Chinese start-up touts robot chefs, AI as the future of restaurant kitchens
Cooking robots can help restaurants cut labour costs by 30 per cent, and reduce food and seasoning waste by 10 per cent
Robots can cook dishes as delicious as human chefs, and a Shenzhen start-up is trying to convince the world of that.
While the automation and artificial intelligence (AI) transformation has been making waves in factories and warehouses, it has yet to make a meaningful impact when it comes to cuisine, said Shirley Chen Rui, chief executive officer of Botinkit, a kitchen robotics firm she founded in 2021.
“The kitchen is the biggest industry in the world because everyone everywhere needs to eat,” Chen said. “However, it’s still a very traditional industry today, but that’s not the direction the world is heading.”
Chen, who ran a restaurant for eight years but found it hard to find a good chef and maintain food quality, believes that robots will help ensure the quality consistency of dishes in restaurants, especially when they have to scale up.
The solution is Omni, a robot that can stir fry or stew, add seasoning and clean up by itself with limited manual intervention. An operator, rather than an experienced chef, can simply choose a recipe and follow the steps shown on the touch screen to complete the dish. They can also operate multiple robots at the same time.
The company uses AI to achieve the right temperature and seasoning during the cooking process. Chen is also exploring how to use AI to generate recipes that meet changing tastes from restaurants and customers.
