discussion keeps the world turning this is roundtable hello everybody welcome to roundtable I'm her young good to have you join us on a day's show with automation stepping in for everything from cooking to serving the food industry is evolving rapidly how do you envision this technological shift affecting
restaurant operations food factories customer interactions and job opportunities in the coming years and we're all years for your burning questions and epic stories grab your smartphone record a voice memo and let's make on -air magic send your thoughts to ezfm around table at foxmail .com you might just
steal the spotlight in our next Heart to Heart for today's program I'm joined by Yu Sun and Steve Hatherly in the studio first on a day's show at the 2024 food trade fair featuring Beijing Tianjin Hebei cuisine we saw a tech savvy foodies paradise come to life remember when making dumplings used to
feel like a complex process reserved for skilled kitchen professionals well those days are over now machines can whip up thousands of dumplings in just minutes and skewer kebabs in lightning speed this year's food fair was packed with amazing high tech gadgets and machinery that are not just speeding
up food production but also taking quantity quality and efficiency to a whole new level let's go to you first you should tell the balls all these flowery doughy delicacies in China can all be made by machines oh yes so this food trade fair showcased a range of new and impressive machinery transforming
the whole and food industry with automation machines on display included Chinese dumpling makers bao zi or steamed bun makers and knife -cut noodle machines highlighting their remarkable efficiency compared to manual labor I get how they did the knife -cut noodle machines right that makes sense to my
brain I get how they do the dumplings because maybe a machine can just maybe fold that over you wouldn't have the same thing as a human touch there but the buns I wonder how they do the buns because the buns have fillings right well dumplings too yeah yeah that's a fair point yeah these machines are quite
impressive aren't they anyway they're just using all of these you know arms and everything to make these food so quickly one example is that the dumpling machine can produce up to 30 ,000 dumplings per hour or eight per second eight per second one minutes a second you eat eight dumplings per second a plate
of dumpling is already wrapped in in just one second goodness me that's impressive isn't it yeah yeah so hold on but you have to sort of have the dumpling wrappers done already fillings be put in and folded within how many eight dumplings done in a second that is unbelievable it's unbelievable all right
the technology is amazing the shape of the dumpling is still the same shape that we expect the dumplings to be yeah of course or more standardized I would say yeah I standardize consistency yes and also look at the bounds of machines it can make 3 ,600 to 8 ,000 boughs of per hour that's a lot it's not as
many dumplings that as they can make but it's still an impressive number also aside from all of these food preparation there are automated machines in almost every step of food production from washing to cutting vegetables and bones to even some specialized machines like stir -fry machines well you know
machines can even cook for you and then finally to packaging and storaging you know various machines meet diverse even customized needs and this actually means to greatly enhance the efficiency of the whole production line yeah when we think about food automation right we might think of things like
kiosks where we could order our meals from AI included in that part of the process but washing vegetables I don't know about you but I don't I never thought of a machine being able to do that flipping a burger or something like that maybe making dumplings okay but it is every step every almost every
single step of the process now is being automated is right and as a Chinese person and also a proud northerner I am astounded and also I have suspicion about how good these dumplings turn out to be why Steve I don't know if you've noticed this thing well the southerners in China used to still do to
some extent make fun of us northerners that the only delicacy we see in life is dumplings whenever it is a festival or some solace solar terms has occurred it's time to have dumplings so I mean I okay personally I would fiercely contend to that notion we have other delicacies too but dumplings really
is something special to us and also in my memory making dumplings is very difficult it's supposed to be done by family members together during spring festival one family member is rolling the dough and another one is making the wrapper and then it's like a family assembly line and it should be done
by hand I see your point yeah for me I don't have any cultural connection to dumplings right so if a machine wants to pump out eight dumplings per second I'm okay with that but if dumplings were a part of my family culture or where I'm from if they were a big part of our food culture I totally see where you're
yes and this I want to check with our in -house tech guru you should okay I'm gonna challenge you whether these dumplings when they're machine made they're actually that good one thing that in my family and my dad's homemade dumplings well because he took the mantle from my grandma and it is the best
