My dinner with robots

Picture this: You’re sitting in a restaurant, eagerly waiting for your food to arrive. You notice something out of the corner of your eye – it’s your server carrying your meal toward you. There’s just one twist – instead of a person, it’s a rolling, robotic shelf, equipped with sensors to navigate its way through the crowd to your table.

If this seems wildly futuristic, it’s not – I saw this experience firsthand just a few weeks ago at HaiDiLao in Beijing, which is being called the world’s first fully automated kitchen. It was an opportunity to fast-forward into an environment that might become the norm for dining all over the world in just a few short years.

As someone who started their Ecolab career as a marketing manager in our Quick Service Restaurant division, I’ve been fascinated to see how dining has changed since then, particularly in markets like China that are truly leading the way in mobile technology and automation.

First of many

While I was in China recently for business meetings, I decided to see what’s going on at HaiDiLao firsthand. Because they’re an Ecolab customer, I also got a peek behind-the-scenes in the kitchen.

As I got a tour of the space, I saw robots preparing dishes or busy delivering food from the kitchen to tables. If you stand in their way, the robots will gently ask you to move, telling you they will lose their jobs if you don’t do so.

This is just the first of many automated restaurants that are being planned. HaiDiLao, the largest restaurant operator by market value in Asia, is teaming up with Panasonic to automate as many as 5,000 outlets as part of a major expansion.

While this level of automation is unique, we’re already seeing examples of it in other places. As many as 10 percent of Starbucks customers, for example, are already placing their orders ahead of time on the chain’s mobile app. You might have already seen self-service ordering kiosks at your local McDonald’s. McDonald’s has spent billions of dollars in rolling out kiosk technology and today, they have kiosks in more than 15,000 locations around the world. In Italy, France and Spain alone, more than half of its transactions are conducted by kiosk.

What’s ahead

Automation for restaurants is more a matter of when, not if. In fact, recent research from McKinsey Global Institute suggests that 54 percent of the tasks workers perform in American restaurants and hotels could be automated using currently available technologies.

Automation could help address many of the issues that restaurants are challenged with today, including food safety. In a recent survey by the Global Food Safety Initiative, less than one in 10 companies said that new digital technology is playing a significant role in food safety. With foodborne illness outbreaks making headlines daily, there’s a major opportunity for restaurants to explore new technology that could not only lessen risk but set them apart from their competitors and create greater trust with their customers.

For example, according to the CDC, a large percentage of foodborne illness outbreaks could be prevented by proper handwashing techniques. While we can – and do – improve these numbers through better solutions, protocols and training, there’s always a risk of human error.

As robots are introduced into the kitchen to prepare food, like they are at HaiDiLao, they can be intentionally programmed and designed to handle and prepare food in a consistent, sanitary way that prevents cross-contamination. Will it eliminate risk entirely? No – humans will still be involved in programming, monitoring and even cleaning these digital helpers and need to have the right tools and knowledge to make them truly effective. However, it is an exciting area to explore as we think about how technology can improve the dining experience. 

Right time, right place

So, coming back to that hot pot, how was my meal at HaiDiLao? It was great—everything I’ve always expected hot pot to be. How was the experience? It was accurate, efficient and thought-provoking.

It might not be my choice for every dining out experience--I’ll still enjoy chatting with my server when I’m celebrating a family milestone at our favorite restaurant. But for a speedy, consistent and delicious meal that gives us a glimpse into the future of restaurants, I’d seek out HaiDiLao again.