“The key to shorter lines and higher profits at one restaurant chain: a salad-making robot,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Oct 17, 2023). Fast-casual chain Sweetgreen opened its first restaurant staffed by a proprietary robot that shoots kale, cheese and other ingredients down tubes into bowls traveling on a conveyor belt. A handful of employees add finishing touches, such as spiced cashews.
The system can slash the number of workers and time it takes Sweetgreen to make a bowl by more than half. Eventually, the company intends for salad-making robots to staff all of its new restaurants, working alongside human employees. Sweetgreen is preparing to center future restaurants around the system, which can take up 10% of the location’s floor space, with workers preparing ingredients for its tubes and others dispensing the meals it makes.
“A lot of other companies are trying to figure out how to add automation to their experience and are not willing to start over,” said the CEO. “I’m willing to blow the whole thing up.” (Sweetgreen’s robotics bet is bigger than others, and so is its need. The pandemic crippled the chain’s mainly urban operations, driving same-store sales down 26% in 2020).
Restaurant chains are striving to become more efficient as food, labor and other costs remain high, and staffing tight. The chains for years have experimented with automation, though robotics haven’t taken off as they have in manufacturing and retail. Chopping lettuce and flipping burgers involves working with soft, squishy ingredients and a variety of tasks that are hard for a machine to duplicate. It took Sweetgreen engineers two years to design a robot that could squirt dressing to order, apportion eggs and handle soft ingredients, some of which initially got stuck in the machine’s tubes.
Chili’s is scrutinizing operations down to the way workers prepare shrimp, while Wendy’s studies workers’ footsteps to design more efficient kitchens. White Castle is expanding its test of a “Flippy” robot that fries potatoes, onions and other food to more restaurants. Casual dining chain Kura Sushi uses robots to apportion rice for rolls, helping to reduce its need for sushi chefs. McDonald’s tested a robotic fryer in 2019 but eventually shelved it.
Classroom discussion questions:
1.What are the strengths and weaknesses of this robotic approach?
2. Why do robots not work as well at McDonald’s?