Chipotle Mexican Grill, the international chain of fast-casual restaurants specializing in bowls, tacos and burritos is currently testing collaborative robots Autocado and the Augmented Makeline by Hyphen at Chipotle restaurants in Huntington Beach and Corona Del Mar, California for the first time.
The Autocado cobotic prototype cuts, cores and peels avocados before they are hand mashed into guacamole, allowing crew members to focus on assisting with other food prep. On average, it takes Autocado about 26 seconds to fully flesh out the fruit inside an avocado. Chipotle says that restaurants across the U.S., Canada and Europe are expected to use nearly 5.18 million cases of avocados, equivalent to 129.5 million pounds of fruit, this year.
The Augmented Makeline by Hyphen cobot uses automated technology to build bowls and salads while Chipotle employees operate the Makeline to make burritos, tacos and quesadillas. About 65% of all Chipotle digital orders are bowls or salads.
Through its Cultivate Next venture fund, Chipotle invested in Vebu, a product development company that co-created Autocado, and Hyphen, a food service platform that automates kitchen operations. It co-developed Chipotle’s Augmented Makeline by Hyphen…