Panda Express developed a robot wok

Panda Express

As employees are becoming harder to find, fast casual restaurants have been investing in more automation. According to one estimate, the global food technology market is estimated to reach $342 billion by 2027, and there are ample signs that fast food, in particular, is embracing automation.

The latest example? Panda Express has rolled out a robotic wok, dubbed the Panda Auto Wok (PAW). The move comes on the heels of fast-casual restaurants like White Castle, Chipotle, and Jack in the Box adopting robotic systems for the back of the house cooking. Is this the end of the fast food worker? Do consumers even care in a pandemic-influenced market where convenience and touchless delivery reign supreme? 

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I connected with Stanley Liu, VP of Operation Services, to talk about tofu, changing priorities in the food business and robots. The bottom line is that the restaurant industry is hyper-competitive, and efficiency is the only way to survive. 

"Panda Express has used a dynamic and labor-intensive operational process in order to provide our guests with an exceptional dining experience," explains Liu. "Now, we are using automation to simplify our associates' operations process while ensuring that our food is made with the best quality and to provide the best guest experience. The new Panda Auto Wok (PAW) ensures consistent food quality and food temperature while also cutting down the average cooking time by 25%, decreasing the waiting time for guests to receive their food. Additionally, this new PAW technology allows anyone to be a wok-master and helps reduce repeated motion-based injury for our associates. Overall, this provides an opportunity for the fast-casual restaurant industry to create new operation processes that are less physically demanding, support better retention, and elevate operational efficiency."

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