Food for Thought : How Bots Are Changing the Game for the Food Industry by Mukunda Foods

©️ 2020 Mukunda Foods Pvt. Ltd.

Food for Thought

How Bots Are Changing the Game for the Food Industry

©️ 2020 M ukunda F oods Pvt . Lt d. 1

©️ 2020 Mukunda Foods Pvt. Ltd.

Contents Introduction …………………………………………………….……. 03 What’s Driving the Need for Kitchen Automation in Food Services …………..…………….….… 04 At a Glance – How the Food Industry Stands to Benefit from Automation …………..….….… 08

Early Movers in the Adoption of Robotics in Food Services ……………………………………………..….… 10 Does This Spell the End for Human Jobs? …………... 11 Kitchen Automation – A Window to More Favorable Economics …………………………………..…..… 11 Case Studies ……………………………………......................… 12 What’s Next for Robots in Restaurants? ………….…… 14 About Mukunda Foods ………………………………………… 15

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Introduction Automation in the food services industry has come a long way. It was way back in 1897 that vending machines first started to dispense food. Ever since, food service automation has gained ground, moving toward digital point-of-sale (POS) systems, self-service, online food ordering applications, and eventually kitchen automation. Robotic kitchens have now taken things further by transforming the process of cooking itself, entirely eliminating the need for repetitive manual work.

tireless, intuitive, cost-effective – the kitchen robot is all this and more. No wonder more and more food service players are warming up to the idea of adopting such automation tools to become leaner, improve bottom-lines, and grow their businesses faster. Also, investing in automation technologies makes perfect sense for an industry grappling with high labor costs, attrition rates, and intense competition. It was only a matter of time before bots found their way into restaurant kitchens.

As little as a decade ago, using robots in restaurant kitchens would have been the stuff of fantasy and at best, science fiction. Not anymore. Aided by sweeping changes made possible by disruptive automation technologies such as AI, big data, IoT and robotic process automation (RPA), new-age culinary tools are now doing the unimaginable – making burgers and pizzas from scratch based on customer preferences, brewing tea, mixing cocktails, tossing salads, etc., almost taking over entire kitchen operations. Fast, efficient, consistent,

Already, restaurant businesses investing in kitchen robotics are reaping rich rewards in the form of reduced costs, greater productivity per employee, scalability, quality and process control, more customized offerings, and improved profits. Sure, there are significant investments involved, but the payoffs are huge as well. This white paper discusses why adopting automation technologies is something food service players can no longer afford to ignore, and how the early movers are going about it.

An analysis by Mckinsey states that the scope for automating repetitive jobs in the food service and accommodations industry is as high as 73 percent.

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What’s Driving the Need for Kitchen Automation in Food Services More people than ever before are dining out / ordering online. Fine dines, quick service restaurants (QSRs), street stalls / kiosks, fast food chains, patisseries, cafes and ghost kitchens are all vying for the diner’s attention.

As per a global industry trends report by Research and Markets, the global food services market is expected to reach USD4.2 Trillion by 2024. Yet, for all the growth it is seeing, the food services business is fraught with risks — a notoriously unstable and transient workforce, huge fixed expenses, a highly perishable inventory of assets, picky diners, and intense competition. Industry 4.0 — which is

entirely reshaping how companies do business across industries, be it manufacturing, retail, healthcare, BFSI, and so on — promises major changes in the food services space as well. An analysis by McKinsey states that the scope for automating repetitive jobs in the food service and accommodations industry is as high as 73 percent. New automation technologies such as AI, big data and robotics can really change the way the restaurant business functions. Here we discuss the major demand drivers for the adoption of automation in the food services industry.

High turnover High attrition rates are proving to be a major concern for the hospitality sector. Recent research shows turnover rates as high as 58.5 percent for operational employees1. When the turnover is this high, the costs are not just monetary — customer dissatisfaction, low employee morale, decreased productivity, irregular service quality, and a negative effect on business performance invariably follow. What’s more, each time an employee leaves the company, significant time & money is spent on retraining new staff, driving up costs.

