Flippy, a robot chef, can now prepare 300 burgers per night. He can also prepare baskets of fries to fill the deep-fat fryer.

Built by Miso Robotics, a food services startup from Pasadena, California, it is now capable of working an entire fry station and can do twice as many food preparation jobs as the first Flippy, including basket filling, emptying, and returning. 

White Castle has partnered up with Miso to help with the Flippy project. This feedback has allowed the startup and startup to improve its product’s functionality.

They deployed the Flippy to a Chicagoland area location in September 2020.

A robot chef named Flippy, designed to cook 300 burgers a day, has been upgraded and can now also fill up baskets of fries and place them in the deep fat fryer

Flippy, a robot chef, can now prepare 300 burgers per-day and can also fill up baskets with fries and place them in the deep-fat fryer.

Built by Miso Robotics, a food services startup from Pasadena, California, it is now capable of working an entire fry station and can do twice as many food preparation jobs as the first Flippy, including basket filling, emptying, and returning

Miso Robotics, an innovative food service startup from Pasadena California, built it. It can now work an entire fry station, and can do twice the food preparation jobs of the first Flippy. This includes basket filling, emptying and returning.

FLIPPY 2 – THE FAST FOOD ROBOT CHEF 

Automated Dispenser to High Volume FoodsFlippy 2 is now fully autonomous thanks to new automatic dispenser options 

AutoBins are available for all other types and types of foods: Flippy 2 comes standard with three AutoBins which recognise and transfers food into baskets. 

Flippy 2 helps with the rest by placing food in the AutoBin. 

After the product has been placed in the bin, AI Vision automatically recognizes the food and picks it up. It then cooks the food in the correct fry pan and places it in a hot-holding area.  

The back-of-house position in quick-service restaurants has been traditionally labor-intensive and physically demanding. It can also pose a danger due to the proximity to hot oils and grills in small kitchens. Miso was inspired to find a safer alternative.

Flippy 2 is their second iteration. It is designed to maximize efficiency in the kitchen while working alongside human coworkers.

White Castle claims it was ‘impressed’ and ‘pleased’ by the productivity gains of Flippy in its kitchen. Flippy helped team members stay in their designated areas, reducing the need for them to jump into another area.

However, employees noted during the pilot that there was a need for human assistance on both sides of the robot – from the initial point of contact with the uncooked product to when the cooked food gets placed in the holding area.

This meant that one or two employees were required at several steps. 

Flippy 2 was created to automate basket management. This made the cooking process less seamless.

“We learned so much through Flippy’s partnership with Miso Robotics. Jamie Richardson Vice President at White Castle said that it’s amazing how we can provide better service and more delicious food to our customers.

The flippy 2 does not eliminate the need for people, it just makes the fry station, even during peak times, less of a full-time job, so staff can focus on other tasks.

White Castle has partnered with Miso on the Flippy project, giving feedback that has allowed the startup to improve the functionality of the product

White Castle has partnered Miso on Flippy, providing feedback that has allowed Miso to improve the product’s functionality

Among the new features on Flippy 2 are a brand new AutoBin™ system for lower volume and speciality foods like onion rings or chicken tenders.

Each bin can hold up to a full fry pan. It can also be customized for specific kitchen needs and delineated for individual products such as vegetables or fish to prevent cross-contamination.

Once the product is in the bin, artificial Intelligence kicks in to automatically identify the food, cook it in the correct pan, and place it in a storage area.

This reduces the overall human to food contact according to Miso. It also reduces oil drip and burns by lifting moving baskets. 

Flippy 2 is able to operate on its own without human intervention.

Among the new features on Flippy 2 are a brand new AutoBin¿ system for lower volume and speciality foods like onion rings or chicken tenders

Among the new features on Flippy 2 are a brand new AutoBin™ system for lower volume and speciality foods like onion rings or chicken tenders

Each bin can hold as much as a full fry basket, be customised for a kitchen's specific needs and be delineated for individual products like vegetables and fish to prevent cross-contamination

Each bin can hold up to a full fry pan. It can be customized for your kitchen’s needs and delineated for specific products such as vegetables or fish to prevent cross-contamination

‘This makes the system faster, increasing throughput by 30% – or around 60 baskets per hour – which is more than what is needed in high-volume restaurants.’  

Mike Bell, CEO, Miso Robotics, stated that Flippy 2 is a great technology. He said that Flippy 2 has improved significantly over its predecessor. 

The new Flippy 2 basket filling, emptying and return capabilities make it less bulky in the kitchen. 

Since Flippy’s conception, our goal was to create a customisable solution that works with any kitchen without causing disruption.

‘Flippy 2 is the only robotic fry-station currently being manufactured at scale and has more than 120 configurations.

Miso Robotics has a number of pilot agreements with leading national brands, including its partnership with Inspire Brands. 

Restaurants turn to ROBOTS for labour shortage: Four pizza delivery bots are now on US college campuses in Ohio and Virginia. 

As consumers demand faster access to goods, companies are increasingly turning to robots in order to deliver food all over the country.

Starship Technologies and Yandex, the Russian robot maker, have partnered up with colleges in the U.S. and the U.K. to deliver goods during booms in contactless delivery.

These robots can hold up to four pizzas at one time and can navigate college campuses, such as Ohio State University, and even city sidewalks. 

Although robots were only being tested briefly before the coronavirus, companies creating them say that their deployment has been accelerated by pandemic-related labor shortages. They also claim that contactless delivery is becoming more popular.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Alastair Westgarth, CEO of Starship Technologies, stated that he saw demand for robot use just go through the roof.