The emergence of a new generation of highly automated robotics equipment that is rapidly gaining traction in the industry could leave some manufacturers feeling anxious about the future of traditional appliances used in commercial kitchens.
But one of the world’s largest foodservice equipment groups, Middleby Corporation, is buoyed by the changing currents that are sweeping the market – with one of its top executives insisting new tech-based solutions will actually “complement” and drive sales of more conventional kit.
Chief commercial officer, Steve Spittle, said the business believes it is well-positioned to “control the whole solution” thanks to strategic investments it has made in recent years.
This includes California-based cobot manufacturer Productive Robotics and robotics integration firm L2F. It also owns Powerhouse Dynamics, creator of an Open Kitchen software platform that monitors and controls kitchen equipment from different brands.
Mr Spittle said the combination of these solutions, coupled with the focused kitchen equipment brands in its portfolio, gives it a distinct advantage in the market.
“If you look at the other [automated] concepts that you’ve seen out there, they’re typically all third party. So they’re trying to take a robotics company that they don’t own and modify it to what they’re trying to solve. We have the whole solution.”
Mr Spittle said the acquisition of Productive Robotics was a “big one for us” and had been instrumental in the development of two pieces of “really true automation” that Middleby has launched in the past 12 months: FryBot and PizzaBot.
“If you take FryBot then we have a product called RAM, which does fry dispense. We have holding with Carter Hoffman and obviously we have fryers, so we have the underlying equipment. Then we own the robotics aspect of it and on top of it all we’ve got the integration. That creates a unique solution, and there’s a great opportunity to pull in additional equipment and more of our brands.”
Mr Spittle said the same principles applied for its automated pizza assembly system PizzaBot.
Robotics are used to prepare the ingredients and toppings before each pizza is automatically placed into a cooking appliance made by brands that it owns such as TurboChef and Middleby Marshall to create the finished product. “So there’s that underlying equipment element that I don’t think is ever going to go away,” he commented.
While the emergence of robotics solutions – especially in the fast food segment – has captured the market’s attention over the past 12 months, Mr Spittle said it was important to recognise that “embedded automation” is already firmly established in the industry.
“Conveyorized cooking is embedded automation, self-filtering on a fryer is an example of embedded automation, fast wash on your combi – there are so many areas of automation that people don’t think of. Even Concordia 30 second bean to cup coffee is another great example of automation.”
