Sharmistha Sarkar
Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) have helped the industries grow their productivity. Utilizing such technologies in food and beverage industries to provide growth in productivity as well as marketing has offered many advantages to the firms and distributors. Robots are proving much helpful in this field from production to delivery of the food items as they offer better hygiene, good speed, and control of processes.
Therefore, companies are trusting such AI-powered robotic machines for serving their customers. Recently, Dubai announced to inaugurate a RoboCafe, a restaurant completely dependent on robots. A robotic waitress has been launched by the British Tea Terrace restraint, named after Theresa May, to serve their customers.
Apart from this, the major issue of a large number of food deliveries has been sorted by launching robots, delivering food items in colleges and universities. Sodexo and Starship Technologies, in union with a college in Virginia, have launched a mobile vending machine to carry food and beverages from local distributors to college campuses.
Another such mobile vending machine has been launched by PepsiCo in collaboration with Robby technologies at the University of Pacific. Due to good responses, the demand for more such products is increasing in the food and beverage industries. According to a report by Allied Market Research the global Food Robotics Market is estimated to reach $3,612 million by 2023.
Following are certain innovations adopted by the food and beverage companies:
Dubai inaugurates a robot-based café as RoboCafe:
Dubai will be inaugurating a café, as RoboCafe- in Dubai Festival City. Based on AI and robotics, the café will be controlled by three robotic arms, that will take the orders, serve food, and also manage specialized lights and music shows. It will be the first in a robotic kind of café. The customers have to place their orders via tablet installed alongside the entrance, and the order will be prepared by the robots. The café will be an initiative to introduce AI-based technologies to the public.
Maybot, a robot waitress to serve the meal:
A British Restaurant chain, The Tea Terrace restaurants, and tea rooms, in Cobham, central London and Guildford will introduce a robot waitress named after Britain’s former Prime Minister ‘Theresa May’, at their newest branch on Oakdene Parade in Cobham, surrey. The restaurant is trying out to encourage the robot waitress to decrease labor costs in the future.
Besides Japan’s launch of the sixth edition robot a few years ago, the restaurant will be the first in Europe to introduce the advanced technological robot. Theresa has an independent navigation system, automatic barrier avoidance, and automatic order delivery function.
Theresa carries a double tray, which helps to ease up the repetitive work, such as carrying food and drink to one customer at a time and managing heavy trays of drinks. The robot has been introduced to assist the workers and provide them ease from the heavy workload.
Robots serving foods and beverages in Universities:
The college in Virginia in collaboration with Sodexo and Starship Technologies has launched an autonomous robot for food and beverage delivery on the campus. Small battery-powered robotic boxes are used to deliver the food from local food distributors to the university campus. It was first introduced in January and received a positive response leading the company to enlarge the plan.
Along with GMU and Northern Arizona University, the company desires to serve more universities. The orders are placed in a starship delivery app with multiple payment options. The vendors receive the order via the app. Users have to select a destination for pick-up and the estimated time is shown in the app. The customer requires to unlock the robot using the app once they reach them.
Another such autonomous robot, called Snackbot, was introduced at the University of Pacific by the union of PepsiCo and Robby Technologies. Snackbot will deliver snacks and beverages to the customers based on orders placed via an app named as Snackbot app. The orders can be placed under a fixed timing. The bots have a camera and headlight issued for careful navigation. It can travel up to more than 20 miles in one charge.
However, Coca Cola China has also launched an autonomous robot VenCycling earlier in China to deliver food and beverages to the customers along with a bottles and cans recycling facility.
Robots have been useful from bringing growth in food production in the industries until simplifying the lifestyles of its customers by delivering the food items. The increasing demand for such machines is leading to growth in the market. The robots have proved helpful in reducing the demand for skilled labors in the industry. However, it has also helped in reducing such compound and repetitive tasks in the food industry. The robots proved helpful for the employees as well, along with a good co-operation among them. Furthermore, the use of AI and good technologies are subjected to boost the market growth.