How automation helps Use of kitchen bots automates at least some parts of the cooking process, reducing the dependence on manual labor. Once the machine is set to required modes, it doesn’t have to be retrained. It can work tirelessly round-the-clock, finishing work at a fraction of the time it would have taken an employee, and doesn’t call in sick. For businesses struggling with high turnover, bots can really take a lot of the pressure off.

1: Employee Retention: A Study on Retaining Capacity in Hospitality Sector, IOSR Journal of Business and Management

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Dearth of skilled labor In the global food services business, demand is far outstripping supply. A 2018 study by the City University of New York found that New York City kitchens were running with just 50 percent of staff capacity2. This forced chefs to simplify menus, as there weren’t enough line cooks and kitchen staff to do the job. In 2017, the National Restaurant Association reported that 37 percent of its members said labor recruitment was a top challenge, up from 15 percent two years back. However, increasing wages is not an option owing to low profit margins in the business. This means restaurants must find other, creative ways to work around the culinary labor gap. How automation helps If one closely looks at reasons for this gap, a key factor is that people are rejecting kitchen

work is because of its physically demanding nature – long shift hours, high-stress jobs, repetitive, time-taking chores, and so on. Getting robots to do the tiresome, repetitive work will mean less backbreaking work for employees, which, in effect, will mean a better quality of life for them and lower attrition. Many restaurants are doing this successfully. For example, at Spyce restaurant (covered in an upcoming section in the paper), hot-water jets clean woks following meal preparations, reducing the need for workers to wash them manually. At Zume Pizza (also covered ahead), robots roll out the pizza dough, spread the sauce onto the dough, and deliver the assembled pizza to the oven for baking. The workers still need to add in the toppings, slice it, and package for delivery, but automation takes care of the monotonous, repetitive parts.

Need for speed Joints that see robust sales (with customers queuing up) often find themselves shortstaffed. Orders pile up while there’s not enough hands to cook and serve. Diners are more impatient than ever and hate to wait — it significantly lowers their dining experience.

How automation helps This is where kitchen robots can provide major support. They significantly reduce cooking time, work without taking breaks and maximize productivity, creating meals for hundreds in a matter of minutes.

Despite the growth it is seeing, the food services business is fraught with risks – a notoriously unstable and transient workforce, huge fixed expenses, a highly perishable inventory of assets, picky diners, and intense competition.

2: Food Network Fallout: Why There Are Labor Shortages in Restaurant Kitchens, CUNY Academic Works

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Ensuring consistency Using sophisticated machines for cooking results in consistent food quality, which, in turn, creates customer stickiness. Being consistent is all the more crucial for restaurants operating under the franchise model — it is vital to create the same taste and dining experience across locations, and using machines with same preprogramed modes makes this possible. Businesses can’t risk having variations in end products or under-portioning.

How automation helps Exact portions and ingredients need to be used consistently, and machines do this effortlessly. Kitchen robots prepare meals that taste ‘exactly’ the same by following the same algorithm and process. This way, the taste of the food no longer has to depend on the mood of the chef. Customers get a consistent experience, which can ultimately boost a brand’s appeal.

Evolving customer demands With eating out options today being almost limitless, a one-size-fits-all menu simply doesn’t work anymore. Diners now want more customized food experiences. Not only do they demand different types of cuisines, they are very specific about the ingredients that go into the making of their meals — portion sizes, choice of toppings, variations in crust thickness, special ingredients to be added or left out — there’s no end to the demands of today’s diners. Restaurants that provide such curated choices tend to be more successful; the ones that don’t inevitably lose out on business.

