On October 28, Beijing’s first fully automated kitchen with robot chefs and waiters will open to the public. Haidilao International Holding Ltd. owns a hot pot restaurant chain and recently partnered with Panasonic Corp. to create the automated eatery. Haidilao plans to expand to 5,000 locations around the world in the future.
Although the new restaurant is automated, it still serves the same hot pot cuisine that patrons are used to seeing at Haidilao. This means diners have their vegetables, meat and other ingredients cooked in boiling broth or a hot pot. Bloomberg reports that at the restaurant, “robots will take orders, prepare and deliver raw meat and fresh vegetables to customers to plop into soups prepared at their tables.”
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Haidilao International Holding Ltd. and Panasonic Corp. formed Ying Hai Holding Pte. The joint venture will oversee the expansion to other locations in China and eventually around the world. The managing director of Ying Hai Holding Pte., Jun Yamashita, told Bloomberg, “It could be difficult to expand to that size in terms of personnel, so Haidilao is shifting earlier to an operation that doesn’t rely so much on manual labor. That’s where Panasonic’s technology comes in.”
Automation and robots are becoming a bigger part of the food industry. For instance, Flippy, the robot hamburger flipper, was a grill cook at CaliBurger and handled the chicken and tater tots at Dodger Stadium this year. Although Flippy did not replace any employees, Haidilao’s restaurant appears to substitute human waiters and some of the chefs with robots.
You do not have to travel to Beijing to eat in a restaurant with a fully automated kitchen, and you do not have to wait for Haidilao to expand to the United States. Spyce restaurant in Boston has a robotic kitchen that cooks all the food for diners. Four MIT graduates started Spyce, and the fast-casual menu starts at $7.50 and promises the food will be ready in three minutes or less.
At Spyce, you order from a digital kiosk and one of seven woks automatically prepares the meal. Although robots control most of the process, a human adds garnish and sides at the end. Spyce has a few people working at its location in Boston, and Haidilao may have some human employees, too. However, the food industry is moving toward complete automation, which will eventually eliminate almost all the jobs for people.
Although most of the focus is on job loss, automation can make the food industry more efficient. It can also make it safer by eliminating the risk of contamination and reducing the chances of injury to human workers. When robots prepare vegetables for a hot pot, there is no risk of a human chef cutting his finger. Likewise, when a robot controls a wok with sensors, you do not have to worry about undercooked meat or food poisoning.