Last week, Mexican food fast-casual chain Chipotle lifted the curtain on a new avocado processing robot called the Autocado. The new prototype robot, developed in partnership with food robotics innovation studio Vebu, will slice, core, and peel avocados before human hands mash them into Chipotle’s famous avocado dip.
The robot is being trialed at the Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine, California. According to Chipotle, the new machine could potentially cut guacamole prep time by 50%, which they say will help restaurant staff concentrate more on customer service and hospitality.
The Autocado works by having an employee load it with a case of ripe avocados, up to 25 lbs at a time. Each avocado is then vertically oriented and moved to the processing device, where it is halved, cored, and peeled. The flesh of the fruit is gathered in a stainless-steel bowl, ready for manual mashing and seasoning.
If Chipotle decides to deploy the Autocado widely across its restaurant locations, it could save a significant amount of person-hours that the chain spends each year producing guacamole. Chipotle expects to use 4.5 million cases of avocados across its US, Canada, and Europe outlets this year, the equivalent of more than 100 million pounds of fruit. The company believes the cobotic’s precision processing could increase yield and reduce food waste, leading to significant cost savings.
For Vebu (formerly Wavemaker), the deal is a nice feather in its hat for a company best known for the Flippy burger robot. Chipotle announced they would invest in Vebu through its Cultivate Next venture fund as part of the deal. This isn’t the first robot-oriented investment for Cultivate Next, which has invested in Hyphen, a maker of automated makelines for restaurants.
You can check out the Autocado in action below.
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