Over the past few years, the increasingly popular fast casual chain Chipotle has introduced a handful of new items, like plant-based meat options and quesadillas. One thing they haven't changed is their salty tortilla chips with a hint of lime -- until now, sort of.
Chipotle announced on March 16 that they have partnered with Miso Robotics to create Chippy, an autonomous kitchen assistant that will make and season their tortilla chips.
"We are always exploring opportunities to enhance our employee and guest experience," Curt Garner, Chief Technology Officer, Chipotle, said in a statement. "Our goal is to drive efficiencies through collaborative robotics that will enable Chipotle's crew members to focus on other tasks in the restaurant."
This isn't the first time that Miso Robotics has developed a robot for fast food restaurants, as Flippy was invented in 2017 to -- you guessed it -- flip burgers. The robot started working in 2020 at the California fast food chain, CaliBurger. Its success pushed Miso Robotics to later create Flippy 2 that can cook chicken wings, French fries, and other fried foods.
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In February, Miso Robotics announced that White Castle will install Flippy 2 in 100 different locations after they've had great success with the original robot since September of 2020.
Chipotle added that their goal is to make sure "customers receive delicious, craveable chips every time," and Miso Robotics is up for the task.
"When Chipotle challenged us to see if our technology could meet the brand's high standards for culinary quality, we couldn't wait to flex our engineering and design muscles," Mike Bell, CEO of Miso Robotics, said in the statement. "This partnership will allow us to move into new territory to help improve back-of-house functions and assist team members with their day-to-day responsibilities."
Chipotle said in their statement that Chippy is being tested at the Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine, CA, and will make its debut at a Southern California restaurant at some point in 2022.
Nevielle Panthaky, Vice President of Culinary at Chipotle, said that Chippy has gone through tons of training to make sure the chips still taste nearly the exact same.
"Everyone loves finding a chip with a little more salt or an extra hint of lime," Panthaky said in the statement. "To ensure we didn't lose the humanity behind our culinary experience, we trained Chippy extensively to ensure the output mirrored our current product, delivering some subtle variations in flavor that our guests expect."
Chipotle did not mention if the price of their chips will change once Chippy is working at the restaurant, as the price for a bag of chips ranges from about $1.50 to $1.75 depending on the location.
Garner told CNBC that that addition of Chippy in its stores is not with the intention of replacing workers with robots.
"I think we remain in a really strong place as it relates to labor," Garner said. "We didn't approach this from a lens of trying to solve for a labor problem. We approached it from a lens of what would make it easier, more fun, more rewarding, and how do we take away some of the tasks that team members don't like and give them more time to focus on the tasks that they do?"
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