Chipotle Mexican Grill is moving one step closer to having a robot make its tortilla chips.
The burrito chain said Tuesday that it will test “Chippy,” an autonomous kitchen assistant made by Miso Robotics, next month in a restaurant in Fountain Valley, California. Chipotle has already tested Chippy’s ability to make and season its tortilla chips with salt and lime at its headquarters’ innovation hub in Irvine, California.

Miso Robotics Inc in Pasadena has started rolling out its Flippy 2 robot, which automates the process of deep frying potatoes, onions and other foods.
A big robotic arm like those in auto plants – directed by cameras and artificial intelligence – takes frozen French fries and other foods out of a freezer, dips them into hot oil, then deposits the ready-to-serve product into a tray.

Miso Robotics CEO Mike Bell joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss partnering with restaurant chains like Chipotle and the outlook for automation in the restaurant industry.

Wing Zone has tapped Miso Robotics to deploy the company’s robot, Flippy 2, at its 20 Southern California locations to handle the frying station for chicken wings and other fried menu items.

You’ve got to hand it to Miso — the company knows how to sell the sizzle, as they say in the meat-cooking business. The robotics firm has been striking high-profile deals with some of the U.S.’s biggest fast food chains, from White Castle to Panera Bread. Today it adds Jack in the Box to that list. The king of the late-night hamburger/taco combo is set to pilot a pair of Miso robots. That includes the newish drink machine, Sippy and the company’s old standby, Flippy 2, which helps augment line cook roles by flipping burgers. It’s still an extremely limited pilot, at one of the chain’s San Diego locations, but if things go well, there will be a further rollout in “the months ahead.”

Chipotle shared its tortilla chip recipe on TikTok in 2020, opening up the opportunity for fans to duplicate that recipe at home. Now the company is exploring whether it can hand off that duty in restaurants to a robot named Chippy. The company today announced a test with Miso Robotics that brings artificial intelligence-driven Chippy to its Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine, California. Chippy is programmed to replicate Chipotle’s exact recipe, with corn masa flour, water, sunflower oil, salt and lime juice.

Chipotle is testing a new autonomous kitchen assistant to handle cooking up one of its core menu items —tortilla chips. The company’s culinary and technology teams are working with Miso Robotics to customize its latest device, dubbed “Chippy,” to cook and season Chipotle’s chips with salt and fresh lime juice. Through artificial intelligence, Chippy is trained to recreate the exact recipe.

White Castle is planning to expand its Miso Robotics partnership to put robot fry cooks in 100 stand-alone locations nationwide.
Together, the burger chain and automation company will install a “flexible and modular” restaurant kitchen system known as the Flippy 2, which is programmed to store, fry and dispense food with automated robot arms. Description

The robotics program will take place in nearly one-third of the company’s locations.
White Castle burgers and fries

A burger-flipping robot may be coming to a White Castle near you.

Midwestern fast-food chain White Castle is outsourcing some of its jobs to robots.

The hamburger chain announced plans this week to install Miso Robotics’ “Flippy 2” in 100 locations.

The Ohio-based chain has been experimenting with the robotic fry cook since September 2020, when the original “Flippy” was installed in a Chicago area restaurant. After upgrading to “Flippy 2” at the original test location in November 2021, White Castle decided to roll out a larger version of the program.

You can count burger-flipping robots as one pandemic innovation that’s here to stay. White Castle announced today that it will be bringing Flippy 2, a robot chef that can essentially perform the same tasks as a team of fry cooks, to 100 more locations this year. This amounts to roughly a third of White Castle restaurants nationwide, so it’s likely Flippy may become a permanent addition to this burger chain’s workforce.

Last fall the burger chain first teamed up with Miso Robotics, the makers of Flippy, to launch a pilot program in its Chicagoland location. The company then unveiled Flippy 2, the latest iteration of the chef robot, back in November. Now it appears that the robot chef is ready for prime-time.

Flippy, as the robot is known, is no gimmick, says Jamie Richardson, a White Castle vice president. It works 23 hours a day (one hour is reserved for cleaning) and has operated almost continuously for the past year, manning—or robot-ing—the fry station at White Castle No. 42 in Merrillville, Ind. An industrial robot arm sheathed in a grease-proof, white fabric sleeve, it slides along a rail attached to the ceiling, lifting and lowering each basket when ready, immune to spatters and spills. White Castle is so pleased with Flippy’s performance that, in partnership with its maker, Miso Robotics, the chain plans to roll out an improved version, Flippy 2.0, to 10 more of its restaurants across the country.

