Technologies That Can Help in Retaining Labor

When it comes to robotics in the food industry, technology in the back-of-the-house might take a longer time to get accustomed, but it is here to stay.

FREMONT, CA: The accomplishment of automation in the front-of-house is nothing new with restaurant applications like kiosk-based ordering and mobile payments. Besides, new technologies are kicking in that are helping to streamline the operations and enhance the back-of-the-house efficiencies.

Labor costs have become tough to manage, so the operators are moving to automation and other technologies to take care of food safety and various maintenance functions. The shift to technologies took place as they help in monitoring refrigeration temperatures and fryer filtration methods along with performing specific tasks that can lead to potential human errors.

One of the current concerns for every restaurant operator is labor retention and costs in the food industry. Increase in the minimum wage and operator investments in other employee benefits can aggravate the already exhausted cost demand.

By leaping into the automated solutions for back-of-house tasks, which are often challenging to perform physically, operators can ease the burden on the workers. Additionally, the implementation of the technology can look appealing to the workers, and ultimately, there can be a rise in labor retention with reduced training costs. Besides, adopting automated technologies in the back-of-the-house can save a considerable amount of labor expense and allow the operators to invest in the sectors that can yield better revenue.

Several operators have been implementing it with automated cooking solutions, which tend to reduce in-store labor. Apart from that, some operators have employed robotic systems for cooking such as flipping burgers, to reduce human efforts in performing the repetitive task. Experiments with robotics in the food industry are still at an initial stage. On the other hand, advanced sensor, database, and automation technologies have now been widely-implemented at the back-of-the-house operations to balance labor costs.

Shortly, automation and robotics can turn into increasingly essential assets in back-of-the-house restaurant operations. Automation will bring the perfect balance in efficiency, productivity, and speed when it comes to services. The technology in the kitchen can also be utilized to execute mundane tasks like recycling and disposal, which can save time, money, and add safety to other kitchen operations.