Automation in the Restaurant Business

Craving pizza? Hop over to the new kiosk installed in your neighborhood. Press a button on the side of the kiosk, and immediately robotic tentacles come to life inside it, kneading the dough, squirting the sauce, and arranging the toppings.

The pie moves on rotating disks, and once the pizza is ready, it is neatly packaged and ejected through a vent at the bottom of the vending machine. Three minutes is all the robots take to bake your pizza. Not carrying cash or a card? No problem. Pay by having your face scanned.

Consider another scenario. You're strolling down the street when you're startled by a box on wheels rolling past you. You follow the diminutive contraption and watch as it comes to a halt in front of a house. A man walks out, and as he bends over the 'toy car', a lid opens, and the man pulls out a parcel containing his food. Pretty cool, isn't it?

Indeed, the food industry is moving closer and closer to a sci-fi reality, with technology venturing into every corner of food service. We are witnessing at the moment a large-scale digitization of food production, with robots, 3D food printing, and digital supply chains becoming more and more prevalent. Now technology is shaping food delivery too. The outbreak of the Covid pandemic and its disastrous effects on the food industry have quickened a trend that had already begun.

Restaurants did use cutting-edge technology to deliver food before the pandemic, but it was more of an 'add-on' that could make the dining experience convenient. In a 2019 study for the National Restaurant Association (NRA), management consulting firm Technomic found that curb-side pickup, third-party delivery, ordering through restaurant mobile apps, and drive-thrus did exist. Digital payment methods were also in use.

However, the shift from the physical to the digital, and the adoption of Industry 4.0 methods along the entire food value chain became absolutely necessary in the wake of Covid. The focus was on minimizing contact and staying within a sanitized space to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Going tech forward was the only way that restaurants could avoid being sucked into the Covid black hole.