Sunday, August 11, 2013

Automated burgers?


Since coming to the USA I've heard many people refer to 'flipping burgers' or 'McJobs' as typical entry-level work for teenagers or young adults.  Now it looks as if that, too, may be automated out of existence.

Fast food doesn’t have to have a negative connotation anymore. With our technology, a restaurant can offer gourmet quality burgers at fast food prices.

Our alpha machine replaces all of the hamburger line cooks in a restaurant.

It does everything employees can do except better:

  • it slices toppings like tomatoes and pickles only immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible.
  • our next revision will offer custom meat grinds for every single customer. Want a patty with 1/3 pork and 2/3 bison ground after you place your order? No problem.
  • Also, our next revision will use gourmet cooking techniques never before used in a fast food restaurant, giving the patty the perfect char but keeping in all the juices.
  • it’s more consistent, more sanitary, and can produce ~360 hamburgers per hour.

The labor savings allow a restaurant to spend approximately twice as much on high quality ingredients and the gourmet cooking techniques make the ingredients taste that much better.

There's more at the link.

Hmmm . . . Transformers as burger-flippers?





Peter

8 comments:

Old NFO said...

The real money will be in REPAIRING those machines...

Joe said...

You have to think that if they really did raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour things like this would happen much more quickly.

People rarely think about the consequences of their actions.

trailbee said...

Gone are the days when our kids could get their first job at McD's and then work their way up. It is also the place where many of the retirees end their employment. Technology is great, but incrementally it has hurt the hands-on jobs we have taken for granted. We are being mechanized onto the unemployment heap.
However, knowing that, schools still are not preparing students for this looming crisis. No wonder so many people are unemployed.
It seems to fall right into the open lap of big government.
In Germany, not everyone is allowed to go to university. There is a definite class break-down of who can make what sort of income. I think we are close to that type of economy.
I fear for my grandchildren.

Rolf said...

I think my grandkids will be fine. It's my kids (now 7 and 10) that will get hammered by the coming transition.

BobF said...

I'm thinking short of a fire hose and a large grease pit drain, that thing is one hell of a cleaning job. Wonder how they work that into a production schedule.

David said...

And you don't have to pay for its health insurance...

Well Seasoned Fool said...

+1 BobF.

Bryn, Isle of Anglesey, UK. said...

@ OldNFO : With you on that one, regular maintenance will be essential.

@ BobF : Re. cleaning, not as much of an issue as you might think. All stainless working parts enclosed in a stainless body lends itself to a self-contained design where built-in hot water & steam sprays can combine with commercial dishwasher chemicals for cleaning. Most of the daily grease & fats can be collected while the unit is in use, for processing by a recycler - there should not be much left when you press the "self-clean" button at days end.