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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Yo-Kai

Watch This Tour of The Yo-Kai Boba Robot at CES 2024

In what seems to be an annual occurrence at this point, this year Yo-Kai introduced a new robotic food kiosk and drew huge crowds at CES. This year, it was the company’s new boba robot, which features the ability to cook boba inside as well as prepare both hot and iced drinks.

The Spoon dropped by the Yo-Kai booth to get a video tour of the new boba-bot with company CEO Any Lin. When we broke the story of the Yo-Kai boba-bot a couple of weeks ago, we revealed that the company planned to open up a new sales channel by embracing small business owners through franchises. According to Lin, one of the reasons this new appliance helps make this possible is, unlike the ramen noodle bots that helped the company make a name for itself, the new boba bot only uses room-temperature, shelf-stable ingredients. That means they can ship ingredients to users without requiring large-scale cold chain logistics networks, a requirement which often necessitates bigger partners.

Whether you’re a small business interested in franchising a Yo-Kai boba machine or just a boba-loving nerd, you’ll want to check out the video below.

Tour of Yo-Kai's Boba Robot at CES 2024

Yo-Kai to Debut Boba Making Robot at CES 2024

In less than two weeks, Yo-Kai Express, a company that’s become synonymous with hot ramen-making robots, will show it has a sweet side with the debut of a boba-making robot at CES in Las Vegas.

Yo-Kai CEO Andy Lin told The Spoon that the company’s new robotic boba maker will be the first boba-bot that incorporates a cooking pot inside the appliance, enabling it to cook boba tapioca pearls as well as other toppings. According to Lin, the machine’s built-in cooking capability will allow it to be more than just a boba-maker, enabling it to create a variety of different hot and cold beverages and meals ranging from instant oatmeal to protein shakes to soups and coffees.

The first machine will be shipped to Netflix’s headquarters in Los Gatos, California. After that, Lin says that distribution will be a phased release with around ten boba-bots shipped to other corporate headquarters in the Bay Area. Another shipment in March will put the Yo-Kai boba machine at college campuses and other locations, and starting in June, the Yo-Kai boba-bot will be widely available to individual operators who want to operate a Yo-Kai.

And it’s with this wider availability that Yo-Kai will begin a new expansion approach that will extend beyond its current operating model. Lin says that in 2024, the company plans to phase its expansion model into one utilizing a partner model where individual operators will pay an initial startup fee to Yo-Kai, and from there, they will be able to take ownership of the boba and begin operating it. Lin says that the model, which is “franchise-like”, will offer new operators a choice of up to 1,500 different locations that Yo-Kai has helped find through a new strategic partnership with a large real estate management company.

“Usually, if a partner wants to open a boba store, they need to find a location by themselves,” said Lin. “But we don’t need them to find a location; we can actually provide a location to them. So it will be a one-stop-shop: Go to the website, select the region you want to have the machine, and we will work together with them.”

While the Yo-Kai boba-bot certainly isn’t the first automated boba-making machine, no other company has had much success in expanding beyond initial pilots and trials. Bobacino, which debuted in 2020, saw its CEO depart last month, and it’s not clear if the company is still operational. Cloutea, which debuted its boba robot at CES 2023, opened a store in Las Vegas this past April but has not expanded beyond a single location.

The new Yo-Kai boba robot will debut at CES, which starts on January 9th and runs through January 12th. The new boba bot will be featured in the food tech area on the show floor in the Venetian Expo Hall at CES.

Stay tuned to The Spoon for more food tech coverage at CES over the next two weeks.

Food Robots Everywhere: Starship Hits Fifty Schools While Yo-Kai Aims for All Fifty States

Just in the last day, two food robot startups have shared some deployment data that make clear they – and the broader space – appear to be getting some traction.

First was the CEO of Yo-Kai, Andy Lin, who shared a map of the American cities in which Yo-Kai ramen kiosks are deployed:

When I followed up with a question about exactly how many locations and cities, Lin told me, “26 states, 127 locations.” He also said the company hopes to have Yo-Kais in all fifty states soon.

Impressive momentum, and it doesn’t even include the company’s presence in Asia and Europe.

Next up was Starship, which put out a news release this morning with updated college campus rollout numbers. According to the company, Starship sidewalk bots will traverse the campuses of 50 universities this fall – 20 more than last fall – including new schools like Wichita State University, Boise State University, and The University of New Orleans. The company says it now has a fleet of over two thousand sidewalk rovers and operates in over half of the US states.

The company also announced it is introducing wireless charging this year, which will allow the Starship bots to roll up to charging stations, connect, and charge, all without a human, using the same basic technology many of us use to charge our smart watches or iPhones with nowadays.

You can see the Starship charging stations in the video below:

Interestingly, the Starship numbers dwarf publicly available numbers from Serve, the spinout from Uber that said in its filing to go public via reverse merger that it currently has a fleet of about 100 sidewalk delivery bots.

While the past year has been a challenging one for food robots, the recent updates from Yo-Kai and Starship and Serve’s recent filing to go public show there is some hope for the market despite the difficulties of running complex and capital-intensive food robotics businesses.

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.

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

Yo-Kai’s Self-Driving Ramen Vending Robot is Heading to the Super Bowl

Yo-Kai Express, a maker of robotic vending machines, debuted its autonomous mobile ramen vending robot this week. Named the Yatai, the robot made its appearance at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington as part of an innovation event put on by the software giant.

