Your Chipotle Bowl or Salad May Soon Be Made by a Robot
The chain is testing a new automated process to help fulfill digital orders.
Photo courtesy of Chipotle
First there was Chippy, the A.I.-driven, tortilla-chip-making robot that Chipotle unveiled last year. Then, this past July, came the prototype for Autocado, an avocado-processing “collaborative robot” (a.k.a. “cobotic”) that cuts, cores and peels avocados to prepare them to be hand-mashed for the chain’s famously extra guacamole. Now, robots are coming for your Chipotle bowls and salads — but only if you order them digitally.
Chipotle is now testing a new automated digital process that uses robotics to build bowls and salads on digitally placed orders via an automated system. The new system, designed and built by automated-foodservice platform Hyphen, is currently being used at the Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine, California, but may roll out to other Chipotle locations.
Basically, when an order is placed digitally (via the Chipotle app, Chipotle.com or third-party platforms) and that order includes a bowl or a salad, those entrees will move through a new automated, below-counter “makeline” where individual ingredients are dispensed automatically.
“The bowl traverses along the bottom makeline and positions itself under the specified ingredient container,” Chipotle explains in a press release. “The intelligent dispensers dynamically portion each ingredient into the bowl.”
Meanwhile, Chipotle employees can work above and in tandem with the robot to assemble by hand any burritos, tacos, quesadillas or kid’s meals contained in the same digital orders. Then, Chipotle employees will combine the robot-prepped order with the elements they’ve prepared by hand, pack it all up and add any remaining items — like chips, side salsas or guacamole — needed to complete the order. Once complete, the order would be ready for pick-up via an in-restaurant pickup shelf, walk-up window or drive-up “Chipotlane.”
The idea is that the new digital process will not replace workers, but rather free them up to focus on serving customers placing their orders in restaurants, where meals will continue to be built by hand. The goal is also to increase digital order capacity and accuracy — and presumably decrease stress on workers — when things get busy. Bowls and salads comprise about 65 percent of all Chipotle digital orders, according to the chain.
“Chipotle’s new digital makeline built by Hyphen embodies our commitment to leveraging robotics to unlock the human potential of our workforce, ensuring an elevated dining experience for our guests,” Curt Garner, Chipotle’s chief customer and technology officer, says in a statement. “Our goal is to have the automated digital makeline be the centerpiece of all our restaurants’ digital kitchens.”
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