How automation helps Without bots, the task of personalizing a dish often becomes difficult for an employee, especially when they need to oversee this at scale. With bots to assist them, chefs today can not only conjure up new dishes each week to whet the appetites of diners, they can easily personalize a dish as per the customer’s choice. What’s more, they can also add local flavors to their standard menus, or add a dish that people prefer during a particular season or festival, creating a more personalized dining experience.

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Scalability Business expansion is a great strategy for food chains to stay in the game and grow bigger. Yet, they often face hurdles in the form of not finding enough competent chefs for all their outlets. What’s more, they can’t afford to be inconsistent. Diners today expect the same store layout, level of service, and menu across all locations

How automation helps Easily as kitchen bots, once set to preferred modes, can create hundreds of food items in a matter of minutes, that too with the quality and taste consistent. Staff expenses are minimized as there are near zero recruitment and training costs. Having bots ensures maximized kitchen output while achieving economies of scale at a kitchen unit level.

Demands for a cleaner and safer work environment Food afficionados will remember late star chef Anthony Bourdain’s all-revealing article “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” published in the New Yorker, where he spills the beans on how restaurant kitchen staff are more like a “submarine crew, confined in most of their waking hours in hot, airless spaces”. He talks about the unsavoury side of professional cooking, and how hazardous it can get for cooks. Cooks are highly prone to injuries such as cuts and burns, vulnerable to chemicals used for cleaning purposes, strains and aches from doing repetitive work, and so on. In fact, the “Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine”, in one of its articles, states that food

industry employees have a 60 percent greater chance of suffering from occupational hazards compared to workers in other sectors. No wonder the attrition rates in this business are so high. Kitchen workers are now increasingly expecting cleaner, less hazardous kitchens. How automation helps Automation technologies can do a lot to ensure worker safety. Kitchen bots can undertake the most hazardous parts of the job, are self-cleaning, and can easily fit into crammed spaces, unburdening the staff from dealing with the unpleasantness of it all. They result in efficient and standardized kitchen operations, and happy staff.

Concerns related to food safety and security With customers becoming increasingly aware of what’s on their plate, the onus now is on food service providers to stay updated on food safety norms and ensure they meet the standards. Yet, there is a high margin of human error while preparing food. Hygiene, contamination, etc. can damage reputations irreparably and result in huge losses. How automation helps Quality control becomes easier when a meal

is machine cooked, as machines can detect even small changes and raise a red flag (in the form of beeps, alarms) to notify cooks that something is not as it should be. Also, machines help to keep food items at exact specified temperatures, which prevents the spread of harmful bacteria. Smart machines can also self-clean and keep themselves in top shape, ensuring food is cooked hygienically each and every time.

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At a Glance – How the Food Industry Stands to Benefit From Automation Challenges

How Automation Helps  Reduces dependence

High Attrition Rate

on manual labor by automating some parts of the cooking process  Reduces costs related

to hiring, training and retraining  Eliminates tiresome,

repetitive work

Dearth of Skilled Labor

 Assists kitchen staff by

reducing their workload and improving quality of life  Significantly reduces

cooking time

Need for Speed

 Creates meals for

hundreds in a matter of minutes  Creates a consistent

Ensuring Consistency

dining experience, boosting a brand’s reputation

Industry Examples

Flippy, a robotic kitchen assistant, can flip burgers or fry 80 baskets of food per hour, almost entirely by itself, drastically reducing labor gaps and costs.

Using bots, Zume Pizza has been able to eliminate repetitive tasks and offer a $17 minimum wage to all employees, full health benefits and retraining opportunities.

Japan-based Fanuc has created a bot capable of cooking four types of ramen noodle bowls in just 90 seconds.

Chaayos’ IoT-backed bot Chai Monk ensures consistency in taste and quality as part of the teamaking process across its outlets.

