Will AI replace cooks and chefs?

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Yes, it’s not a sci-fi fantasy anymore: robots become waiters and cooks and gradually change the restaurant industry. Let’s look at some robots that are already used or will be used soon and figure out whether they can replace cooks and even chefs.

What robots already exist?

Former SpaceX engineers created robotic pizza trucks that autonomously cook pizza for under 5 minutes. Their company is called Stellar Pizza and has recently launched in LA. The order is made via the app. Then, the robot starts cooking, and the driver, the only worker in the truck, goes to the required location and gives the pizza to the customers. According to Benson Tsai, the CEO of Stellar Pizza, automation is secondary, and the main goal of the company is making food affordable.

American fast food chains Wing Zone and White Castle partnered with Miso Robotics to deploy robot Flippy 2 to some of their locations. These robots are expected to do all the frying in the kitchen. The first version, Flippy, was used by White Castle but was unsuccessful and continued working only in one of the restaurants. Flippy 2, however, is an improved version, so the chains have high hopes for it.

Chipotle worked with Miso Robotics as well. They have recently tested a robot called Chippy, which makes tortilla chips. It is possible that soon the organization will use Chippy more actively.

FA-men restaurant from Japan uses robots to take orders and cook noodles. Moreover, machines consider the type of sauce, amount of spices, and toppings chosen by the customer.

But what about more sophisticated and complicated dishes? Moley robotic kitchen can prepare a perfect steak, cauliflower risotto, Tom Yum Soup, and many other dishes. With the help of a touchscreen, you can choose a meal you like, and robotic hands will cook it for you. Moley learned various recipes from chefs and can learn from the owner if they decide to cook something themselves.

The kitchen costs from $135k to $338k (CEO Mark Oleynik stated that the prices will significantly decrease over time) and is intended for home use. From the videos of Moley cooking, it is noticeable that the robot is not very fast and is no match for professional cooks in terms of speed. But Moley kitchen shows that cooking restaurant-level dishes is possible for robots, and it is likely that it will be cooking dishes much faster in the future.

Can reports replace chefs?

But what about chefs? Their job is not to merely cook but also to control all the processes in the kitchen, compose menus, play with flavors, and create new dishes. Robots certainly cannot manage these crucial tasks, can they? Well, technically, it is possible.

The first part is easier. If all cooks are replaced with machines, there won’t be problems with assigning tasks and controlling the staff. It is most likely that a manager will be observing how well the robots perform and whether they function properly.

Tasting dishes, experimenting with flavors, and creating new combinations of them can also be done by robots. Researchers from Cambridge University created a robot R2-D-Chew that can “taste” food, decide whether more or less salt, other ingredients, or cooking processes are needed. The robot was taught to cook omelets and assess the factors mentioned. The researchers believe tasting food will help robots cook better.

Firmenich, a company producing plant-based meat, uses the AI robot Sam that helps human flavourists find the right flavors. BBC says: “Sam takes the knowledge of flavourists and generates new formulas in minutes.” Moreover, BBC mentioned that the robot has “a database of ingredients gathered over 60 years at the company” and is not biassed as some flavourists can be.

If robots already know how to taste food and create new flavors, it is possible that in the future, when these skills are developed, robots will be able to compose their menus and make new dishes.

Final thoughts

So far, there are no robots that could completely replace professional cooks, let alone chefs, and be fast enough and cost-effective. But knowing how fast technologies develop and that ten years ago, robot cooks and servers were a mere fantasy, we can assume that there will be enough restaurants with mostly robot staff in another ten or twenty years.

Some robotic restaurants, such as Pazzi Pizza, Spyce, Zume Pizza, and a few others, closed. Possible reasons are the high cost of maintenance of the robots and public distrust. People are still scared that robots will take their jobs, so they do not want to support such restaurants. And more importantly, we have the desire to eat food made with love and a “human touch,” which we expect from human cooks and most certainly can’t get from robots. It seems that robotic restaurants should focus more on marketing and brand to have more chances for success. For now, we can only wait and see how the restaurant industry will look in a decade or so.

Resources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2018/12/11/will-chefs-lose-relevance-in-a-robotic-kitchen/?sh=6a637c5a213a

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/mar/07/food-tech-the-march-of-the-robots-reaches-the-kitchen