"Robot Whips Up Food?"... Why Automation in Restaurants Is Not Easy

Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and Other Restaurant Chains Embrace Automation
Challenges in Replacing Multitasking Kitchen Tasks with Robots

Flipping pancakes. Grinding coffee beans to brew coffee. Taking out chicken and carrots cooked in a heat-filled oven and arranging them on a plate. Wiping down a slippery countertop covered in spilled oil.

Although robot technology development is accelerating, the automation pace in restaurants like McDonald's is considered somewhat slower. It is not easy for robots to replace multitasking jobs in kitchens where dozens or hundreds of different processes exist.

On the 28th, Aaron Allen & Associates, a restaurant industry consulting firm, projected that the U.S. fast food industry could save up to $12 billion (approximately 17.4 trillion KRW) annually in labor costs by automating restaurant and kitchen operations. This is also why major food and beverage companies such as McDonald's, Dunkin', and Chipotle are seeking ways to automate restaurant and kitchen operations recently.

Chipotle, a major U.S. dining chain, has been experimenting with an automated machine called 'Autocado' that cuts and pits avocados in 26 seconds. Another U.S. fast food company, White Castle, introduced an automation system called 'Flippy' in 18 stores to make French fries and other items. A New York restaurant, Kernel, implemented an automated kitchen system where laser sensors recognize when food is picked up and placed into the oven, and Sweetgreen, a U.S. salad chain, plans to introduce an automated salad-making system called 'Infinite Kitchen' in 12 locations within the year.

However, companies that have introduced AI systems for taking orders or managing inventory are exploring menu manufacturing automation due to labor shortages and rising costs after the pandemic, but progress has been slow. The New York Times (NYT) explained, "Attempts to introduce robots into kitchens for automation have been ongoing for years but have not yet succeeded," adding, "Robots that have mainly succeeded in automation, such as those in automobile factories or logistics warehouses, perform repetitive tasks, but in kitchens, a single robot must perform multiple processes simultaneously."

In this regard, Sharon Jackpia, head of consumer research at U.S. investment bank William Blair, said, "Most cooking systems are customized," and assessed that it would be difficult for robots to immediately replace tasks like frying.

When developing the Infinite Kitchen technology that Sweetgreen is promoting, they had to continuously adjust the system, paying attention to every detail. For example, when employees cook chicken and other items and prepare them, the robot transfers them to plates, and during this process, the system had to be continuously adjusted to rotate the plates appropriately to arrange the contents neatly without spilling. Also, certain ingredients like avocado or salmon, which could easily lose their shape, ultimately required humans to perform finishing touches.

Jonathan Neman, co-founder of Sweetgreen, who has been leading this challenging technology development for two years, recalled, "Adding almonds to a salad would have been easy." Nevertheless, he expressed belief that such automation robots would eventually reduce operating costs in the mid to long term. It was calculated that if a person can make up to 300 salads per hour, a robot could produce 500. Sweetgreen evaluated that the profit margin of one automated restaurant in Naperville, Illinois, exceeded 31%, surpassing the overall average of 20.7%.

Even if the technology is developed, the enormous initial cost required to deploy robots in each restaurant is also cited as one of the reasons making robot automation difficult. McDonald's opened a virtually fully automated store on the outskirts of Fort Worth in 2022 but judged that large-scale adoption was difficult due to impracticality. Expanding the interior of restaurants is inevitable for robot deployment, and related costs must also be considered.

Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle, said, "Automating restaurant work is an incredibly complex task," adding, "We are focusing on developing automation technology at a restaurant in New York, but it seems unlikely that the technology will be completed by the target date of March next year. We plan to upgrade based on data obtained from pilot operations, but completely eliminating staff will be difficult."