Robo-Eating!

By Chef Mary Beth Johnson, CEPC, CCC

The advent of the conveyor belt and mechanical enhancements in mass production of food such as the automation of bottling systems, canning has led to robots delivering sushi in Tokyo to taking your order, to creating the food in 2017. You can see this in action in most airports, or where there is a mass of people. It kind of leaves you wondering, where is the human factor in all of this? The human created it, but what about the production of food? As a chef, my job seems in jeopardy. I cannot mass produce food as quickly as a robot, nor serve it as fast.

I was astounded to see the ordering systems in place overseas and the delivery of it by a robot. It’s not like you can ask for directions to where you need to go after you order and eat, rather simply type the address into your phone, another invention of man bordering on robotics because robots build the phones. The reason you will see this more and more is that there is no labor cost involved with a robot. There are no accidents at work that might result in production slowing down. Robots don’t need sick days nor do they need a vacation or pay increases. It makes perfect sense to an employer to keep overhead low. A robotic-automated system is the new wave of the future in food production. I guess I need to look at a new profession? Predicting the future for food?

Chef Mary Beth is a professional chef who has made her career as a private personal chef in the luxury field for over 25 years. Chef Johnson is the recipient of numerous culinary and visionary awards in her field and is often in the media for her expertise as well as appearing on television and she is an author to writing for major media publications.