INNOVATION


being capable of creating 2,700 different combinations of the dishes on offer. Customers can specify down to the gramme what hot and cold items, proteins, sauces and fresh toppings are included. “Initially, we put 17 ingredients into the dispenser, looking at how we would put them together, shape and cut them,” says Chris Ince, chef director at Altalian Servest. “The more we trialled it, the more we found was possible. Chefs were open-minded from the start, though there was some fear of the unknown, but it is their food coming out of the robot, which is simply keeping the service element separate.” So far, Semblr has proven popular with Ocado staff, for whom it is a real talking point. “The level of customization has brought more repeat customers,” says Ince. “Specifying the level of carbohydrate or protein in meals suits people with specific needs, and pricing is per gramme of what you eat. It caters for everyone. The whole idea would have been a ghastly mess without a robot, which has removed all the inaccuracies and all the risk.” Customers benefit from the


customization, and kitchen employees have been redeployed to focus on creating food, not spooning it out. The next step is to develop Semblr for canteens and QSR restaurants, which will see it become modular to fit anywhere without the footprint of a big robotic arm.


Disruptor or dystopia? The big questions going forward are whether kitchens will become fully robotic, and whether robots will change the nature of foodservice. As yet, it is too early to tell. “Most robotic technologies are


very effective in what they are designed to do,” says Halabi. “Full robotic arm technologies are somewhat harder to assess at this point in time, but the


products are ever improving in terms of efficiency, so it is just a matter of time before some almost fully automated kitchens are common.” Front of house applications will certainly become more common in the near future. Richtech Robotics, for example, has created an autonomous foodservice robot called Matradee that delivers food to tables, is capable of opening kitchen doors, and can be programmed remotely with a smartwatch. Using machine Vision and LiDAR, it can intelligently avoid obstacles. Servi from Bear Robotics also runs the food to tables, allowing staff to focus on service. In any decision on automation,


however, operators must address the issue of upfront cost vs long-term savings. “Over the past few years, robotics have been hyped as an innovation without looking at the cost/benefit analysis,” says Halabi. “We consider the payback to our clients before recommending a potential robotic application. A good cost-to- benefit return is less than five years, with less than three years being a home run. The jury is still out.” “No one has yet found an application where the whole process is handled robotically,” notes Radford. “It is still more about human replacement to improve cost, speed and reliability of an individual step, and there is the cost of the robot and the challenge to program it to do what people do with the dexterity of their arms.”


When AI and robotics combine to mimic the human brain rather than just a limb, then robotic kitchens could be a realistic proposal, though one stumbling block remains. “Large investments have been made and robots can replace some of the human brain as well as the human arm, but people like food prepared by humans,” says Bender. “It impacts the guest experience, so we are a long way from fully robotic kitchens.”


“A ROBOT IS VERSATILE, NOT JUST FOR AUTOMATING A SPECIFIC PROCESS. THE KEY IS THAT A REAL ROBOT WILL BENEFIT WHEN IT IS MORE LIKE HUMAN INTELLIGENCE AND CAN LEARN”


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