Robots Could Soon Replace Many Fast Food Workers Thanks to This Start Up

Robots taking over our jobs isn’t a new concept. It’s been talked about many times before. One of the arenas that could see more robots working in it is fast food.

Yum Brands Ceo Greg Creed has even predicted in a recent interview on CNBC that robots would replace fast food workers by the mid-2020s.

There’s a start up company in California called Miso Robotics that has built a “kitchen assistant” robot that is able to do all of the things a fast food chef would do. The robot is called Flippy and he can identify patties to put on a grill and track them as they cook. He can also flip them and put them into a bun when they’re ready.

It’s robots like Flippy that could revolutionize the fast food industry. Miso didn’t build Flippy from the ground up but opts to integrate already available components to make the robot. The company uses robotic arms, sensors and cameras. According to the company’s CEO David Zito, Miso develops proprietary control software to enable the robots to work as cooking assistants in complex environments right alongside humans.

“We take into account all of our customers’ needs for everything from food safety to maximum uptime,” said Zito.

“Today our software allows robots to work at a grill, doing some of the nasty and dangerous work that people don’t want to do all day. But these systems can be adapted so that robots can work, say, standing in front of a fryer or chopping onions. These are all areas of high turnover, especially for quick service restaurants.”

Miso Robotics has already amassed $31 million in funding and is planning to use the cpital to produce the first commercial units of Flippy which will be rollled out in the first quarter of 2018 at CaliBurger in Los Angeles.