In 1864, David Goodell revolutionized kitchen food prep with the invention of a hand-cranked device that could peel an apple in a matter of seconds. Fifty-nine years later, Chipotle is introducing the next innovation in automated fruit prep with Autocado: a robot that can halve, peel, and core a mountain of avocados with minimal human assistance.
Chipotle, the US-based chain of “fast-casual” restaurants that also operates in countries like Canada, the UK, Germany, and France, actually refers to its new robot as a “cobotic prototype” because it’s designed to work in collaboration with kitchen staff in order to speed up the preparation of guacamole. Although mashing up and mixing other ingredients with avocados to make guacamole seems like a much easier task for a ‘cobot’ to handle, Autocado instead deals with the most time-consuming step of making guac: prepping the avocados.
You can watch the full video of the Autocado by clicking on the image below:
Developed as part of a collaboration with a company called Vebu that “works with food industry leaders to co-create intelligent automation and technology solutions,” the Autocado can be loaded with up to 25lbs. or ripe avocados (it has no means to determine which avocados are ready for prep) which the cobot slices in half and then removes the pit and peel, depositing the unwanted parts in a waste bin. The rest of the fruit is dropped into a giant stainless steel bowl which can be directly transferred to a counter and used to finish the final guacamole prep. The company showed off “chippy” last fall, a bot that helps make chips.
According to Chipotle, on average it takes about 50 minutes for kitchen staff at its restaurants to turn avocados into a batch of guacamole, including the peeling and coring steps. With Autocado, the process could potentially take half the amount of time, freeing up kitchen staff for other food prep tasks while still ensuring that customers are served freshly made guac. There doesn’t seem to be a definitive timeline for when Autocado will be introduced at Chipotle locations across the country, the robot appears to still be in the prototype stage. But if it proves to be successful, here’s to hoping the technology can also be miniaturized for home use.