Mushroom meat and robot chefs: Chipotle's vision for the future of fast food

Chipotle

This past spring, Chipotle announced the launch of a tech-focused venture fund to nurture food and service-oriented technologies. The first round of investments just went out, and the news says a lot about the future of quick service.

Through its Cultivate Next venture fund, Chipotle is backing Hyphen, a food service platform designed to help automate kitchens via robotics, and Meati Foods, a company that makes alternative meat proteins from mushroom root. If you had to lay money on the two dominant trends in fast food for the next several years, you'd do well to pay attention. 

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Automation has been making quick progress in the restaurant industry, both in front of and back of house operations. Miso Robotics, a dominant player in cooking robots, has secured valuable partnerships with major chains like White Castle, Jack-in-the-Box, and Chipotle, for whom the company customized a tortilla chip cooking robot. With rising labor costs and increasing acceptance of contactless processes, robots are an obvious choice and development in this area has been intense.

Additionally, many brands have begun resorting to automated interfaces for front-of-house operations, most notably McDonald's via its self-service ordering consoles. Combined with innovations in autonomous delivery, which is nearing broader implementation following several positive test beds nationwide, and you have a pretty good picture of an autonomous future for food service. Based in San Jose, CA, Hyphen is helping drive that transition with its first product, Makeline, an automated system that utilizes advanced robotics and a customized operating system to give kitchens a reliable and precise way to make and fulfill orders. 

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