Major prefabricated food practitioners would not have thought that opposing prefabricated dishes in 2024 would become the selling point of major restaurants.
The reason for this is not difficult to understand, the business model formed by "doing the opposite" has existed since ancient times. The essence of this is that consumers' pursuit of freshly fried and pot gas is engraved in the bones of Chinese.
But against pre-made dishes, the cost is not low. In the case of a rice bowl restaurant in Ciyun Temple in Beijing, 48 yuan a rice bowl is not cheap for consumers, but this is not the core problem of the boss, the price of the dish is 10 yuan or 20 yuan more can be "rich and thrifty", but the cost of Beijing chef is close to 300,000 yuan a year, which may directly determine whether this small shop with "freshly fried" as the selling point can survive in the next year.
As a food expert in the technology industry, I have visited many food destinations, including Chengdu, Hunan, Jiangxi, Wuhan and many other food destinations. I found that one thing that may surprise everyone is that AI stir-fry robots have been stationed in the back kitchen, and many freshly fried restaurants have robots "working" in the back kitchen, and you, as a consumer, are not aware of it.
While solving the cost problem of restaurant owners, the robot uses machine learning to replicate the chef's taste, and at the same time acts as the chef's AI assistant to help the chef solve some of the repetitive work.
Not to mention, AI stir-fry robots that can achieve a balance of interests of multiple parties may really become the confidence of restaurant owners to oppose pre-made dishes.
The kitchens of thousands of restaurants in China have entered the era of robots
The owner of an Internet celebrity Hunan cuisine restaurant in Nanjing, surnamed Zhang, has more than 10 restaurant chain stores, among which fried yellow beef and chili fried pork are the restaurant's popular products.
Boss Zhang faced the same problem as all restaurant owners, one was to be responsible for profits, and the other was to be responsible for taste, and his personal bottom line was not to use pre-made dishes. As a technology enthusiast, Mr. Zhang began to get in touch with the stir-fry robot three years ago, and after a nationwide investigation, he introduced the AI stir-fry robot Meishan Lion in the store this year.
A very intuitive example is that during the peak hours of 11:30-12:30 noon, the signature dish of stir-fried pork with chili pepper is stir-fried, and 1 traditional chef can fry 16 portions in 1 hour, and 2 Meishan Lion AI stir-fry robots are invested, which can increase by at least 30 servings during this period." Boss Zhang introduced, "The AI stir-fry robot is mainly to relieve the pressure of meals and reduce costs, so that I can recruit 2 new chefs when I open a new store, and the annual cost savings of a single store are 9."More than 60,000, if 10 chain stores are put into use, the cost savings are 960,000,000Even the speed of the chain has gone up.
The application of Meishan Lion in catering, hotel, and elderly care scenarios.
A Chinese top-level fast-food fried chain enterprise is also a customer of Meishan Lion, it is the first in the country to propose only to do freshly fried enterprises, its stores are all over the country's cities, based on the requirements of quality standardization, this company has increased its investment in intelligent equipment.
Even in order to have a better profit model, it has taken a bolder step forward, in addition to the existing chefs in existing restaurants, opening new and expanding stores, no longer recruiting new chefs, and training ordinary employees such as cutting vegetables and serving dishes to operate Meishan Lion to complete the frying and further reduce costs.
This company has been cooperating with Meishan Lion for nearly a year, and this model has been run through, based on the cost of saving 100,000 yuan in one storeIf 1,000 stores are put into use, it is expected that the cost savings will reach 100 million yuan.
There is also a shelter for middle-aged men who exploded last year - Jin Ding Xuan, ** is also reported, behind Jin Ding Xuan's popularity, there is also an AI stir-fry robot, AI stir-fry robot is ensuring the consistency of its quality, and at the same time helping some stores to increase their business hours, so that no matter how late this "late-night canteen" is, there are "chefs" at work.
Therefore, the back kitchen of many Chinese restaurants is much more advanced than we think. It is estimated that at least thousands of stores in China are using AI stir-fry robots, among which the leader in the field of modern stir-fry is Oak Heron Technology, which is invested by Tencent, Source Code and IDG. At least 1,500 stores are currently using its Gourmet Lion Cannon, which means that at least 3,000 geek chefs in China are now using it.
Whether it is "delicious" and "pot-like" is the biggest doubt that people have about robots
At this point, everyone may have to wonder, is the stuff fried by technology really delicious?
Even myself, because compared with the combination of technology and clothing, housing and transportation, infiltrating "eating" may be the most difficult for human beings to accept, after all, this is the "mouth" thing.
A store in Nanjing uses Meishan to stir-fry dishes.
So usually, as long as the AI stir-fry robot appears on the Internet, it will be accompanied by "Is there pot gas?" "Robot stir-fry has no soul" question.
As a tech blogger, what I want to say is that a new thing comes out, and we are not in a hurry to deny it, but we can think about how to evaluate whether the dish fried by the robot is delicious.
Practice is the only truth, it is recommended that everyone try the robot fried dishes and then evaluate, I have tasted it, but in order to avoid the problem of fairness, I will not evaluate.
In addition, there are no shortcuts in the catering industry, and user reviews are the best alchemy. I tuned up the ratings and comments of several stores that I ate in Nanjing and Chongqing that used AI stir-fry robots, among which dozens of Hunan cuisine brands in Nanjing that use AI stir-fry robot have a score of 45 Above, the following is a screenshot of some of the user evaluations, "hot stir-fry with pot gas" is also in the reviews of catering stores, it seems that the evaluation is quite impressive.
Some catering businesses in Nanjing and Chongqing use the customer reviews of Meishan Lion.
However, consumers in these restaurants may not know that they are eating robot stir-fry.