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Challenges

How Automation Helps  Easily personalizes

Evolving Customer Demands

dishes as per a customer’s choice  Makes it easy for

restaurants to provide a curated choice to diners

 Helps restaurants

Scalability

scale up faster by ensuring maximized kitchen output while achieving economies of scale

 Bots undertake the

Demands for a Cleaner and Safer Workplace

most hazardous parts of the job, improving worker safety  Can fit into smaller

spaces easily

Industry Examples

Chowbotics’ Sally, the Salad Robot, can create salads with any combination of ingredients, creating an array of healthy choices for guests as per their specifications. Texas-based Briggo uses robotic baristas that brew 100 cups of coffee an hour, helping owners scale up business at little to no additional labor costs. At Spyce restaurant, hot water jets clean woks following meal preparations, eliminating the need for manual washing.

 Are often self-

cleaning, reducing workload  Ensures easier quality

control

Concerns Related to Food Safety and Security

 Keeps food at

specified temperature, ensuring hygiene and preventing spread of harmful bacteria

US-based Creator, a popular burger joint, uses bots that churn out 120 burgers per hour using sensors to ensure each patty is precisiongrilled.

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Early Movers in the Adoption of Robotics in Food Services As per a recent report, the global food robotics market is expected to reach $3.1 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 12.7 percent during 2019-20253. This exponential growth is being propelled by food services industry players that have been actively enhancing their digital capabilities to lower costs and improve turnaround times. Automation, robotics and AI are changing how food service players conduct their operations,

and will continue to have a bigger influence going forward. Automation in the food service industry, of course, has a long history. It was back in 1936 that the Multimixer, a machine that produced five milkshakes at a time, was invented. McDonald’s, a keen adopter of technologies, started using a double-sided clamshell grill to cook burgers quickly without flipping.

Let’s Take a Look At Restaurants Using Bots in Their Kitchens 



Zume Pizza works on the “cobot” concept, using robot arms to spread tomato sauce on a pizza base and load it into the oven. California-based CaliBurger has become immensely popular for its burger-flipping robot arm – Flippy. Developed by Miso Robotics, Flippy is a cloud-connected mechanical arm with 3D thermal sensors for eyes. It can flip burgers or fry 80 baskets of food per hour, almost entirely by itself. Caf X, a fully robotic café in San Francisco, uses a robot arm to make a range of java drinks. Human intervention is limited to

stocking coffee beans cleaning the facility.

milk, and



Sally, a salad-making robot from Chowbotics, is finding many takers in restaurants and coworking spaces in and around San Francisco. Sally can assemble salads using up to 21 pre-chopped ingredients that are loaded into its hoppers.



Japan-based Fanuc has created a robot that can cook four types of ramen noodle bowls in just 90 seconds. The robot boils water, adds noodles and vegetables, and dispenses servings into bowls.

3: Food Robotics Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast (2019-2025)

and

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Does This Spell the End for Human Jobs? Will kitchen robots take away jobs of employees? With robots now taking orders, creating customized meals, mixing cocktails, and more, will servers, cleaners, chefs and bartenders be made redundant? This has been a top concern for many working in the food and hospitality business. There have been protests and demonstrations by those fearing for their jobs.

staff work alongside robots. Even if robots become a standard in the kitchen, restaurants will always require dedicated chefs to experiment with new ingredients, create menus, and taste dishes. What these bots will essentially do is act like able assistants to the top chefs in helping them create extraordinary culinary experiences in a quick, hassle-free manner.

However, such alarmist calls about robots replacing humans are a far cry from reality. California, a hotbed for automation in restaurants, has seen employment explode by 45 percent during 2001-2016, even as more and more restaurants have embraced automation4.

Automation will, of course, change the old way of doing things, but instead of replacing humans, it will simply lead to a shift in the kinds of positions restaurants hire for, not in the number of staff. While a few restaurants want to now offer a futuristic experience to their diners by employing robots to even deliver meals, the need for the human touch will not go away any time soon.

