Robot fast-food chefs: Hype or a sign of industry change?

BOSTON — Robots can’t yet bake a souffle or fold a burrito, but they can cook up vegetables and grains and spout them into a bowl — and are doing just that at a new fast casual restaurant in Boston.

Seven autonomously swirling cooking pots — what the restaurant calls a “never-before-seen robotic kitchen” — hum behind the counter at Spyce, which opened Thursday in the city’s downtown.

Push a touch-screen menu to purchase a $7.50 meal called “Hearth.” A blend of Brussels sprouts, quinoa, kale and sweet potatoes tumbles from hoppers and into one of the pots. The pot heats the food using magnetic induction, then tips to dunk the cooked meal into a bowl. Water jets up to rinse it off before a new order begins.

Is this a robot chef or just another high-tech novelty machine? Experts differ, but more such automation is likely headed for the fastfood sector in coming years.

A report last year by the McKinsey Global Institute said that food preparation jobs are highly vulnerable to automation because workers spend so much time on predictable physical tasks.

Currently, there’s one big thing holding back the chefbots: “The human labor also tends to be lower-paid,” said McKinsey partner Michael Chui, making it less economical to automate those jobs. But that could change as businesses develop cheaper and more efficient robot chefs.

Spyce has those, and automated order-taking kiosks to boot, although it still employs plenty of humans. Founded by four former MIT classmates who partnered with Michelin-starred chef Daniel Boulud, the restaurant has hired people to do the trickier prep work — parboiling rice, rinsing and chopping vegetables, cutting meat and reducing sauces in an off-site commissary kitchen. It also employs a handful of people for customer service and to garnish the robot-cooked blends with fresh toppings.

But the mesmerizing machinery, equipped with dozens of motors, sensors and moving parts, is the real draw.

“The openness of the design was something we knew we wanted from the beginning,” said Brady Knight, a co-founder and engineer. “It is kind of a show. It’s fun to see what’s going on behind the scenes. We didn’t want to hide anything because we think what we made is pretty cool.”

Automation in the food industry isn’t exactly new, though it’s often unseen by customers. Think of the chocolate factory conveyor belt that led to comedic mishaps in a famous “I Love Lucy” episode in the 1950s, or machines that wash dishes and brew coffee. There was also the early 20th century fad of waiterless “automat” cafeterias that served hot food when customers fed a coin to open a glass door.

But while food processing machines are prized for their speed and hygiene, they have a harder time handling the complexities of fresh food.

Lettuce Insect, Disease and Weed Losses Workshop set for May 15

The 2018 Lettuce Insect, Disease and Weed Losses Workshop will be conducted 12-3 p.m. May 15 at the Yuma Agricultural Center, 6425 W. 8th St. Plan on arriving early, as lunch will be provided.

The goal of the workshop is to develop accurate “real world” data on crop losses and pesticide usage which is important to the assessment of integrated pest management programs in Arizona.