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The economics of this might be interesting. Say they are only targeting to make $1 per meal. And they’re opened for 14 hours a day, 10 am to 12 am midnight. A
by blackrock 6y ago
The economics of this might be interesting.
Say they are only targeting to make $1 per meal.
And they’re opened for 14 hours a day, 10 am to 12 am midnight. And say they’re always operating at full capacity. And each table has a 45 minute window between turnovers, so you eat your meal in 45 minutes. So you’ve got about 18 rotations throughout your day. And assume the 600 seats are always optimally filled.
Then, 18 x $600 = $10,800/day
Then, in a year, this could theoretically become: $3.94 million/year.
You could always adjust your numbers, like if they target $2 in profit per meal, then this could theoretically be $7.9 million/year.
Then, at these rates, the initial capital outlay for these robots, might just be worthwhile. Say, you spend $1 million for the robots and machinery, then, it would take 3 months to recover that cost.
Of course, you also have to factor in other costs like the front workers, cleaners, security, and dish washers (unless they have a robot for that too).
But at least you don’t have to pay for a cook anymore. But you will have to pay for a Quality Assurance guy to watch the robots.
And most people prefer to eat during the lunch and dinner rush, so you won’t get to hit the full theoretical operating capacity, thus limiting your profits. But you can try to make more in profit per visitor instead.
- eunos 6y ago> But you will have to pay for a Quality Assurance guy to watch the robots I assume with modern sensors, IoT and analytics, it can be done at scale remotely. Instead of maintenance folks regularly inspect on-site, they will only visit when the analytic indicates it is time to fix/clean the machines.
- contingencies 6y agoAverage meal delivery prices in second tier cities approximate or exceed 20RMB per meal. After ingredients at least 15RMB or 75% of that is potential margin. Roughly, this demographic covers at least the higher earning ~60% of the Chinese population or 840M people if you can scale it. Now, according to various sources food delivery networks currently deliver USD$35B/year to 400M unique users in China. Replace that with robots and you are talking faster itch scratching, better personalization, higher reliability, more choice, higher cleanliness, 24H availability, smoother experience (no "where are you I am outside" phone calls). So, forget your $10,800/day figure. Think USD$35B/year = ~USD$100M/day, discounting any growth. Now grow that, value the market position and lock-in in addition to the cashflow, and you have an idea of the real opportunity... that's how we see it, anyway.
- blackrock 6y agoMy estimate was for 1 restaurant location. The company can build out 10,000 robotic restaurants like this, which may bring you closer to your estimate of $100M USD per day. But, there’s also competition. Which will limit your earnings.
- contingencies 6y agoYes. We made the strategic decision control production, already have our own 1000m2 factory with heavy equipment enabling nearly full internal production and absolutely intend to build tens of thousands of units ourselves. Incidentally this means we can produce far more cheaply than if we had outsourced through contract manufacturers (default approach of foreign foodtech firms), and also in conjunction with modular design means we can pivot rapidly should we generate upgrades or revisions to hardware. You would be surprised how much convenience matters in the food retail market: the consumers tend to see only the immediate itch-scratching option, and mentally discard the competition. Just look at the recent explosion of 'food' in convenience retail chains globally since around Y2K, reportedly their largest growth area for decades.