Tech Talk: Would you like AI with that?

Robotics in the kitchen and AI apps automatically ordering produce when supplies are low, or suggesting recipes to reduce food waste, are ideas that would have been thought of as science fiction not too long ago, but they are happening now, according to emerging technology expert Toby George Jones. Toby provides workshops, presentations and training for businesses on how to harness emerging technology and he was one of the speakers at the 2023 Fine Food Australia trade event. He has no doubt technology is increasingly changing the hospitality sector, with the impact varying depending on the type of venue.

‘There are some places that won’t be touched much at all. There’s a little cafe that was my happy place when I lived in Brazil. It's a mother and son operation and I don't think there's even a scrap of paper to write anything down. You'd never want it to change. If an iPad appeared, it would almost ruin the illusion of the experience,’ Toby says.

‘Then there’s the other extreme, which is a fully automated organisation, and McDonald's launched their first fully automated restaurant in Texas last year.’

The Maccas near Fort Worth only allows customers to order via a kiosk or app and the food is delivered to the service window by an automatic conveyer belt, rather than a pimply teenager.

‘I think that with McDonald's, the writing has been on the wall for a while,’ Toby says.

‘McDonald's also investing in technology that would have the capability to integrate with your common applications, so that if you are, for example, driving on the motorway and you tell Siri you want something to eat, it will know what your menu choice would be, where the nearest McDonald's is, and it would reroute your maps to get you there and order for you.’

You would then go through an automated drive-through lane that would deliver your order as you arrive. With robotic arms costing around $30,000 but delivering efficiencies of about 40 per cent, they are certainly a realistic option.

‘A colleague of mine has got a number of venues in Melbourne and they're looking at implementing robot waiters not to serve the food but to move the food from the kitchen to the floor so that their waiting staff can spend more time looking after customers - having that face time, making recommendations, talking about the food, talking about the wine, rather than spending their time walking to and from the kitchen.’

Whilst the fast-food model is the most suited to full automation, most hospitality venues will straddle the middle ground, where technology will be used to ‘optimise the human so we can be more human’, according to Toby. In other words, venues will be able to use robotics to do low value tasks and overcome labour and skills shortages, freeing up staff to provide higher-value engagement and service.

Toby predicts robotic arms will play a key role.

‘You can have different AI-powered robotic arms built into the kitchen that take away some of the tasks that are time consuming for a chef. You can manage five of your fryers with one robotic arm, so it can look after chips and onion rings to free up the chef to spend more of their time on some of the complex components like plating up or using some of the knife skills that you wouldn't want to delegate. Technology can also make it easier for venues to increase profitability and improve sustainability by using rich data sets to predict trends and identify cost and wastage savings through the Artificial Intelligence of Things, which links AI-powered smart devices. ‘I think we'll see more of this in our kitchens at hospitality venues. So, it will know by the weights within the fridge how much produce you've got left and be able to do auto ordering. Then it can also see what is left over, and it could actually start to do things like making recommendations of how you could use it up in a special.

‘It would even know, based on the data of what's been paid for it, how it should be priced or what it could be pitched with — maybe an accompanying side or a wine pairing.

‘Again, is this optimisation tool. It's not going to replace someone, but it means that rather than an already stretched chef having to figure out how they are going to put these things together to reduce wastage they already have five suggestions of how they might be able to do that, and then they are able to put their own spin on it. I think we will see increasing amounts of that.’