Japanese company TechMagic has been working to create sustainable food infrastructure through technology, with a goal concept of “redefining customer’s eat-out experience with technology”. In a big step towards achieving the goal, they recently announced the implementation of salad-making robots capable of making 28,700 different types of custom salads at restaurant Crisp Salad Works. They are also designed to sync and receive orders from mobile and storefront kiosks. Currently, they are completing an initial technology verification process, and aiming for store implementation process by the end of July, 2022.


This is a strategic investment to save manpower in an effort to create an environment for the restaurant staff to focus on more creative tasks that are more directly customer service oriented.
The salad-making robot system, when finished, intends to offer:
-The ability to receive 28,700 different types of custom salad orders directly from mobile and storefront kiosks, and to prepare them accurately.
-An automatic measurement and calculation of all toppings (even unevenly shaped ones such as Romaine lettuce, chicken pieces, nuts, cheese, etc).
-Steady quality and speedy service.
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21 Comments
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Yrral
Pie in the sky,
Peter Neil
Lettuce find new green(s) technology?
Chibakun
Really, why not just have a person doing it?
SimondB
Situations Vacant: We currently have an opening for a salad maker. Must be able to remember 28,700 variations of salads and serve exact quantities every time. Y850 per hour.
Jacko
The food industry is slowly doing away with the human touch, it's the fast food industry next to use these robots.
Cricky
Fast food industry next? Oh my god the thought of a robot in clown face paint taking my order, that’s going to need a whole lot of therapy to get over a happy meal.
Kumagaijin
Its one thing to make a salad by putting various foods and ingredients in a bowl, but will these robots be able to toss the salad? That takes a human touch.
v_kurtzel
Filed under - solution for a problem no one has.
Right next to the hanko robot from last year.
Jacko
"Cricky
Fast food industry next? Oh my god the thought of a robot in clown face paint taking my order, that’s going to need a whole lot of therapy to get over a happy meal."
Crikey indeed!
GBR48
I wonder how much it costs. Plus the staff time need to keep it supplied with all the ingredients in a manner that it can deal with. Plus the space (kitchens are notoriously tight).
I can see it as a gimmick in a restaurant that only does salad, but otherwise it looks like an expensive way to sack a flexible staff member who could do much more than one job. And if someone is that picky about their food they probably make their own at home.
Japanese tech folk spend far too much time reading robot manga in their formative years. Whilst they are building stuff like this, personal data is getting hacked and ATMs are failing for lack of folk to do the everyday jobs in tech properly. I wonder how many of those laundry-folding robots were mass-produced, from a while back. Robots may well help the elderly or disabled, but for commercial use they have to make commercial sense, and they are rarely cheap.
kohakuebisu
Fun with maths says eight ingredients, small, medium and large for each one, and customer chooses five on on tablet is 42,000 combinations (5 from 24). That's with a restaurant economics-friendly eight ingredients.
As kuma says, I hope the robot mixes the salad and doesn't serve it like the photo. If it needs mixing at the table, it needs to be in a much bigger bowl to stop it going everywhere.
diagonalslip
would that be something like "eat the way we want you to eat, not the way you want to eat? (^_-)
Joe Blow
They're trying to slowly automate most jobs and then have most people on UBI, sitting at home consuming state-approved entertainment like the people in Wall-E.
Sven Asai
I have no idea what could be more creative than human staff doing it, of course theoretically also capable of managing to make 28,700 different salads out of a few number of ingredients.
Cricky
Bizarre premise. So those on already minimum wage are replaced by something costing 5 years of their wage. And requiring another 5 years of human wages to maintain. Makes sense in a world where people don’t count.
kurisupisu
This is not progress…
hooktrunk2
I don’t know about salad, but I could sure use a laundry robot. One where you put the clothes in and they pop out all dry and folded.
garypen
It's only a matter of time before they implement soup making robots!
P_C
wonder how you can change your order mid stream . . . .
sf2k
will it detect bugs and wilted ingredients?