Parents of teen slackers may no longer be able to threaten them with a job flipping burgers. That soon may be a career for robots. In fact, one California burger restaurant has hired a machine named Flippy to cook its patties.
CaliBurger in Pasadena has a robotic arm doing the flipping in its kitchen. According to a report from KTLA, a human employee first places raw patties onto the hot grill in front of it. Flippy then turns over the burgers and removes them from the grill when its imaging and thermal sensing indicate the patties are ready. It even learns how to be a better cook over time through artificial intelligence.
“It detects the temperature of the patty, the size of the patty and the temperature of the grill surface,” David Zito, CEO of Flippy’s creator, Miso Robotics, told the TV station. “The kitchen of the future will always have people in it, but we see that kitchen as having people and robots.”
Miso Robotics clocks Flippy at between “150 and 300 burgers per hour, depending on the kitchen staff.” Humans still put the cheese and other toppings onto the patties, but adding a robot to flip the burgers makes the kitchen safer, faster and cuts out human error. The addition of Miso’s automated kitchen robot has other benefits, as well, especially with an exponentially growing labor shortage.
“The number of job openings in the U.S. economy jumped to more than 10 million in June, the highest on record, as the U.S. labor market continues a choppy recovery from last year’s economic shutdowns,” reported the U.S. Department of Labor, according to CNBC. To put this in perspective, the Labor Department noted that this historic surge in job openings included a total of 1.6 million available jobs in the hospitality industry.
Filling this demand for workers is a seemingly insurmountable challenge, but Miso Robotics is looking ahead and is excited to help restaurants evolve to meet new challenges with continued growth. “The key to success in the restaurant industry is consistency,” John Miller, the CEO of CaliBurger’s parent company, Cali Group, told KTLA. “So anytime you go to a CaliBurger, anywhere, you know that the patty will be cooked exactly the same.”
The burger chain has several other locations along the West and East coasts, including in Seattle and Maryland. Those restaurants may soon have their own Flippys. CaliBurger also has franchises overseas in China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
In addition to Miso’s introduction of Flippy, the company has a current market valuation of $350 million and collaborations with 10 of the Top 25 quick service restaurant brands, as ranked according to sales by QSR magazine. Furthermore, Miso recently announced a partnership with Buffalo Wild Wings’ parent company Inspire Brands to develop Flippy Wings—a robotic chicken wing frying system that Miso projects will increase food production speed by 10 to 20 percent.
Miso Robotics is offering securities through the use of an offering statement that has been qualified by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under Tier II of Regulation A. A copy of the final offering circular that forms a part of the offering statement may be found here https://bit.ly/3c1J3ku.
The contents of this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It’s important to perform your own research and consider seeking advice from an independent financial professional before making any investment decisions.
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