With labor prices skyrocketing in some areas, many restaurants are looking at multiple technologies to make food prep faster and/or less expensive: Sweetgreen Hires Kale-Shooting Robots to Speed Up Service – WSJ
Chipotle also announced last week that they are trialing a food prep robot that works with staff to more rapidly prep meals.
App-based and kiosk-based order entry is another way that fast food (especially) restaurants are reducing head counts. Additionally, since the pandemic, up to 70% of traffic to many fast food restaurants is “order in advance, then pick up and go” – consequently, many have announced plans to build future stores without sitting areas, or even to remove existing sitting areas. That means fewer areas to be kept clean, which means, less staff as well.
