Just like pairing food and wine, choosing the right menu items for your new robot co-workers to serve can make or break your futuristic food venture.
May 22, 2024
Students staying up late at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Greensboro can now head to a pizza vending machine in a room just off the main dining hall that’s full of other high-tech snack-making machines. It’s open 24 hours, an oasis for any all-nighter study sesh.
“The biggest reason we installed the room is that students always said, ‘We want late-night options,’ So that is our answer,” says Chartwells Higher Ed Campus Executive Chef Bill Thompson. The pizza vending machine came during the pandemic, from a French company.
According to Thompson, the busiest time for the robot room is between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. “It’s right across from the dorms,” he adds. “We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback. When it first opened, we were selling 40 to 45 pizzas per night, but it’s slowed down a bit now. It’ll still be open over the summer.”
There is a bit of labor needed to run the pizza vending machine, requiring some prep work. Dough shells for 12-inch pizzas are parbaked by dining staff ahead of time, and also topped with pepperoni, cheese, sausage, veggie or supreme. Specialty pizzas that do well include a BBQ chicken pizza and a chicken-bacon-ranch option.
As a bonus, the machine also makes cookies—12 at a time, in chocolate chip and carnival (aka circus, with candy).
The room is also home to a Just Baked kiosk from Automated Retail Technologies (ART), “certainly less labor intensive than the pizza machine,” Thompson says. “Because the items are ready-made and you just put them in the machines.”
The Just Baked kiosks can cook up branded favorites like White Castle sliders and Wow Bao buns, and also items like calzones, lava cakes and the most popular item, cinnamon rolls. Classic frozen comfort food meals from Stouffers like fettucine alfredo, are also available.
“It’s very well-branded,” Thompson says of the Just Baked selections, something that helps students identify items that they already know and love.
Also in the room are two Byte Technology coolers, a smart vending system similar to a hotel fridge, where “the cooler knows when something gets pulled once you close the door,” Thompson says. “In there, we have grab-and-go sandwiches, salads, fruit cups and desserts.”
Overall, the robotic helpers are making students’ lives easier.
“The main advantage is mainly convenience for the students,” Thompson says.
Looking to the future, “we are planning to open up something in our food court called Sous Vide Kitchen,” he says. “It’ll be almost like a virtual food hall, where we could change cuisines from, say, Middle Eastern to Mediterranean to Mexican, and change it up using the same proteins.”
The proteins for the Sous Vide Kitchen will be cooked in vacuum-packed bags, boosting labor efficiency. And from there, “it’ll be super easy to change,” Thompson says. “Whichever flavor profile we want, we can change the sauces.”
Which technologies are right for senior dining?
CCL Hospitality Group’s latest report on optimizing tech for senior-living communities shines a light on how best to include residents in our increasingly tech-forward world.
Jun. 04, 2024
Seniors and technology don’t exactly go together. But that stereotype is changing, and stakeholders in the senior-living market are testing out tech that meshes well with the new, incoming demographic of residents.
CCL Hospitality Group, a division of foodservice giant Compass Group, provides infrastructure, data analytics, supply chain management, culinary and tech support for several major players in the senior-dining field, including Morrison Living, Unidine, Coreworks and The Hub, serving a total of 850 senior-living communities in 44 states.
With an eye on optimizing technology for those communities, CCL Hospitality Group is recognizing that the incoming generation, aka Baby Boomers, is increasingly fluent with technology, and is looking to tech for health, lifestyle, sustainability and yes, dining.
In CCL’s recent monthly report, Chief Culinary Officer Randy Emert, SVP, says he’s found that this generation is also more interested in sustainability than their predecessors.
“We’ve said goodbye to traditional printed recipes and have welcomed a new era of eco-friendly cooking,” Emert says in the report, adding that a paperless kitchen also means more chances for interaction with the cooking, leading to a better dining experience overall.
The report noted several areas of tech that are finding their place in senior dining.
While sous vide cooking is not a new technology, it has found a resurgence in the midst of labor challenges, as a time saver that allows chefs to provide food in advance while also using tougher, less expensive cuts of meat, for example.
Another area that fits well with senior dining back-of-the-house operations is the efficiencies of digital kitchens, according to the report. Staff can get recipes, reports, production sheets, HACCP info and more in real time. Hot holding systems that hold hot food for longer times are also easing labor issues. Training programs through online platforms are another way tech is lending a helping hand for senior dining.
As for the resident-facing side of senior dining, the report points out that seniors are, for the most part, comfortable using menus and ordering from their digital devices. Unattended micro markets are proving to be a way to let residents have 24/7 access to food and beverages, noting that residents now expect flexibility, while keeping that feeling of independence.
While all the new tech is great, the CCL report cautions those using it to never lose sight of the human element: “While bringing new technology solutions to meet the needs of your current and prospective residents into your community, it’s essential to do so without losing that personal touch with residents.”
Maintaining that balance is definitely food for thought.
Source : Foodservice director
June 2024
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