CNBC’s Kate Rogers reports on the rise of the robo-chef, as restaurants turn to automation in an attempt to deal with staffing shortages. For her story, “Restaurants prep for long-term labor crunch by turning to robots to work the fryer, shuttle food to tables,” she visited Flippy at Inspire Brands’ Innovation Center in Atlanta, GA.

Today, Miso Robotics – the startup transforming the foodservice industry with intelligent automation – unveiled the newest model of Flippy, its flagship product, aptly named Flippy 2. Based on key learnings and feedback from innovation partner White Castle, who deployed the original Flippy to a location in the Chicagoland area in September 2020 and plans to expand to additional locations once the pilot is over, Flippy 2 takes over the work for an entire fry station and performs more than twice as many food preparation tasks compared to the previous version including basket filling, emptying and returning

Today, Miso Robotics – the startup transforming the foodservice industry with intelligent automation – announced its newest product line, Flippy Wings. Flippy Wings is the only robotic chicken wing frying solution designed from the ground up for high volume restaurants, including lead innovation partner and multi-brand restaurant company Inspire Brands. Buffalo Wild Wings, part of the Inspire family of brands, began testing Flippy Wings at the Inspire Brands Innovation Center this fall. Built on Miso’s latest Flippy platform, Flippy Wings is an all-new edition designed to meet the specific needs of restaurants, particularly those that specialize in buffalo wings.

Today, Miso Robotics – the startup transforming the foodservice industry with Intelligent Automation – proudly introduces its newly appointed Chief Technology Officer, Christopher Kruger, in addition to an expanded Board of Advisors comprised of industry experts William (Bill) Mitchell, John Inwright and Jane Gannaway.

Today, Miso Robotics – the startup transforming the foodservice industry with Intelligent Automation – announced its partnership with Lancer Worldwide – a global beverage dispenser manufacturer trusted by the world’s top food and beverage brands – to build an intelligence backed, automated beverage dispenser that will bring enhanced functionality for a future-focused commercial kitchen.

Today, Miso Robotics – the startup leading intelligent automation for commercial kitchens – proudly introduces its newly appointed CEO, Mike Bell. With the skyrocketing demand for contactless integrated tech solutions in restaurant chains and uptick in delivery and take out in the wake of COVID-19, Bell’s expertise and leadership will guide the company through a new phase of operational growth. Miso Robotics co-founder and CEO predecessor Buck Jordan will continue to leverage his venture capital expertise to focus on investment growth for the company as Chairman of the Board and President.

White Castle®, the country’s first fast-food hamburger chain, announced today a planned pilot with Miso Robotics – creators of the first autonomous grilling and frying kitchen assistant, Flippy – to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence and robotics in the restaurant industry. As part of the deployment, White Castle will bring the new version of Flippy, Robot-on-a-Rail (ROAR), into kitchens for testing and future integration. The deployment will put autonomous frying to work for enhanced production speeds, improved labor allocation and an added layer of health and safety in the cooking process. Committed to delivering the best customer dining experience, White Castle’s selection of Miso Robotics marks a move by the pioneering chain to modernize operations for even faster, fresher and delicious meals, every time.

Miso Robotics announced today the official start of their Series C equity crowdfunding campaign, following SEC approval. The company has already secured over $2.6M in reservations, following a $80M pre-money valuation in 2019. The campaign is being executed in collaboration with SeedInvest and Wavemaker Labs, with the aim of raising up to $30M in new funding.

Miso Robotics announces today a breakthrough prototype for its newest product, the Miso Robot on a Rail (ROAR) – the next generation of zero-footprint, cost-efficient robotic kitchen assistant solutions for evolving commercial kitchens. Taking into account market feedback from top Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs), Miso Robotics engineers have turned the problem statement on its head, moving Flippy, the robotic kitchen assistant, to an upside-down rail. This newest generation of Flippy is intended to be installed under a standard kitchen hood and allows Flippy to move along a line of kitchen equipment, tucked away out of the path of busy cooks.