4 ms·
This is very cool, and I wish you all the best! I relate 100% to your problem statement. It's even harder if you have dietary restrictions you're trying to acc
by burlesona 6y ago
This is very cool, and I wish you all the best!
I relate 100% to your problem statement. It's even harder if you have dietary restrictions you're trying to accommodate, for example non-dairy, gluten-free, or low-carb. You spend a lot of your life prepping food, paying a ton of money for the small number of fancy restaurants that serve what you want, or else compromise and eat food that isn't what you want to be eating.
If there was a low-carb robot kitchen in my neighborhood serving $5 meals I'd probably be visiting that 10-20 times a week.
I could see tech like this also helping in underserved communities where healthier food is not only not affordable, it's simply not available. Lowering the capital requirements and unit cost could mean a better supply of healthier meals in neighborhoods that currently have few choices.
That being said, it's hard not to also feel a tinge of concern when reading announcements like this. Automation is coming for a _lot_ of jobs (in this case the ~14 million Americans who work in restaurants). I'm an optimist about such things, but I do also sense a concern that for a lot of people there aren't many "good jobs" left (where "good job" is defined by something that you could learn/train on the job without requiring special skills or higher education, and eventually make median income or better).
- kolchinski 6y agoThanks, yeah we've been already getting a number of customers who are vegan, gluten-free, etc. – specific dietary needs weren't on our radar originally but I'm really glad we're solving those problems. 100% agreed on the underserved communities. I remember going to Burger King with my family as a kid because that's what we could afford and was nearby. Restaurant jobs are an important question. We think we're more likely to displace more home-cooking than restaurant demand (we don't do sit-down at all), but there's also a big labor shortage in the restaurant world right now because fewer people want to work in kitchens than used to. I'm hopeful that automation will help people be able to cook less but keep demand for dine-in restaurants largely untouched (people want to go out to eat with friends and family).