Contrary to the fears surrounding robots replacing humans, automation is promoting more “corobotic” partnerships, where kitchen

Kitchen Automation – A Window to More Favorable Economics Automation, no doubt, involves significant investments in new technologies. High-tech kitchen appliances generally cost more than their traditional counterparts, or, in some cases, even more than labor wages. Yet, the RoI on such tools is huge. Automation can substantially boost the overall profitability of a restaurant business. As stated earlier, the workforce in the food service industry is highly transient, with employees joining and leaving all the time. In this scenario, not only do short-staffed kitchens need to constantly be on the lookout for new talent, but also need to train the new employees, only to see them leave again in

perhaps a month’s time. This constant training and retraining proves to be a costly affair for companies and eats into profits. Investing in a kitchen bot is a one-time expense. Once the configurations are set, the bot can handle repetitive, monotonous work with ease. It doesn’t require training and retraining, helping the business save hundreds of thousands of dollars in hiring and training staff. Also, because it is a superfast worker, a single machine can do the work of many, saving not just time and energy, but also amount paid in salaries to employees who would earlier have to do the repetitive work.

Automation will, of course, change the old way of doing things, but instead of replacing humans, it will simply lead to a shift in the kinds of positions restaurants hire for, not in the number of staff. 4: Full service: Automation in restaurants is changing the food industry, Greenbiz

Case Studies Chaayos Chaayos, a leading tea café chain in India, has adopted automation in its brewing process. Its IoT-backed bot, Chai Monk, is operational in 65 stores across five cities. Chaayos is now in the process of launching a new kitchen automation technology in collaboration with Mukunda Foods, and is planning to expand to 1000 outlets soon. Chai Monk was introduced to maintain consistency in taste and quality, and reduce manual dependence as part of the tea-making process. The idea was to offer a consistent experience across all outlets and eliminate any errors that might creep in manually. Not so long ago, Chaayos had to rely on training people to maintain a consistent quality across its stores. The chain faced a common problem – training staff was a time-consuming process. It needed

to ensure that they were following the right processes; also, customization was a major pain point. To maintain consistent quality across all its outlets, the café chain launched the kitchen bot.

The machine is integrated with the PoS system; as soon as a customer places an order, the bot starts preparing tea. It takes customized orders and every order is made fresh following the specific requests of the customer. With this crucial process automated, Chaayos is now training its employees to focus on the customer experience and handle more transactions. By saving time through automation, Chaayos can now handle more transactions. With volumes now increased, it has been able to lower its overall manpower cost.

Chowbotics Sally the Salad Robot, developed by Chowbotics, is an automated salad delivery system. Sally eliminates repetitive tasks in food preparation, allowing humans to be more productive.

Already, Sally robots have found multiple takers in Silicon Valley restaurants and hotels. Sally’s key differentiator is that it is customizable; it can create salads with any combination of ingredients, and users can

fine-tune the calorie count by adding or subtracting ingredients. The bot can whip up salads round-the-clock, making it ideal for employers that want to provide options when the cafeteria is closed, hotel operators who want to give guests an array of a healthy choices beyond the minibar, and convenience store operators that would like to offer a quick, fresh meal for commuters on the go.

Creator Creator, a burger joint in San Francisco, employs

two

robots

that

can

each

churn out 120 burgers an hour. From grinding meat to slicing tomatoes, grating cheese to

dispensing mustard, the bots can do it all. They can customize burgers with different toppings and sauces; sensors monitor the beef as it is precision grilled. A machine learning algorithm using information from 11 thermal sensors in the cooking compartment helps ensure that each patty is cooked just as the customer ordered it.

Despite offering a breadth of customization options, the burgers are priced for the mass market at around $6 each, which has been made possible by saving on labor costs.

Creator has received staggering reviews about the full flavor of the burgers and their consistent quality. Moreover, the restaurant has been able to significantly increase speed through automation. The machines take just 5 minutes to prepare a ready-to-eat burger and can cook multiple burgers simultaneously. This means that a fresh meal can appear every 30 seconds!

