Image this: You place your order at a drive-through, then a robotic arm cooks up your fries, dispenses your drink in a spill-proof cup, and provides the kitchen employees a li’l nudge-nudge when it’s time to flip your burger.
That’s what the way forward for quick-service eating places (QSR) may appear to be with Miso Robotics. Their tech combines the magic of robotics with AI, machine studying, pc imaginative and prescient, and information analytics to handle the business’s dire labor disaster and assist make industrial meals service safer + extra pleasant.
We sat down with Miso CEO Mike Bell to study extra about these robotic fry cooks and the way they’re altering the $300 billion QSR business. And JSYK, they’re nonetheless open to buyers—so for those who like what you learn, you may get in on the motion.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
How would you describe what Miso does to your family and friends?
When somebody sees Flippy taking frozen fries all through to the prepare dinner station and serving cooked fries, you may kinda simply drop the mic. Individuals don’t actually need an in-depth understanding of it. Our mission is to automate eating places, and we’re beginning with automating fry stations.
The place did the thought for the Flippy come from?
It got here from a mix of two of our founders—one who’s a restaurant entrepreneur, and the opposite who’s a know-how entrepreneur. So the restaurant man is saying, “It’s actually tough to rent folks to do a few of these jobs. And lots of people actually don’t need these jobs.” And the automation man is saying, “I believe that the know-how has now advanced in such a manner that it’s approachable and reasonably priced right this moment for a robotic to take over a few of the duties.”
The know-how is a lot extra accessible now, and so Miso was born.
Are you able to give us a high-level walk-through of how merchandise like Flippy are programmed to know what to do, and when?
Yeah, so for those who have a look at fast-food eating places, fries go together with nearly each order. What Flippy does is straightforward: It takes frozen fries all through the fry course of and dispenses cooked fries. There’s an overhead rail that hangs a robotic arm, which grabs the frozen meals and strikes it by way of all of the processes.
Fired up about Flippy and its robotic siblings? Miso continues to be open to buyers as they tackle the $300B US Fast Serve Restaurant Trade. Get the main points right here.
The complicated half is when there are 16 baskets of various meals being cooked throughout a peak lunch interval. The programming that goes into making Flippy work is a cautious mixture of pc imaginative and prescient and algorithms. When it’s mixed, you see a robotic doing the work of roughly two folks throughout peak durations in a quiet, seamless, and really environment friendly manner.
What has been essentially the most surprising half about working throughout all these industries—tech, eating places, robotics?
I used to be speaking to a few of the staff who’ve had one in every of our Flippy models put in for the longest time period. And so they’re mainly saying, “Flippy has modified every thing again right here. We’re sooner, we’re quieter, we’re calmer. There aren’t any errors, every thing simply works. Don’t ever come and attempt to take this away; this factor is a part of our crew and our operations now.” That type of passionate adoption by the precise customers of Flippy actually delighted us.
What do you see Miso’s position within the restaurant business?
We actually see ourselves as an answer to the labor disaster within the fast serve restaurant business. Earlier than the pandemic, labor was a high 5 downside throughout all chains. It is now the primary problem that eating places are dealing with. Our mission is to assist and we see no different answer. We’re not simply going to get up sooner or later, and there’ll be 1.5 million new staff fortunately leaping into the restaurant business. This downside just isn’t going away like that. It’ll be solved by way of know-how, automation and innovation. We see it as our goal.
Which eating places are already utilizing Miso Robotics?
There’s a complete bunch of them, however the ones we’ve made public are Buffalo Wild Wings, CaliBurger, White Fortress, and Del Taco. We additionally simply introduced Jack within the Field, which has over 2,000 places.
So, will there come a day when Miso merchandise can discuss and inform jokes?
You recognize, that’s really a extremely considerate query. We’ve discovered that after we put Flippy behind the home, it will get nicknamed. It typically wins worker of the month. It’ll be known as a teammate. It takes on an actual persona, an actual id. And it makes excellent sense—it’s doing the laborious work proper subsequent to you, daily. It’s obtained us pondering and speaking about how far we go. The know-how is definitely there to permit us to have a special identify, a special accent, and positively the power to talk to people. So we’re completely headed in that course.
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