2021年6月24日

機器人在廚房裏的表現還不錯——它們可以翻漢堡、做披薩、給你倒一碗什飯，甚至給你端冰淇淋。新機器人餐廳BonBot的創始人托馬斯·哈特威格表示，盡管機器人有烹飪天賦，但人們並不太關注食客在餐廳裏如何與機器人互動。直到現在。BonBot正在研發冰淇淋服務機器人，將在今年晚些時候在瑞典開業的BonBot餐廳使用。為了提供幫助，該公司剛剛從Stride.vc獲得了200萬歐元的種子基金。哈特威格說:“許多現有的餐廳使用機器人，看起來就像是把40年後的東西搬到了我們今天的世界。”他將許多這樣的餐廳的臨床氛圍描述為“幾乎就像在牙醫辦公室吃冰淇淋或披薩。他說:“我們希望帶來更人性化的東西。”哈特維格表示，該公司不僅想製造一台先進的自動售貨機，而且還想讓餐廳看起來不像其他機器人餐飲公司那麼未來感，他們還會在現場配備人類員工或“情緒經理”來幫助顧客。BonBot商店的原型。照片:BonBot。BonBot的顧客將通過一款應用程序下單——他們也將通過該應用程序付款——機器人將在他們麵前製作冰淇淋，同時他們將選擇配料、調味料和醬汁。 There’ll also be an option to order your ice cream remotely and schedule when you want to pick it up. Hartwig’s focus on the user makes sense — before starting BonBot, he worked at gaming company King on its Candy Crush game, famed for its addictive user experience. But the real benefit of using robots for Hartwig is that the reduction in personnel costs they provide. Those savings can be used to buy high-quality products that are good for the environment. Soft serve ice cream retailers typically use cheap ingredients to ensure they have a high margin product. Hartwig says the savings the robots make can help BonBot deliver a higher quality product while making similar margins as the rest of the soft serve ice cream industry. “Customers will probably come into the restaurant with low expectations of the food, because they think that it’s a show,” Hartwig says. “But that’s where I want to surprise the customers and deliver the best ice cream.” Thomas Hartwig, founder of BonBot. Those ingredients can also be more sustainably sourced, he says, something that’s increasingly important to BonBot’s target customer base: Gen Z and millennials. BonBot’s robots can help drive sustainability in another way too, Hartwig says. They’re based on an analytics platform that aims to predict supply and demand. “We know the weather, we know the events that are happening in the city, and we can be much smarter in terms of predicting the ingredients that we need,” he says. Using tools to predict supply and demand more exactly, as well as the robots’ ability to measure ingredients very precisely, means there should be less food waste coming out of the restaurants. Although the focus for now is on ice cream, Hartwig says they could branch out into a range of other products — particularly coffee, where robots could help customers specify the blend and temperature of their drinks. BonBot plans to open between two and four restaurants in Sweden, before moving into the rest of Europe once they’ve proven the robot concept. Sweden’s perfect, he says, because it’s a tech-savvy country and Stockholm’s full of food innovation — even if it might not be the ideal place to market ice cream all year round. “It might be hard to sell an ice cream in October or November when it’s dark,” Hartwig says. “But we’ve been thinking about sort of trying to come up with recipes that will make you want to have an ice cream, even on a cold day.” Freya Pratty is Sifted’s news reporter. She tweets from @FPratty Want the best of Sifted in your inbox? Our newsletter brings you the latest, greatest stories on startup Europe.