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Implementing robot chefs will result in lower costs, shorter wait times
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Monday, 27 May, 2019, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Fazli Azwan Manaff Md Fajar, Faridah Haji Hassan
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Is the rise of the robot, the demise of the restaurant server and chef? In 2018, Moley launched the world’s first fully-automated and integrated intelligent cooking robot – a robotic kitchen that has unlimited access to chefs and their recipes worldwide. It learns recipes, cooks them and clears up after itself. It can mimic the actions of a master chef precisely, bringing a variety of delicious dishes, cooked to world-class standards to the domestic kitchen and other food preparation areas. The system comprises a full suite of appliances, cabinetry, safety features, computing and robotics. This year, Moley expected to launch Robotic Kitchen, the consumer version that will feature the four key integrated kitchen items of robotic arms, oven, hob and touchscreen unit.
Combining sophisticated technology with a touch of human know-how can end up providing some high-value sustenance. Presenting Spyce Food Co. – a robotic, fast-casual restaurant that was established by four MIT graduates and a famous chef in downtown Boston. The Spyce’s Boston restaurant served averages about 500 customers a day. Opened in May 2018, Spyce’s customers can place their order from a kiosk, customising their bowls from a variety of cuisines from Lebanese and Indian to Latin and Thai. Once an order is put through, the robotic kitchen gets to work, and customers can experience to watch the robots drop the ingredients into a wok and cook up the meal, which takes between two to three minutes. There still are people involved, including greeters to get the customers going on the screens for ordering, which are easy and obvious to operate.
Spyce’s employee also adds the finishing touches, such as whipped ricotta or cilantro, and gives the bowl to the customer. Michael Farid, co-founder and CEO, at Spyce, aim was to automate tasks that are tedious, tiring and sometimes dangerous for human employees, like dishwashing, standing in front of a wok and plating meals. Currently, the company has fewer employees than a typical fast-casual restaurant—between two and five people on each shift.
Implementation of robot chef in the kitchen will reduce labour costs, lower customer wait time, and allow chefs to experiment with new flavours. Yet who would have ever thought that technology would rise to the extent and with the growing power of Artificial Intelligence, now we see robots entering our kitchens and playing the role of a chef.
Considering the pace at which technology is evolving, we are now pretty sure that future innovations will come to blow our minds. If one loves to cook at home, then it's unlikely one will ever desire automation to help one around the house. If one loves to eat out, one might not be bothered who makes it so long as it is delicious. However, this automation will be a good news for those who are not in the best position to cook for themselves.
In welcoming robot chefs, restaurants can consistently deliver delicious meals to their customers, no salaries involved. And the price of personalised meals for health and other custom preferences will decrease.
F&B industry revolution
Taking into account the current unstoppable buzz here, robot chefs will make a place for themselves in the mainstream food and beverage industry. There will likely always be a place for handmade recipes, even in the distant future, but fast food is likely to be one of the earliest "victims" of the rise of the robot in the workplace. These new evolutions are set to revolutionise our food and beverage industry needs forever.
The type of experience a business wants to provide its customers, combined with the forces like labour and real estate costs, will influence the rate at which automation replaces humans and disrupts the traditional workflow. Increasing labour costs, no tip credit or the potential loss of it for full service restaurants, and greater efficiencies have already been cited by restaurateurs as a reason they have revolutionised some of their workforce.
But how about human chefs? Surely some chefs will embrace varying degrees of helping hands in robotic kitchens, thereby tantalising the taste buds of their customers, and also families, with increased creativity and innovation; more freedom to explore the culinary arts.
Chefs put a little bit of themselves into every meal that is prepared, making no two dishes identical. The chef’s own personal touch, plating the dish and flavours in the preparation that truly make a quality dish. One must also consider the wide range of ingredients out there that will come with different quality and freshness. For example, tomatoes do not all look or taste the same, some vegetables may require pulling the leaves out, while potato skins may require peeling. What’s more, if the robot lacks the key senses of a human being, one must question how it could adjust its pressure to knead dough according to its consistency. If the food and beverage industry is going to revolve to robot chefs, all this effectively means that engineers have to close the feedback loop of these machines, making sure that they could sense different chemicals in the food, temperatures and react more efficiently.
The idea of a robot chef at home also might be a little frightening. Based on current progress, the robot chef will heavily rely on the Internet, so it could cook anything from the Internet. What happens if the robot chef loses Internet connection in the midst of cooking the meal? To overcome this, CEO and founder of Moley Robotics Mark Oleynik said that the reliable operation is the single most important requirement for the robot. A key part of the development process ensures safe and consistent operation of the kitchen, within normal parameters and the robot chef should be designed to be available offline.
Slowly, this innovation will adopt and adapt in our society. For example, the Moley Robotic Kitchen has attracted significant attention from housing developers, where giving an option to the new buyers if they choose to incorporate the unit as an option in the specification stage. However, the impact should be to look and study deeply, especially in the workforce in the food and beverage industry. They will lose their job one day if the industry is totally revolutionising into robot chef, hence better job planning for the future of the workforce needs to be done.
Not limited to that, if the robot chef are capable to cook anything that they downloaded in from the Internet and store in their database, slowly society will occupy their houses with robot chef. By that, the restaurant chain will struggle for their business and no more food delivery is required since any meals can be prepared by the robot chef. On top of that, we can see that the menu and recipe will not evolve.
(The authors are professors at Institute of Quality and Knowledge Advancement, Malaysia. They can be contacted at fazliazwan@hotmail.com.)
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