There are two meanings here, one is that the taste of the robot is indeed no different from the taste of the chef, and consumers do not realize it, which is the success of the robot company.
On the other hand, let's not worry about complaining that catering companies use robots without "greeting".Although the stir-fry robot is not a perfect solution, it is a pragmatic solution that balances the health and delicacy of consumers and the survival and development of businesses, and it is a healthier and more benign solution than prefabricated dishes.
After all, we don't want the majority of catering practitioners to use pre-made dishes because the cost is too high to find a solution.
So what is a robot to guard the "freshly fried"?
Therefore, in order to meet the above two needs of consumers, there are two challenges facing stir-fry robot companies, one is how to make it as delicious as the chef, and the other is how to make it as "pot gas" as the chef's stir-frying.
Oak Heron Technology solves the problem in this way: "delicious" is to let the robot reproduce the chef's craftsmanship exactly the same - the chef stir-fry on the robot, and the robot combines machine learning with human scores to record the combination of "grams, seconds, degrees, and seconds" of the chef's best-tasting dish.
Suppose that the best way to eat a small stir-fried yellow beef is "put 5 grams of starch in 18 seconds and then heat up to 100 degrees with 5 rotations every 5 seconds", then through machine learning, the robot automatically records the above program, and the next time the operator only needs to click on the program, the exact same taste as the chef will be baked, which is the recipe development function set up by Meishan Lion for chefs.
A stir-fried curve of small stir-fried yellow beef.
Of course, some people will also ask, the biggest feature of Chinese cuisine is the personalization of recipes, a chili pepper stir-fried meat, there are hundreds of ways in China, Hunan people and Beijing people need to be completely different, is this what robots can do?
Not to mention, it really can! Through the fine-tuning function, the AI stir-fry robot allows operators in each region and each store to fine-tune the oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, etc. involved in the dishes to meet personalized needs.
Chefs usually use a word called "heat", that is, pot gas, so how can the robot achieve the same pot gas as the chef's stir-frying?
For example, there is a taste called charred inside and tender outside, which is the "Maillard reaction", which requires a short period of time to heat up, so that the burnt aroma surrounds the food and quickly bursts into a charming mouth. In response to this, Meishan Lion has developed its own extremely fast heating ability in the hardware - it can heat up to 300 degrees in 26 seconds, and combined with its high-tech pot body, each dish can ensure the necessary "pot gas".
In addition, Oak Heron Technology has also applied AI to temperature control, and the robot judges the ingredients, seasoning weight and time of the operator through the automatic identification system, and then starts AI temperature controlThe machine adapts to the optimal temperature required for the recipe at the moment, not only will it not be pasted in the pot, but it will also achieve the "heat" that the chef wants.
Does it trigger chef anxiety? Is it a replacement or an emancipation
Just as ChatGPT triggers the thinking that humans are being replaced, will the emergence of AI stir-fry robots replace chefs? This is a concern for many people.
At present, according to interviews and research, it can be clear that AI stir-fry robots cannot replace chefs. It can only be used as an AI assistant for chefsThe soul of the dish - the taste of the dish and the development of the recipe can still only be decided by the chef, and the machine is only responsible for solving the part of repetitive work. Secondly, at this stage, including cutting and serving, human beings are still needed to operate.
As we all know, chefs are embarrassed in their work, and most of them face occupational diseases such as burns, back injuries, and varicose veinsAfter using the AI assistant of Meishan Lion, the chefs are not so tired, and the occupational diseases will be alleviated.
The new two robots can cope with 3 times the passenger flow, the human efficiency has been improved, and my bonus has also increased; At the same time, I want to train the chefs in the stores below, and now I don't have to run from store to store with the AI assistant, and I can teach the chefs on the spot, which reduces the difficulty of my training. A chef from Jiangxi Xizhen said.
Recently, it was very interesting, and I brushed up on a short ** of the man-machine chef PK site of the Lee Kum Kee Hope Chef project, the quality is not high, but you can also feel the difference between man and machine frying and the difference in tasteAnd everyone is welcome to participate in the voting at the end of the article, do you agree with the use of AI stir-fry robots by catering companies?
Wrapping up
Nowadays, AI stir-fry robots represented by Meishan Lion are spreading in the back kitchens of Chinese restaurants, and restaurant geek operators have become the most willing to pay for AI stir-fry robots.
At this point, Chinese restaurants have the potential to become one of the most advanced fields in the application of AI robots in the world. For a long time, commercial service robots have been criticized by everyone for not being really "practical" and difficult to "commercialize". Unexpectedly, the tall "robot" in everyone's eyes actually "took root" in the back kitchen in the most down-to-earth way.
If the restaurant makes the army of pre-made dishes unstoppable for the purpose of reducing costs, I believe that everyone is more willing to choose a robot that can achieve both "fresh stir-frying" and "delicious and delicious".
It's still the same sentence aboveIn the current situation, we don't want the majority of small and medium-sized catering enterprises to repeatedly close down due to cost problems, after all, who doesn't have a catering practitioner around?
Xiongguan, a senior observer of the new economy, a well-known opinion leader, the first serious science and technology talk show "eloquent" speaker in China, and one of the top ten science and technology self-leaders (see major authoritative lists). He has been responsible for related marketing work in famous Internet companies such as Alibaba, 360, Sogou, and Langang, and participated in 5 IPOs, spanning major areas of the industry. A daily in-depth article + quick comment on science and technology hotspots, published on WeChat, Weibo, Toutiao, major portals and technology blogs, **community, short** and other 30+ mainstream platforms, covering 4 million of China's most core business and technology people. He is a world-class writer for FT Financial Times, Forbes, etc., and his views are widely cited and have great influence.