Artificial intelligence in the food & service industry

Food for Thought.
Artificial intelligence in our burgers & coffees.

It’s no secret, as a society, we’re rapidly headed towards a digital superintelligence. With the likes of Facebook, Amazon & Google; we’re looking at machines that have the ability to solve problems in record time, suggest better routes to take, and make our lives a little boring but a lot more comfortable in the process. Essentially, we’re looking at a form of intelligence that far excels that of any human being.

However, in regard to it being a Friday, we’ve got Friday food for thought themes. Today we’re looking at how the power of artificial intelligence applications have been steadily and pretty successfully, making their way into the foodservice industry.

Armed with nothing but our curiosity, we set out to understand this rapid change that AI has ushered into the food industry. Right off the bat, we’d just like to say, towards the end of this tasty exercise, we were left pretty impressed and hella hungry.

Autonomous kitchens

The impact of AI in the food industry has been nothing less than a surprise. The idea of autonomous kitchens always seemed to fascinate us. I guess, over time, we got sick of seeing the same guy with his hair looking pristine and those teeth too good to be real, toss some dough in the air, or even our quintessential Turkish ice cream man who’d have me look like I was using my motor functionality for the first every time I reached out for a scoop. Everything grows old. We outgrow what we grow accustomed to, familiarity breeds contempt and evolution breaks it down; creating a space for innovation, creativity, and new things to prosper just like AI in foodservice.

FLIPPY
AI in an all-American.

First up, we look at Miso Robotics. Miso defines themselves as the future of food. Their love for food had them develop Flippy, the world’s first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant. Their robot learns from its surroundings and gets better with every burger flip, assessing the situation to always deliver 100 percent. That’s some pretty high-tech stuff for flipping a couple of burgers!

Armed with a spatula-tipped arm and a whole lot of intelligence, Flippy was built to assist and help workers increase their efficiency when it came to grilling and cooking.

Through the power of cloud-based artificial intelligence and thermal vision, Flippy was able to leverage its tech, cooking a raw burger to perfection. Paying close attention to each patty and using a display screen readout, Flippy the patty flipper would alert its human colleagues every time a patty was good and could be sent down for dressings and a bun.

Whether flippy could be a success or whether it is bound to meet a little friction with regard to how well it can collaborate and function seamlessly with humans is yet to be seen, for now though; we’re all pretty stoked at the idea and theatre of a robotic arm flipping our patties.

Sally
Intelligent salads for healthier living.

Our friends back in Chowbotics have done their bit of research. They know the importance of a good salad when they see one. Whether you’re recovering from a rough night or you’re looking to eat healthier, you can’t go wrong with a salad, unless of course, it’s a burger from Flippy.

Chowbotics define themselves as the future of fresh, that calling card seems pretty similar to Miso,  must be a template thing. Sally has reinvented how we look at salads – built with modern constraints kept in mind, Sally is a snack bar that occupies a full 3×3 space and best of all? Sally’s serving customers 24 hours, round the clock.

From counting calories, delivering precise portions of what you want, Sally serves up balanced meals, made with love and tech for your tastebuds. Built with pre-programmed menus prepped by a chef that loves salad more than curry I hop, or maybe you’re the particular kind, no problem –  go ahead and create your very own custom salad with 22 fresh ingredients on offer; from salads to a grain bowl, they’ve got a little something for everyone.

With a touchscreen on display, you get to pick what you want, place your bowl by the dispenser and watch as the detachable canister filled with some of that great organic produce goes to work. Think of sally as your salad vending machine present on every floor in the next few years. With healthier living on the uprise, Sally is definitely here to stay.

Briggo – #connectedcoffee

Artificial intelligence in coffee? Already in use by companies like Dell, Briggo offers you coffee on demand, and it’s a major upgrade from our standardized coffee machines. Hailed as one of the most innovative companies in 2019 by Fast Company, Briggo defines themselves as the leaders in connected coffee, and we like that, it makes sense.

We’re all going digital – embrace it. Don’t hide under the veneer of ‘fresh’ and ‘organic’ – we’ve gotta get used to the idea of sharing an ecosystem with our friendly robotic flippers and Sally’s salad. Connected, it gives me that feeling of technology and humans, together, it stems from connection and understanding, like an uncle that knows you but doesn’t really tell the rest of the family what he thinks of you, and he alsoknows coffee and serves up some lip-smacking coffee, and to be honest? We’ve never been more right.

Made specifically for people on the go and for travelers, Briggo allows users to customize their coffee down to the tee. You can even make use of the ‘order remotely’ function through the use of the app. Briggo has been built to be space effective; occupying just 40sqft and can produce up to 100 cups of coffee per hour!

Use a touchscreen placed on the front of the outlet to select exactly what you want and collect your coffee from the footprint towards the center of the entire console.

Hungry for Innovation

We don’t know if we’re going to continue eating what we are, or even if we’ll all go vegan or vegetarian even, but what we do know without is that we’re hungry for innovation, and there’s obviously a gap in the market waiting to be filled by AI-powered digital assistants in our coffees, salads, and burgers. Bon appetit!

About interface

Currently engaged with several enterprises in the Americas, Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA), and Asia-Pacific region, interface’s Intelligent Virtual Assistants or IVAs make every digital channel of an enterprise intelligent. With rich IVAs, an enterprise can leapfrog customer & employee experience to voice-first natural language interface. For more information, check out interface.ai.