Typically, once a food robot company is ready to bring its robot to market, it either sells/leases it robot to restaurant brand (Miso Robotics), or owns and operates its own robot restaurant (Mezli).
Bangalore, India-based Mukunda Foods is actually creating a third path to scale — it’s building its own ghost kitchens, or “Kitchen as a Service” that will be filled with Mukunda’s robots. So instead of trying to sell one or two robots to many different restaurants, Mukunda will instead sell its ghost kitchen facility as a service. All a restaurant brand has to do is provide their menu and Mukunda does the rest. And since the facilities are filled with food making robots, they don’t need a lot of people to operate.
As Mukunda Foods VP of Growth, Dibyananda Brahma shared with me in this week’s podcast episode, his company plans to have 40 - 50 such ghost kitchens in places like Bangalore, Singapore and London by the end of next quarter.
In addition to talking scale, Brahma and I also discuss labor issues specific to India, and how the pandemic has impacted the demand for automation in restaurants.
This is our very first OttOmate podcast, and I hope you enjoy it. Just a reminder that paid subscribers to the OttOmate newsletter get access to the podcast a week before it’s available to general audiences. (So subscribe!)
If you have any thoughts on the show, or would like to be a guest — feel free to send me a note.
Podcast: Restaurant Robot Maker Mukunda Foods Will Scale by Building its Own Ghost Kitchens