The Shinhwa Food Group will be rolling out server robots at its restaurants brands in South Korea thanks to a new deal with Woowa Brothers. Aju Business Daily reported yesterday that Shinhwa has agreed to gradually introduce roughly 100 “Dilly Plate” server robots at its restaurants by the end of this year.
Dilly Plates are basically self-driving racks of trays that shuttle plates of food and empty dishes back and forth from a restaurant’s kitchen to its tables. The robots are equipped with sensors and smarts to do things like avoid obstacles and other people. Woowa debuted its first Dilly Plate (made by Bear Robotics, shown in the picture above) at a Seoul Pizza Hut back in 2018. According to the Aju Business Daily, Woowa now has five different Dilly Plate models that are deployed across 305 restaurants in South Korea. Woowa’s deal with Shinhwa is the biggest deployment agreement so far.
Interest in food robotics has accelerated since the pandemic last year. The use of a robot such as the Dilly Plate can reduce the amount of human-to-human contact in a restaurant by removing a human from the equation. Robots can also alleviate some of the hard work associated with being server by carrying heavy loads back and forth continuously without needing a break.
Woowa Brothers has been working on a number of different food robot-related initiatives. The company launched its food delivery robot program last year, and is even working with companies like Hyundai that allow those delivery robots to do things like autonomously access buildings and ride elevators. Additionally, Woowa worked with South Korean electronics giant LG and the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement to develop its server bots.
A Woowa Brothers rep told Aju Business Daily that server robots are just the beginning of the company’s automation ambitions. Other plans include developing cooking robots and packaging robots that use artificial intelligence.
