According to Greg Creed, CEO of Yum Brands, artificial intelligence (AI), robots and automation could replace humans in the food services industry by the mid-2020s (McGee 2017). Moreover, a new global study by Oracle, entitled Restaurant 2025, has found that fast and accurate drone food deliveries, 3D printing of unappetizing food into nutritious meals, voice activated responses, virtual reality and biometric diner recognition are all set to transform the dining experience (Karantzavelou 2017).

The widespread adoption of AI will impact on not only customers’ dining experience but also the operation of restaurants, like how restaurants employ and utilize staff. “It’s not actually meant as a labor replacement. We can just reapportion that labor into more service orientated roles that we think the customer will benefit both ways.” said Steve Easterbrook, CEO of McDonald’s (Bomey & Meyer 2017). Although the use of smart kiosks in McDonald’s has been regarded as a way to save labor costs, they assign humans to duties that can not be completed by machines. 

The benefits of AI in the restaurant industry extend beyond robots taking orders, making and delivering food. It reduces expenses while increasing efficiency in meal preparation and decreasing human error rate during peak hours. However, there are still some risks in implementing AI in restaurants. Not only is the cost of development high but also the technology is not mature enough to adapt all kinds of environments. Besides, it might increase unemployment and can also result in increased inefficiency, for instance, Caliburger hired “Flippy the burger-flipping robot” and fired after just one day at work (Miley 2018). “When you’re in the back, working with people, you talk to each other. With Flippy, you kind of need to work around his schedule.” says Anthony Lomelino, the chief technology officer for Cali Group (Austin 2018). Despite the risks involved in using AI, some restaurants continue to develop this technology because they believe that the advantages overshadow the disadvantages. Restaurants around the world have been implementing Robotics, Smart Kiosks, Chatbots and Food Service App, trying to improve customer experience.

In my opinion, I am not so convinced in implementing so many AI in a dining environment. Making reservations, ordering, food delivery and even the food we eat can be done by AI machines. For me, restaurant is a place for people to interact. The advancement of AI technology diminished the temperature of interaction between people and people. It is the calculation of the AI machines instead of the consideration of the restaurants’ staffs that meets consumers’ need and expectation. It will definitely take some time for people with conservative mind like me to get use to the change in restaurant experience.

Sources:

Austin, M. (2018). Flippy gets fired: Burger bot shut down after one day on the job. [online] Digitaltrends. Available at: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/flippy-burger-flipping-robot-shut-down/ [Accessed 30 Sep. 2018].

Bomey, N. and Meyer, Z. (2017). McDonald’s fast-food ordering kiosks will boost sales, analyst says. [online] usatoday. Available at: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/06/23/mcdonalds-fast-food-kiosks/423501001/ [Accessed 30 Sep. 2018].

Karantzavelou, V. (2017). Consumer attitudes on emerging technologies and their impact on future hospitality experiences. [online] TravelDailyNews International. Available at: https://www.traveldailynews.com/post/consumer-attitudes-on-emerging-technologies-and-their-impact-on-future-hospitality-experiences [Accessed 30 Sep. 2018].

McGee, C. (2017). In a decade, many fast-food restaurants will be automated, says Yum Brands CEO. [online] CNBC. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/28/in-a-decade-many-fast-food-restaurants-will-be-automated-says-yum-brands-ceo.html [Accessed 29 Sep. 2018].

Miley, J. (2018). Flippy the Burger-Making Robot was Fired After Just One Day at Work. [online] Interestingengineering. Available at: https://interestingengineering.com/flippy-the-burger-making-robot-was-fired-after-just-one-day-at-work [Accessed 30 Sep. 2018].

In this Internet era, everything can be sold online. A Taiwanese startup, Huayuan Biotech, cooperated with 22 egg farmers to launch the Taiwanese egg platform (好華雞Health Egg). It hopes to save more profits for the egg farmers by cutting off the middleman and let the egg farmers focus on product qualities. At the same time, taking account of consumers’ health concern to create a good cycle of technology.

Huayuan Biotech has not established for too long, but it has achieved little success in this short year, planning for IPO in 2019. In January of this year, they launched the “Good Huaji Proxy Mother” model, which means that consumers will receive a certain number of eggs with free delivery in the next eight months just by adopting a chicken. (Adopting a chicken costs around €33 and the average of an egg costs €0.13.) Huayuan makes consumers more aware of the TAP label (traceable agricultural products) of each egg. And this model can also guarantee the output of the egg farmers. Besides individual households, Huayuan has also cooperated with chained breakfast restaurants and retail stores like Carrefour. The current egg production has increased from 15,000 to 500,000 per day and the subscriber of the “Good Huaji Proxy Mother” has risen from 30 thousand to 60 thousand.

Now, Huayuan has come up with a O2O (online to offline) platform business model, launching a vertical e-commerce platform to sell eggs for egg farmers, who are not familiar with the field of logistic and marketing. The only requirement of the suppliers is that the eggs must be tested officially. Through this platform, egg farmers can earn more profit than the traditional channel. The founder of Huayuan, Huang Yiyuan, also indicated the difficulties to persuade the egg farmers into cooperation and with the size of the platform, he does not expect to make profit in the coming three years, but he is optimistic in the long-term.

In addition, there is another project within Huayuan that has already entered the testing stage, a real version of Happy Farm. They have designed a game called FUNGG that allows consumers to raise their own virtual chickens, and after 120 days, consumers will get a real chicken. At present, it seems that Huayuan’s creativity has found a different way through the unchanged traditional market, but after all, the starting time is not long enough. There may still be invisible potential challenges as time goes by and whether consumers are willing to change their purchasing habits is still unknown.

In my opinion, I really like the combination between information technology and agricultural. Thanks to it, people can now again have interactions with agricultural industry, despite living far away from farms. Moreover, egg industry is a really good entrance among agricultural products since protein is one of the most important nutrition people must obtain and most people eat eggs everyday. Nowadays, people tend to pay more attention on the sources of the food they obtain and are also leading a healthier lifestyle. Such company like Huayuan not only satisfies the consumer demand but also ensures the profit of the suppliers. With the advanced of information technology, cutting off the middleman will become a trend. Although it might bring a challenge to traditional agricultural market, it shows more respect and appreciation to farmers.  Besides egg industry, I am convinced that every agricultural products has the same potential. For instance, consumers can rent the land and farmers will grow vegetables in return or consumers can even adopt pigs or cows in the future.

Sources:

1. https://egg123.com.tw/index.php/about_list
2. https://money.udn.com/money/story/10862/3005496
3. https://meet.bnext.com.tw/articles/view/41284