Momentum Machines, a startup out of Lemnos Labs, plans to automate the fast food industry, starting with the perfect burger.
Science fiction has always positioned the idea that one day our human jobs would be replaced by machines. For those working in burger assembly lines, that day might be sooner than you think.
Momentum Machines' robotic burger making machine technology (Click Image To Enlarge)
Introducing a machine that makes burgers. Literally, it’s a burger making machine, in prototype, that takes unprepared ingredients like whole tomatoes, onions, uncooked patties, untoasted buns, and spits out a completely assembled burger:
Momentum Machines, the San Francisco-based robotics company responsible for the concept, notes that they are aiming to have a functional demo model by June 1st, 2012.
Momentum Machines robotic hamburger making machine prototype goes through testing (Click Image To Enlarge)
About a month ago, the company got a quick nod by the tech community and a shaky video by StartupGrind that caught the group during a work day. Jump to 2:38 for the interesting stuff, see company president Alex Vardakostas speak, joke about their CAD model and give a brief explanation about the power of their product.
How does it work?
The machine takes unprepared inputs (including whole tomatoes, onions, pickles, uncooked patties, untoasted buns, etc.) and then, as each order comes in, the device prepares the ingredients (slices tomatoes, char-broils patties, etc.) and assembles the entire burger.
Momentum Machines robotic burger has feeding tubes that automatically add lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles to their hamburgers (Click Image To Enlarge)
Customization occurs through a simple user interface, allowing the button-pusher to opt out of certain ingredients and add extras of stuff they like. When it’s done doing the assembling, it even puts the burger into a bag, if that’s what your company needs it to do.
Momentum Machines robotic burger is equipped for containers that automatically add mayonnaise, mustard and catsup to each hamburger (Click Image To Enlarge)
Vardakostas even commented on the possible additions of proteins outside of beef patties. He said they plan on integrating chicken sandwiches and fish sandwiches into the technology, and that their current setup isn’t too far off from handling such requests.
Momentum Machines robotic burger machine convenyor belt (Click Image To Enlarge)
When asked about the limitations of his machine, Vardakostas said.
“The machine is already capable of handling different sizes of buns, tomatoes, et cetera. It’s also really customizable in that the restaurant owner can tell us the proportion sizes desired of each ingredient and we can very easily modify the machine to suit their demand.”
Daily upkeep for potential restaurant users involves reloading the machine with ingredients “every once in a long while.”
The finished robo-burger as it comes off of Momentum Machines' robotic hamburger maker (Click Image To Enlarge)
The anticipated output is currently around 360 hamburgers per hour.
The aim of the robot, which remains without a name currently, is to produce food more consistently, with higher quality and at a lower cost.
Ultimately, a sterile machine opens the opportunity for a much more sanitary work environment. For those that think burger making robots sound superfluous, let the ramifications sink in.
Vardakostas notes that their potential customers include “hamburger restaurants of all kinds, food trucks, airports, train stations and other high traffic locations.”
Momentum Machines management team (left-to-right) is Jack McDonald, Alex Vardostas, Steven Frehn and Ari Atkins (Click Image To Enlarge)
Most exciting, as Alex put it, is all the new restaurant concepts that could be unleashed with their technology as the backend.
The utility for a restaurant owner is evident, less people on the line with more output. If Momentum Machines does their due diligence, it may even be beneficial to make available an adaptable API — opening the floodgates to unique visual ordering experiences.
COMMENTARY: Vardakostas grew up with firsthand exposure to the labor that goes into the burger-making process—his father owns a mini-chain of burger joints in Southern California. He turned his childhood experience into the idea for a company. Vardakostas said.
"I thought, 'What's the one tool a restaurant could have to destroy its competition'"
He estimates that their invention will save the standard quick-service restaurant $135,000 a year in wages, and build a more consistent product.
However, rather than making plans to peddle their apparatus to existing fast food restaurants, Vardakostas and his friends seem more interested in starting a restaurant of their own. Vardakostas says.
"Fast food sucks, and we want to change all that."
They envision a restaurant with a menu similar to that of a Five Guys or In-N-Out, but without the vast, stainless steel kitchen full of cooking equipment and scrambling employees. All the food prep will be done by machines, with human staff working the register and delivering the food. Vardakostas said.
"Maybe we'll have the cashier behind a podium with just a garden or vines on the wall behind them."
He explained the company's vision for how their machine-powered restaurant would be a serene landscape compared to the typical fast food environment.
I like the idea of a robotic hamburger making machine, but Momentum Machines must test their system thoroughly in order to insure that the finished hamburgers meet their high premium quality standards, the equipment can keep up with orders, and can produce burgers without mechanical breakdowns. They must also have a backup system in place to insure that they can produce those burgers in the event of machinery failure. Those finished hamburgers sure look good and tasty looking, but I believe that they are at least a year before they launch their first fully-automated hamburger operation.
Having your own hamburger restaurant is a great way to take the robotic hamburger making system through its paces, fix any mechanical issues and insure that the burgers produced meet its high premium quality standards. It will also serve as a test bed that they can use to prove the effectiveness and reliability of the system should they decide to franchise their restaurants or license the technology to end-users.
Courtesy of an article dated December 19, 2012 appearing in Robotic Trends and an article dated October 11, 2012 appearing in Serious Eats!
Thanks for sharing this. I've been hoping to get into the food service industry. Are you guys hiring?
Posted by: Liam Manning | 01/04/2013 at 03:55 PM