Will Robots Replace Fast Food Workers?

Welcome to White Castle. This is Super Dave, let me help you. This robot named Flippy runs the fry station at a White Castle outside of Chicago. With his mechanical arm and using computer vision technology, Flippy can cook everything from french fries and onion rings to cheese sticks. White Castle said it plans to add 100 Flippies to its kitchens nationwide.

"We used to need two people to operate that French fry area during peak hours and now we are able to only have one person operate in that area," said an employee.

Fast food jobs are demanding, quick-moving, and sometimes even dangerous. Robot Flippy offers a solution to automate repetitive tasks. When you look at the restaurant industry, it’s a little bit late to the party at adopting automation and robotics. So far, restaurants that are using them are trying them out, primarily to help relieve boring tasks from workers' plates, make their jobs easier, and let them engage with customers more. However, there are reports speculating how many jobs could be replaced by these robots. Up to 82 percent of restaurant positions could to some extent be replaced by automation. Automation could save U.S. fast food restaurants over 12 billion dollars in annual wages.

Restaurants are also struggling to find workers. American restaurants are down more than 560,000 jobs or about 4.6 percent of its workforce from pre-pandemic levels. About a third of Americans worked in a restaurant as their first job, and half have some restaurant work experience. The economics of this are very compelling. The cost of one robot is around the twenty thousand dollar per year mark, which is comparable to the minimum wage.

Other companies in the space include Picnic, which has a robot that makes pizza, and Autech, whose machines make sushi. So what impact will robots have on the fast food industry and the livelihood of its workers?

Behind the Scenes at Miso Robotics

Miso Robotics got its start in 2016 with a handful of engineers in a Pasadena, California garage. Two years later, the company launched Flippy at a nearby CaliBurger restaurant. Flippy's first job was turning over a hamburger patty after it was placed on a grill by a human chef. The company quickly pivoted to fried foods, rolling out a portable fryer station for baseball games at Dodger Stadium.

In 2021, Miso launched Flippy 2 using a mounted rail system, AI, and computer vision technology that can identify and track food as it moves through the structure. Although it has a camera, tablet, and robotic arm, engineers say the real tech is in the software.

"The hard thing to get right about this product is having the computer vision, algorithms that plan the cook cycle, and the software that manages the robotic motion to all work together so that it's as reliable as a refrigerator," said Miso Robotics' engineers.

Food is dispensed directly from the freezer into a basket. The robot's computer vision identifies the type of food and places it in the appropriate fryer. Once the food is cooked, the basket is taken out of the fryer, shaken, and dumped into a holding area where it is bagged by a worker. This process mimics the one done by humans today.

Miso charges restaurants about $ 3,500 a month for a Flippy 2 under its robot-as-a-service model, with an additional installation fee of about $ 10,000. By comparison, the median hourly wage of fast food workers in the U.S. is just $ 12.07 an hour. Flippy 2 can work around the clock in many 24-hour locations. Built in Columbus, Ohio, it takes Miso about six weeks to manufacture one Flippy 2. The current off-the-rack mechanical arm, the same type designed for car factories, costs $ 15,000 each, plus another $ 5,000 in modifications.

Miso Robotics also makes a streamlined version of Flippy 2 called Flippy Light, as well as a drinks dispenser named Sippy. Flippy Light is currently being tested in restaurants by Chipotle, and what it’s designed to do is take one item that requires frying and just cook the heck out of it all day long.

The Economics of Automation

With about 25,000 shareholders, Miso has so far raised more than $ 70 million in crowdfunding and is testing a robot that fries chicken wings for Wing Zone. The global fast food industry is a $ 273 billion business, including more than 280,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S. alone.

At a White Castle on the outskirts of Chicago, staff during the busy lunch hour shift face a barrage of orders from drive-through customers as well as the main counter. The speed of service is crucial, with staff moving around jump about to help out getting orders out to customers. Yet meager salaries, fewer teenagers in the workforce, and the fear of COVID have drained fast food restaurants of employees. The job openings at restaurants reached 1.3 million in November 2022, the 20th consecutive month with over a million vacancies.

"During the pandemic, we faced a lot of staffing challenges and things are better, but there are still challenges with staff in many locations," a White Castle representative stated.

To assist workers, White Castle added Flippy to take over its fry station. The robot cooks food more consistently and doesn’t require time off. While robots are expensive, they may be cheaper in the long run compared to hiring and retaining multiple employees. Fast food work conditions are also demanding and hazardous, ranging from smoke inhalation to extreme heat, making the positions hard to fill.

“This is one of the positions that is hardest to fill and hardest to retain for restaurant operators. There are dozens of back-of-house positions, and this one is demanding, hot, and very fast-paced,” added an industry expert.

The Future of Fast Food Automation

Robot workers might solve other problems for restaurants too. In California, workers face health hazards, leading to high turnover, with the industry facing a workforce turnover of 130% prior to the pandemic. Low-wage workers also made up 43% of the U.S. workforce. Shifting one human from a station to another saves an estimated $ 700-900 in actual profit each month for restaurant operators.

Wage increases are another consideration. With fast food chains surpassing the minimum wage, the cost of labor is rising. McDonald's aims for an average of $ 15 an hour by 2024, and Starbucks brought its pay floor for U.S. baristas to $ 15 an hour.

Gen Z consumers made 5 billion restaurant visits in the year ending July 2022, with 4.3 billion trips to fast food eateries. As the cost of robots declines—by 50% over the last three decades—robot adoption in industries like food and beverage has been increasing. The industrial robotics market is expected to reach $ 81 billion by 2028.

Challenges and Competition

However, developing robots is hard and expensive. Miso spent substantial sums on R&D, salaries, and marketing, with revenue just $ 36,000 in 2021, mostly from deploying one Flippy. Despite these challenges, Miso remains one of the biggest players in the market.

Automating fast food could become as transformative as food delivery apps, a business that tripled to over $ 150 billion from 2017 to 2022. The global food market, where Americans spend $ 2.1 trillion a year on food, sees more than half going to food away-from-home purchases.

The industry acknowledges that robotics are an inevitable part of its future. With more automation solutions like Flippy 2, everyday restaurants, including some of the best-known brands, will increasingly adopt this technology.

Keywords

Automation
Fast Food Industry
Miso Robotics
Flippy 2
Job Replacement
Cost Efficiency
Labor Shortage

FAQ

1. What is Flippy? Flippy is a robot developed by Miso Robotics that automates the fry station in fast food kitchens. It uses mechanical arms and computer vision technology to cook various fried foods.

2. How much does Flippy cost for a restaurant? Miso charges about $ 3,500 a month for Flippy 2 under its robot-as-a-service model, with an additional installation fee of about $ 10,000.

3. What are the benefits of using Flippy over human workers? Flippy can work around the clock, doesn't require time off, and consistently cooks food. It helps ease labor shortages and shifts repetitive or hazardous tasks away from human workers.

4. How does robot automation affect fast food workers? Automation with robots like Flippy could replace some fast food positions, making up to 82% of restaurant roles to some extent automatable. However, it also aims to make remaining jobs less tedious and allows workers to focus more on customer interaction.

5. Where else are automated robots like Flippy being used? Besides White Castle, robots are being tested in other chains like Chipotle and Wing Zone, as well as in places like Dodger Stadium for high-demand events.

6. What are the economic impacts of automation in the fast food industry? Automation could save U.S. fast food restaurants over $ 12 billion in annual wages and help address staffing challenges by reducing the dependency on human labor for repetitive tasks.