Zume pizza Zume Pizza, a food delivery startup in the Bay Area, employs its proprietary Doughbot kitchen robot. The bot bakes pizza in vans en route to the customer, for speedy service with fresh pizzas. The Doughbot is able to stretch a pizza dough in just 9 seconds, as opposed to the usual 45 seconds the process takes. It dispenses and spreads the sauce and moves the pizza in and out of the oven. Machine learning algorithms and temperature sensors ensure the pizza is

cooked to perfection.

Zume’s vision is to allot repetitive tasks to its bots so employees can focus on more ‘human’ work. Freeing up staff from the kitchen allows Zume to focus on customer service.

The results are clear — automation has allowed Zume to offer a $17 minimum wage to all kitchen employees, full health benefits, and retraining opportunities for higher-skilled jobs such as data science and people management.

Spyce Spyce Food, a Boston-based restaurant, serves healthy bowls and salads starting at $7.50, a price far lower than that of its competitors. Spyce’s robotic kitchen has made this possible without any compromise on quality. Once a customer places an order, choosing from different grain, curry, and salad options, they get a ready meal in just under 3 minutes. A robotic runner first picks up the ingredients

The cost-saving nature of automation has enabled Spyce to fit into a smaller space, save on rent, and expand quickly. Thanks to automation, Spyce has been able to sell healthy and personalized food at affordable prices. By automating the cooking process, it has brought the price down to around $7.50 as opposed to $12 earlier. Moreover, customers know they can expect consistent quality and speedy delivery.

selected, drops them off inside the wok, which then mixes and cooks the meal. Once

Apart from being efficient and cost-effective, Spyce’s food is also delicious. The business

cooking is complete, the wok tumbles the

owners wanted the flavour and quality of their

food onto a dish. Over 150 bowls an hour can

food to be excellent and thus brought in the

be prepared this way. The staff then adds the

expertise of Michelin-starred chefs on board.

final touches to the meal before presenting it to the customer.

What’s Next for Robots in Restaurants? Like just about every other industry, the food service industry is becoming increasingly automated. From fast food chains to middleend restaurants, many establishments are gradually adding various forms of automation both in and out of the kitchen. It is clear that leveraging robots in the kitchen can help food service businesses expand rapidly.

The long-term sustainability of food service providers is threatened by various cost pressures. Automation can be viewed as the antidote to such woes.

While installing robots comes at a price, when compared with labor costs, wastage, theft and other expenses, the investment begins to look highly attractive. However, the right automation solutions in the food service industry will have to come from new-age entrepreneurs and tech companies; neither manufacturers nor established, bottomline-focused chains are in a position to overhaul their production model just yet. What they can do instead is to incorporate automation in a phased manner to support their kitchen staff and increase efficiency.

About Mukunda Foods

Mukunda Foods helps the global food industry fulfil their kitchen automation goals, gain competitive advantage, reduce operational costs and maximize customer satisfaction.

We are the pioneers and end-to-end solution provider in the kitchen robotics space. With our unique business model, we have food brands at the center of our innovation. We partner with brands to custom-create robotic solutions for them, thus automating their food-making process. From identifying their automation requirements to building customized bots that fulfill their technological and operational aspirations, we help brands gain competitive advantage that helps them scale up and succeed.

Our unrivaled domain and subject expertise, and proficiency in emerging technologies like IoT has led to the development of innovative food bots that are and will continue to change the shape of the food industry. We believe that technology and human experience can together create the new era of automation. And we are the frontrunners in this new age.

Mukunda Foods has been frequently honored with technology and entrepreneurial awards – Tech Exchange Winner, Tata First Dot Judge’s Choice Winner, Wadhwani Foundation Entrepreneur of the Decade, to name a few.

Trusted by over 2000 outlets in 27 countries, Mukunda Foods has helped companies achieve their financial and business goals. To know more about us, our team and products, please visit www.mukundafoods.com. For business opportunity, please contact Dibyananda Brahma at dibyananda@mukundafoods.com