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Robots are creeping into the restaurant business in lots of places, and now they can be found in Chipotle Mexican Grill, helping the staffers make guacamole. Chipotle is testing Autocado, an avocado processing device that cuts, cores, and peels avocados. The prototype, developed in collaboration with Vebu, is currently being tested at the Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine, California.
How It Works
- A team member loads Autocado with a full case of ripe avocados and selects the size setting. Autocado can hold up to 25 lbs. of avocados at once.
- One at a time, avocados are vertically oriented, then transferred to the processing device.
- The avocados are sliced in half. Their cores and skin are automatically removed, and the waste is discarded.
- The fruit is collected in a stainless-steel bowl in the bottom of the device.
- A team member removes the bowl of avocado fruit and moves it to the counter where they add additional ingredients and hand mash the avocados to make Chipotle's signature guacamole.
Autocado's Origin Story
Vebu worked closely with Certified Training Managers from Chipotle's restaurants to analyze the company's preparation process and identify tasks that are time consuming and less favorable among crew members. Chipotle currently has individuals dedicated to cutting, coring, and scooping avocados. On average, it takes approximately 50 minutes to make a batch of guacamole.
Autocado's Potential Impact
The Vebu team is aiming to improve the device's processing speeds, which could ultimately reduce guacamole prep time by 50 percent, according to a company press release. In restaurants across the U.S., Canada, and Europe this year, the company is expected to use approximately 4.5 million cases of avocados, equivalent to more than 100 million pounds of fruit. In support of Chipotle's sustainability initiatives and waste reduction efforts, Autocado also aims to increase avocado fruit yield through precision processing, which could lead to millions of dollars in annual food cost savings if the cobot is successfully developed and deployed widely.
"We are committed to exploring collaborative robotics to drive efficiencies and ease pain points for our employees," said Curt Garner, Chief Customer and Technology Officer at Chipotle. "The intensive labor of cutting, coring, and scooping avocados could be relieved with Autocado, but we still maintain the essential culinary experience of hand mashing and hand preparing the guacamole to our exacting standards."
Cultivate Next
Chipotle is investing in Vebu as part of Cultivate Next, the company's $50 million venture fund that intends to make early-stage investments into strategically aligned companies that further its mission to Cultivate a Better World and help accelerate its aggressive growth plans.
Chippy
In addition to Autocado, Chipotle is currently testing Chippy, an autonomous kitchen assistant that integrates culinary traditions with artificial intelligence to make tortilla chips, in a Fountain Valley, CA restaurant.
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