Chipotle’s ‘Autocado’ robot could be who makes your next guac
Chipotle Mexican Grill is moving toward the future of automation while still keeping its homemade feel.
Earlier this week, the restaurant announced its partnership with a product development company called Vebu to create a new “Autocado” robot prototype in Irvine, California. The machine will help workers make their guacamole faster than ever, while still being able to mash and season like normal.
It currently takes a team of workers about an hour to make a batch of guacamole. Developers are hoping to cut the prep time in half so employees can “focus on serving guests and providing great hospitality” rather than the “intensive labor of cutting, coring, and scooping avocados,” a company release said.
How does the Autocado work?
Holding up to 25 pounds of avocado, the machine will do the cutting, coring and scooping before putting the fruit in a metal bowl for the employee to collect. From there, the worker can mash and season the fruit to make one of the menu’s “must-try” items, as Brian Nagele from Restaurant Clicks wrote. (Nagele described the guacamole as “thick, creamy, incredibly delicious” and said it was a “perfect addition to any dish on the menu.”)
Mashing by hand and adding the additional ingredients allows the restaurant to “maintain the essential culinary experience of hand mashing and hand preparing the guacamole to our exacting standards,” Chipotle Chief Customer and Technology Officer Curt Garner said in the statement.
Instead of fully automating the whole guacamole-making process, Vebu CEO Buck Jordan said that Autocado “has the potential to work alongside Chipotle crew members to create the same, delicious guacamole that Chipotle fans love but more efficiently than ever before.”
The whole process is shown in a video by the restaurant.
It wasn’t announced if or when the Autocado will be used in all Chipotle locations, since it’s still in its prototype phase.
What other machines are in the works at Chipotle?
The restaurant told CNN that it hopes to one day develop dishwashing robots, but it’s already underway with a new project that will accompany the Autocoado perfectly — “Chippy,” a robotic assistant using A.I. to make tortilla chips.
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