When the company first announced the mobile ramen-bot at The Smart Kitchen Summit Japan in December 2020, founder Andy Lin said the machine would be able to navigate specific routes and stop when hailed by a mobile phone. The company also said they were already beginning to work with a manufacturer and had started discussions with the Universities of California at Berkeley and Irvine about having the mobile ramen machine traverse their campuses.

While the final destinations for the first few Yatais have yet to be disclosed, the company knows where its next stop is for its autonomous ramen robot: The Super Bowl. According to Lin, The Yatai will make its general public debut in LA next week at the Super Bowl pre-party.

And what about the Takumi, the home ramen machine the company teased in 2020? Based on our conversations with Yo-Kai, because the company’s primary focus has been the rollout of the Yatai, they hit pause on the rollout of the Takumi. Hopefully, with the Yatai finally making it to market, we’ll see the Takumi making an appearance soon.

Here are the Kitchen Robots We Saw at CES & Food Tech Live 2021

One thing I miss most about heading to Vegas every January for CES is walking the basement of the Sands convention center. There, in the startup area known as Eureka Park, I’ll wander for hours and get lost amongst thousands of exhibitors in search of a few undiscovered food tech gems.

I usually find a few and, since we’re talking CES, they sometimes come in the form of a food robot.

From there, I usually head across the street to Treasure Island where The Spoon has its own product showcase during CES week called Food Tech Live, where I can also get my fill of food robots while also doing such things as eating a cookie with my face on it.

While both CES and Food Tech Live didn’t take place in person in Sin City this year, that doesn’t mean there weren’t some cool food robots to check out at their virtual versions last week. Below is our roundup of home food robots I found at virtual CES and The Spoon’s annual first-of-the-year product showcase, Food Tech Live.

Moley Robotic Kitchen

Since 2015, the Moley robotic kitchen has captured the imagination of the tech journalists and robotics industry with its robot chef concept that can that can prepare full meals from prep to cook to clean up with a pair of articulating robot arms.

And while we’ve yet to actually see the Moley cook a full meal from start to finish, the system’s inventor told The Spoon that it’s finally on sale and will find its first home in 2021. The company, which had a virtual booth at CES 2021 and debuted a bunch of new highlight videos, will sell both a home and pro version of its robotic kitchen. Prices for the fully robotic kitchen will be about $335 thousand.

The Moley Robotic Kitchen System at CES 2021

Oliver

Else Labs Oliver is a single-pot cooking robot that dispenses fresh ingredients and automates the cooking process with the help of temperature sensing and machine vision capabilities.

Else Labs, which went on sale via Indiegogo last fall, was on display at Food Tech Live last week. The product’s inventor and company CEO Khalid Aboujassoum says the major difference between Oliver and other guided cooking appliances on the market is Oliver pretty much handles the entire cooking process for you.

“The Oliver can do unattended stovetop cooking,” Aboujassoum told me last fall when the product went on sale.

Oliver, the smart cooking robot

iWonderCook

The iWonderCook is a automated cooking machine that cooks one-pot meals. The meals are provided in the form of the company’s own meal kit service, which the user orders through the device’s touchscreen. From there, as can be seen in the video below, the user inserts a bowl, embeds the food “cartridge”, and then adjusts the amount of oil and water needed.

I haven’t gotten a chance to see the iWondercook in action or taste the food, I will say is the product’s reliance on its own meal kits might be a turn-off for some users.

iWONDERCOOK robotic chef does the cooking for you.

Yo-Kai Express Takumi

Technically the new Yo-Kai Express Takumi home ramen machine is something closer to a Keurig for food than a food robot, it’s worth looking at this machine given the company’s smart vending roots.

The Takumi, which debuted at Food Tech Live last week, follows Yo-Kai’s move into the home market with its home delivery service. The Takumi takes the frozen ramen bowls, which are centrally produced in Yo-Kai’s California facilities, and steams and reconstitutes the ramen in just a few minutes.

The company has plans to not only to start selling ramen to users in the office and home, but on the go with an autonomous ramen delivery cart.

Day With Yo Kai Final

Samsung Bot Handy

Samsung announced a trio of home robots aimed at helping humans around the house. The one that was most interesting when it comes to lending a hand in the kitchen was Bot Handy, a mobile bot with large articulating hand that can help with anything from pouring a glass of wine to doing the dishes.

It’s worth noting that Samsung – like many big consumer electronics brands – has a history of showing off cool new product prototypes at CES that are more conceptual than anything close to actually coming to market, including last year’s they showed off a Moley-kitchen style robot system. Let’s hope the Bot Handy is something the company delivers on.

Julia

The Julia is another single-pot home cooking robot that allows the user to set it and forget it for pretty much an entire meal. The Julia is made by a Nymble, an Indian-based startup with plans to start selling the product in 2021. Nymble CEO Raghav Gupta showed off the product at Food Tech Live, told us that they are expanding their alpha trial program in the United States in February.

ColdSnap

Like the Takumi, the ColdSnap isn’t quite a full-fledged food robot, but something closer to a Bartesian style automated appliance that makes cold ice cream (as well as frozen margaritas and smoothies). While we weren’t able to get our hands on the ColdSnap, the company gave CNET a hands-on preview of the appliance and the editors were impressed. The appliance, which is going to a fairly spending $500-1,000, reminds me of the Wim fro-yo appliance that never made it to market after an acqui-hire of the founding by Walmart.