Next time you order a burrito bowl or an extra side of guacamole from Chipotle (CMG), there’s a chance a robot could have prepared it. The restaurant chain today (Sept. 16) announced that it would test out two new “cobots,” or collaborative robots, at select locations in California.”These cobotic devices could help us build a stronger operational engine that delivers a great experience for our team members and our guests while maintaining Chipotle’s high culinary standards,” said Curt Garner, Chipotle’s chief customer and tech officer, in a statement. The “autocado,” a product that cuts, cores and peels avocados before they are hand-mashed by Chipotle workers, will be tested at Chipotle’s Huntington Beach, Calif. location, while the restaurant’s “augmented makeline,” a burrito bowl assembly system, will be introduced at its location in Corona del Mar, Calif. Feedback from restaurant crews and customers will help determine the future pilot plans of the robots, added Garner.
The rollout of the “autocado” will hopefully leave more time for Chipotle employees to focus on other tasks, said the restaurant. The device takes approximately 26 seconds to “fully flesh out the fruit” inside an avocado, according to Chipotle, which is expected to use around 5.18 million cases of avocados this year across its locations in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
The augmented makeline, meanwhile, builds bowls and salads—which account for 65 percent of Chipotle’s digital orders—and aims to free up crew members to focus on creating other products. Brian Niccol, the outgoing CEO of Chipotle, initially hinted toward future incorporations of the devices while speaking during the company’s first-quarter earnings call in April, where he noted that “we are excited to get both into a restaurant later this year as part of the stage gate process.”
The two technologies were previously tested at the Chipotle Cultivate Center innovation hub in Irvine, Calif., where the burrito maker experiments with new technologies, recipes and products. Chipotle co-developed the avocado-masher and automated digital makeline with Vebu and Hyphen respectively, two tech companies that the chain has invested in via its $100 million Cultivate Next venture fund.
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When it comes to innovative tech, Chipotle says it has learned from its mistakes. It previously tested out another autonomous robotic assistant known as “Chippy” that helped cook and season tortilla chips. Briefly piloted in another Californian Chipotle location in 2022, the device was subsequently canceled after it “became way too cumbersome for the team to clean it,” Niccol told Yahoo Finance in March. Chipotle’s lessons from Chippy were applied to subsequent cobots, including the “autocado,” he said, with the chain realizing cleaning challenges must be taken into account “much earlier in the design.”
Chipotle isn’t the only restaurant dabbling with robotics and automation to ramp up productivity. The company’s rival Sweetgreen also has ambitious plans in the space, having acquired robotics company Spyce in 2021 and introducing its Infinite Kitchen technology, an automated salad bar, across two restaurants in Illinois and California. The salad maker reportedly plans to open seven more restaurants with the system this year, which it says accounts for 70 percent of a salad bowl’s assembly.
More than 31 percent of U.S. restaurants have begun incorporating more technology and automation as a result of understaffing, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 survey of the industry. Nearly half of restaurant operators said that such techniques will become more common, while another 69 percent believe this tech integration will augment, not replace, human labor.