in the world period in my dictionary in my book so what makes his homemade dumpling super great is one thing let's just start with this one thing that is the wrappers it has to be handmade although I know people sometimes buy it from the store but when it's handmade the wrappers can be sealed tightly
without additional water that is machine made when they have to use the water I feel like you're talking to you should like he's the person who designed this representative of all robots and AI and tech today ready to defend for the machine hold on one second so therefore you know the handmade dumplings
or the handmade wrapper are just a little bit chewier a little bit smoother and also when your is handmade is made entirely from wheat flour without added starch and that is one thing you don't want if you are a dumpling snob and guess who's not going to the robot dumpling restaurant for dinner tonight
you know all of the bajiers will not accept all of these machine made dumplings well when you've got your dad in my mind being the dumpling chef and then I think there are some questions whether you know a lot of this flavor could be lost when it's machine made well if we like it great if we don't like
it maybe it doesn't matter because food automation in the restaurant industry is is growing too right yeah of course and the thing is you know all of these machines they are not only doing these automatically but also they are designing very delicately for example dumplings they you can actually design
the size of the wrappers or the thickness of the wrappers and also the sauce maybe it can even go down to like 0 .5 gram of the sauce so so that you can actually control maybe the taste and even the texture of the food that they made so question sorry so what you're so sorry to interrupt you as well
wait so what you're saying then you should is that you could perfect a dumpling with a machine yes and I think what they're trying to say is that even though it is automated machine made dumplings but they taste like handmade huh sorry I interrupted you go ahead yell at him some more what were you going
to ask him well the thing about the texture of the dumpling wrapper is important because if it's made by machine then sure you can design how thick you want it to be but it's evenly distributed and in the world of delicious dumplings and that's bad because for us with the hand rolled dumpling wrapper
it has to be thicker in the middle and sort of thinly distributed as concentric circles to the outside and then that's what makes you know the texture really great when you're taking a bite from the final dumpling and I'm afraid so far the robot arms cannot do that to sort of it can only evenly distribute
and repeat and do the same thing yeah so if I'm really picky and you are yeah but like I said it's not just it's not just replacing people though is it I mean there are plenty of examples where robots are working alongside people there is an example from New York City there's a restaurant they're called
Colonel it's a vegan fast -food spot in New York and they work with a robot arm that places the food in the oven and then they put it on an assembly line for the employees to finish preparing the robot arm in that restaurant is seen as a welcome member of the family there's a lot of talk about whether
robots will replace humans in the restaurant industry and I think that is a legitimate fear but the people who are in support of having robots in the restaurants they say they're not there to take the jobs of people they're there to help support and maybe in this case where we're talking about that bun
production or dumpling production from the company's standpoint if there's a large demand for their product this would help them better meet that demand thereby serving their customers better overall no mm -hmm that's a really good point but also I just tend to look at the food industry in general and think
often this is the industry that employs people who don't need a whole bunch of education and if you have dexterity of in your of your fingers then you can do this and after like a few days if not a month's training you're good to go you can make fabulous dumplings and boughs or steam buns or whatnot and for a lot
of the restaurants in the northern parts of especially dumpling restaurants I know that or some of these dumpling food factories some of these or a large number of the employees the workers are let's say older aunties and uncles they're doing this job and with the replacement once you introduce a robotic
arm or automation into this business then these folks who are maybe a little bit older who might not be so fast and learning new tech or whatnot and then taking the jobs of these folks it just makes my heart sink like further because if you're talking about taking the jobs of let's say 20 year 25 year
olds or what not I think sure there's the talk of retraining up skilling and all that but for these folks I just feel this leaves a really bad taste in my mouth yeah go ahead from another perspective these machines are trying to help maybe the shortage of the you know employment in this area you know
