Miso Robotics is creating innovative robotics and artificial intelligence solutions designed to revolutionize the restaurant and prepared food industries. The company was founded with a mission to leverage AI technology to help chefs cook food perfectly and consistently and enable restaurants to increase labor productivity, reduce costs and drive profitability while improving the overall dining experience.

In the fourth edition of “Conversations with AUVSI,” Buck Jordan, president and chairman of Miso Robotics, took the time to answer some questions about Miso Robotics’ background, the company's robotic kitchen assistant, Flippy, and the company’s various partnerships with different restaurants and kitchens. 

Can you start off by providing some background information about Miso Robotics and the work that you all do?

Miso Robotics is a tech startup bringing artificial intelligence and automation to commercial kitchens through our robotic kitchen assistant, Flippy. With Flippy, quick service restaurants are tackling some of the biggest challenges in the food service industry – from increasing production to meet delivery and takeout demands, to improving health and safety through decreased human food contact. Our goal is to provide the intelligence operators need to reduce costs and improve customer service for a wholesome and satisfying dining experience.

What was the thought process behind Flippy, the world’s first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant, and what did the development process for it look like?

When Miso Robotics first started, the fast-food industry was facing some fundamental challenges such as a high turnover rate, an increase in delivery demands, and the need to produce consistent, high-quality products at fast speeds – which was just getting harder and harder to do in a way that didn’t dip into profit margins. So we set out to change all that and created Flippy. 

We introduced Flippy as the first burger-flipping robot in the world in 2017. Back then, Flippy was attached to a kitchen station, and it was able to grill and clean spatulas in between orders. A few months later, we improved our prototype by introducing new cooking capabilities, which allowed Flippy to work as a frying assistant that could also monitor for the appropriate cooking times to deliver perfectly consistent meals. 

As we partnered with different restaurant operators, we focused on adjusting our software platform and our hardware design to address the unique needs of each one of our customers – especially during COVID-19, when most restaurants had to completely rethink the way they traditionally operate. 

Our current design mounts Flippy on an overhead rail, allowing it to move across different workstations without getting in the way of busy cooks and enabling them to socially distance. This version of Flippy also includes new updates to our proprietary software ChefUI to assist kitchen workers with operational interactions and to allow Flippy to continue learning and expanding its capabilities.  

What is Miso AI, and what role does it play with Flippy?

Our proprietary artificial intelligence platform serves as the “brain” behind the robot. Miso AI is really a cloud-based solution that can provide the intelligence needed in the commercial kitchen to meet the needs of the restaurant industry.

Flippy uses artificial intelligence technology to locate and identify objects on a grill and a frying station, which allows it to precisely grab and move objects with high reliability. Additionally, this technology gives Flippy the ability to quickly learn and recognize new foods, enabling it to quickly adapt to different restaurant menus. 

Our AI-powered platform also allows us to integrate and sync Flippy with point-of-sales systems, which gives Flippy the ability to predict cooking times and coordinate orders – so, for example, the fries get cooked to match the burger’s completion. The platform also allows Flippy to know when a delivery driver is set to arrive to ensure it all lines up and customers get their food as fresh as possible.

Flippy has been selected to cook in several restaurants and kitchens including CaliBurger, at Dodger Stadium, and at White Castle; generally speaking, how do you all go about formulating these partnerships? Do you reach out to potential partners, or vice versa, or is the interest usually mutual? 

I would say it’s really a combination of both. We have a huge influx of inquiries rolling in every day, pretty much every major brand in quick service restaurants have us on their radar and the whole industry is waking up to a new reality that demands automation.

Our customer partners are operators facing the challenges of a post-pandemic world who are coming to us to help them stay productive in the kitchen amid social distancing concerns, maintain consistency in quality and increase food safety. These are all reasons why White Castle came to us, and other QSR are also reaching out. From a technology partnership side, we look for companies that can help enhance the value we bring to operators. Take for example PopID – the thermal facial reading technology that can detect if a person is sick before they come into a restaurant to restrict access – and Pathspot, a company that scans hands for pathogens. Both are offering a solution to combat health and contamination concerns by operators, and customer weary of returning to establishments or even ordering delivery/take out. By partnering with them, we can offer operators a more robust ecosystem of tools to help them succeed in this “new normal” and we can do it quickly! 

When the technology begins working in different kitchens, how do the people working in the kitchen respond to its being there alongside them?

Kitchen employees are essential to the success of Flippy. Our automated kitchen assistant works side-by-side with them to lighten the load and allow them to focus on delivering new levels of value. While Flippy automates repetitive, time-consuming and dangerous tasks like frying, team members can focus on creating the superior customer experience needed for operators to remain competitive.

Team members in the kitchen who have worked alongside Flippy have given us very positive feedback, commenting on their ability to be more productive in the front of the house – especially during night shifts when there can be skeleton crews and unusual influxes in orders. That’s a great value add for a 24-hour restaurant with a cult following of late-night cravers.

The truth is that Flippy is not only delivering better experiences for restaurant customers, but also for every kitchen employee. It’s a path to a better future all around, and we are proud to be working with our partners and customers to make it happen.

Robot-on-a-Rail (ROAR) is the new version of Flippy; what advancements has ROAR been equipped with that make it unique?

Earlier this year, we unveiled a new prototype that enabled Flippy to glide across multiple workstations on a rail. Our final design for commercial availability, which was just announced a few weeks ago, mounts Flippy on an overhead rail, allowing it to move across different workstations without taking up floor space in kitchens with limited floorplans, which can be tight quarters.

The new version of Flippy – ROAR or robot-on-a-rail – increases safety and throughput by interacting with a food hopper capable of dispensing the perfect amount of food for preparation before moving to the cooking station. There is also an input zone that can receive manually loaded baskets and a safety shield that protects kitchen staff from hot fryers and reduces any potential outside contact in the cooking process. 

We have also introduced new updates to our proprietary software ChefUI to assist kitchen workers with operational interactions and workflows through an easy to navigate dashboard view. We have also advanced our machine learning and computer vision to allow Flippy to quickly adapt to new menu items and continue expanding its cooking capabilities.

What’s next for Miso Robotics, Flippy and ROAR?

Well, we are continuing to expand on Flippy’s cooking capabilities and advance the design. Right now, Flippy ROAR, or robot-on-a-rail, is fixed upside down to slide between workstations – interacting with a food hopper to pull food, then taking it the frying station. This is optimal for a cramped kitchen, but we want to take it one step further and look to expand how many stations Flippy can help to streamline. While we have been all in on frying, grilling is still a big part and we will look at how those capabilities get stronger and incorporated into the current design.

As we focus more on SaaS, we want to strengthen our AI – it’s a very valuable platform for operators who maybe just want to better understand their back-end inventory or look cooking optimization without actually putting a physical Flippy into their restaurant.