Amid an ongoing labor shortage and the so-called "Great Resignation," a Cincinnati-based chicken wing chain is turning to robots.
Pasadena, Calif.-based Miso Robotics – which designs robots for the restaurant industry – announced a partnership Tuesday with Wings and Rings that will bring the tech company's automatic frying robot, Flippy 2, to the chain's Crestview Hills location. The venture is Miso Robotics' first in the Cincinnati area.
The restaurant began installing Flippy 2 Sunday, according to Bob Bafundo, chief operating officer at Wings and Rings. He told me the artificial intelligence-driven robot has so far been live for periods of time as the location continues to test the product. The machine should be fully operational by the weekend.
Flippy 2 is a "first of its kind robotic fry system," according to Jake Brewer, chief strategy officer at Miso Robotics. He said the robot "takes over the dangerous, difficult and highly repetitive" fry station job.
"The reason why Flippy 2 exists is because it's not a desirable job," he told me. "It's a job that's really hard to staff."
Wings and Rings hopes the partnership will alleviate the long-term challenges seen across the entire restaurant industry due to the tight labor market. According to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, food service job openings remain high. In May, there were almost 1.5 million job openings in the industry, a nearly 16% increase from the approximately 1.3 million openings last year – though the number decreased by 76,000 compared to April.
As job openings increase, so has the number of people within the industry quitting their jobs, known as the "Great Resignation." According to the BLS, 793,000 people left their food service jobs in May, up from 748,000 at the same point last year and 750,000 in April. Overall, roughly one-fifth of the over 4 million people who quit their jobs in May worked in food services.
"As the labor market continues to be tight, we have to look for ways to produce our products without taking any shortcuts or seeing any change in the standards that we've established," Bafundo said.
It's why Wings and Rings is making a "significant" investment in Miso Robotics. Though he could not offer a concrete number, Bafundo said the "ability to potentially replace what would be a full-time employee in the kitchen creates a sizable investment."
Some may see robots entering restaurants as stealing jobs and ending the industry as we know it. But the chain sees it as less of a replacement for human workers and more of an "opportunity to redeploy labor," he said.
"The kitchen side of our business is very labor intensive. It's the hardest work we do," Bafundo said. "So, the ability for us to improve the environment for our employees and allow them to potentially move into customer service positions can be a real upside."
Brewer thinks this type of technology in restaurants is a "foregone conclusion" and compared the automation of the kitchen to the automation of factories, saying food service has "lagged greatly behind other industries."
"You probably wouldn't even build a warehouse without robotics in it anymore. That would already date your facility," he said. "Versus we’re allowing restaurants to continue to be built at a very fast clip, without a lot of this foundational technology to keep people safe and to make jobs easier."
