryer to this and turn the lights on to this.”

We often write about voice interfaces in the home kitchen. GE’s new microwave is Alexa-enabled so you can tell it to stop or add time to your cooking. You can control LG’s SmartThinq line of cooktops ovens and fridges with Alexa or Google Home. And Kohler and Delta both have voice controlled faucets that let you dispense precise amounts of water.

These are all applications for home kitchens, however, which usually are less loud and chaotic environments than a commercial kitchen. Chef Blais would know better than I, so I wonder what tweaks would need to be made in a restaurant kitchen to accommodate for noise levels, voice recognition and lag time reduction between when a command is given and when the appliance executes it.

Thankfully, we will have a chance to ask Chef Blais in person, as he will be a speaker at our upcoming Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle this October (get your tickets now!). He’s enthusiastic about technology so the discussion with him is sure to be insightful and entertaining.