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With the looming take over of the robots, why is the fast food industry still largely meat powered? I would think these establishments at their scale, would be

by j2bax 9y ago

With the looming take over of the robots, why is the fast food industry still largely meat powered? I would think these establishments at their scale, would be ripe for automation, yet they aren't. Are humans still cheaper in this particular industry?

imglorp 9y ago
Not for long: automation gets ever cheaper while compensation goes up. I envision a fast food store, or even Walmart for that matter, as a large mostly meatless vending machine.
zdragnar 9y ago
meat power has one advantage in the customer service industry (including fast food): robots aren't great at customer service. People are accustomed to being able to talk to another person. With the rise of the $15 minimum wage movement, a number of chains are experimenting with replacing some or most of their employees with automated kiosks and other devices. As they become less novel, and as wages continue to rise, expect there to be fewer fast food jobs available. It is a minor inevitability; I've seen burger assembly robots that will make, from raw ingredients (including the ground meat) burgers in a handful of minutes. The only human intervention needed is refilling ingredient hoppers and cleaning. Once people get used to not seeing so many other humans behind the counter, and the capital outlay to buy / rent / install the machines goes down (at least, relative to wages) they are likely to be much more widespread.
- j2bax 9y ago
  >I've seen burger assembly robots that will make, from raw ingredients (including the ground meat) burgers in a handful of minutes. Exactly this. A machine could make a far superior product in a fraction of the time for less money (at quantity). I worked at McDonalds through college, and I remember people (including myself) letting the pre-cooked hamburgers sit in the warming bins for hours passed the time they were supposed to. Gross! At a minimum, I can't see why everything in the prep-area wouldn't already be automated. I imagine there'd be far less waste as well with everything being stored in a pre-cooked temperature controlled manner until the customer orders it. I wonder how long it would be before McDonalds followed suit if someone with the capital built a competing shop that automated to the max and made a superior product for a competitive price.
petra 9y ago
There are many startups working on automating cheap and easy food, be it zume pizza, spyce foods(they have an impressive video), 2 for burger joints , Sally the salad robot , tovala combi oven to reheat frozen meals to restaurant quality , and surely others. It's just a matter of time.

by j2bax 9y ago

imglorp 9y ago

Not for long: automation gets ever cheaper while compensation goes up. I envision a fast food store, or even Walmart for that matter, as a large mostly meatless vending machine.

zdragnar 9y ago

meat power has one advantage in the customer service industry (including fast food): robots aren't great at customer service. People are accustomed to being able to talk to another person. With the rise of the $15 minimum wage movement, a number of chains are experimenting with replacing some or most of their employees with automated kiosks and other devices. As they become less novel, and as wages continue to rise, expect there to be fewer fast food jobs available. It is a minor inevitability; I've seen burger assembly robots that will make, from raw ingredients (including the ground meat) burgers in a handful of minutes. The only human intervention needed is refilling ingredient hoppers and cleaning. Once people get used to not seeing so many other humans behind the counter, and the capital outlay to buy / rent / install the machines goes down (at least, relative to wages) they are likely to be much more widespread.

j2bax 9y ago
>I've seen burger assembly robots that will make, from raw ingredients (including the ground meat) burgers in a handful of minutes. Exactly this. A machine could make a far superior product in a fraction of the time for less money (at quantity). I worked at McDonalds through college, and I remember people (including myself) letting the pre-cooked hamburgers sit in the warming bins for hours passed the time they were supposed to. Gross! At a minimum, I can't see why everything in the prep-area wouldn't already be automated. I imagine there'd be far less waste as well with everything being stored in a pre-cooked temperature controlled manner until the customer orders it. I wonder how long it would be before McDonalds followed suit if someone with the capital built a competing shop that automated to the max and made a superior product for a competitive price.

petra 9y ago

There are many startups working on automating cheap and easy food, be it zume pizza, spyce foods(they have an impressive video), 2 for burger joints , Sally the salad robot , tovala combi oven to reheat frozen meals to restaurant quality , and surely others. It's just a matter of time.