the main one of the main drives of restaurant or all of these factories are using these automation is the labor shortage issue actually according to a 2022 report of 100 most demanded jobs nationwide by the China employment training technical instruction center restaurant servers are the fourth most
in demand job nationwide so the trend of automation maybe could help restaurant owners to alleviate this kind of issue and that's exactly what I was gonna say to young you're not wrong I think inevitably as we advance forward with new technologies that replace things that people can do there are going
to be some downsides but you should you had a great point right there and it's true those statistics hold true in the United States as well the fast food industry's average turnover rate in 2021 was 144 percent it's difficult to find employees my friend owns a burger restaurant in Nova Scotia he has a hard
time finding people to work there so going in a mechanized direction for the restaurants is not only for them to save money so that they can line their pockets with more cash but it's also it seems a little bit necessary because they can't find people to take the job is it that they're not paying people
enough or is that that maybe there's maybe an aging population or many factors in play for California if we took it if we look at California for example California just raised their minimum wage for the fast food industry to $20 I believe per hour is it Canadian American dollars which is a pretty pretty
good salary it's a pretty good job you would think but even still you know post during the pandemic nobody was eating out right and people weren't going to fast food restaurants restaurants in general so restaurants really suffered as a result and going in this robotic direction is one of the solutions
for them right and you guys both mentioned that oh this is increasing efficiency this is the restaurant trying to save up on cost safety also right potentially not not as many accidents right don't that would hurt people I mean okay no need to let's say cut up the meat yeah yeah by human beings maybe
those kind of things but also right now apparently employing if I may use that word of technology and machinery comes with high costs actually and not all restaurants if we're looking at the restaurant slice of the food industry as an example then not all restaurants can bear that cost either so humans
are actually cheaper to some extent right now well I mean yes and no on average replacing an hourly worker in the United States and this is from people keep a media outlet there the the replacement cost is about fifteen hundred dollars to the company so if you have a high turnover rate consistently
I mean if we think about that it makes sense right if an employee quits someone new has to come in you have to train that person so you have to have people there to train that person all of this stuff costs money there's no turnover rate with robotic arms in the kitchen they will never quit well not yet
I shouldn't say that and if they become sentient in the in the future but as of right now they can't and they won't so there are benefits to the company obvious benefits to the company there but the thing is you know compared to the efficiency of you know human labors one second for eight dumplings
that's I don't think human is possible to do that you know so that is why I think I you know a lot of factories are trying to use this or utilize this as the booster of their efficiency and we can see that not only in these areas but also in even restaurants they're using maybe robots to deliver the vegetables
to the tables and also using machines to order things and then that is you know I think supplementing the shortage of you know waiter and wages and they are trying to use these kind of robots to not only make the restaurant to be futuristic but also increase their efficiency have you ordered from a robot
in a restaurant before or had a robot deliver anything to your table it is it is becoming quite common I think in a lot of maybe hot pot restaurants and also in hotels yeah they try to send a robot to deliver a lot of these essentials for you like my you know kids I mean toothbrush yeah I find the hotel
robots to be a little bit rude I was on the elevator with one a few months ago and it got off first and I don't know why but I was offended like shouldn't you wait for the customer of the hotel to exit the elevator first like this robot needs some customer training here I think that's another level
of image recognition oh yes well you're expecting quite a lot yeah I think in China at least people are increasingly familiar with having a robot servers or waiters or at least work with the human waiting staff in restaurants and in hotels as well and a lot of these robots are designed kind of like
I'm not a store Star Wars fan so I can't really name the character but kind of similar to the machine our dude R2D2 or C 3PO anyway so this is increasingly common here in China and I suppose if Moore's law still applies then in the long run the machinery as well as the technology is only going to reduce
its cost as efficiency improves and as it becomes more and more widespread so what do you see as the possible maybe the future yeah what does this future hold do you think that well at the moment it seems like food automation can greatly enhance standardization but when everything is automated and then
the focus might turn to flavor and differentiation I mean do you agree with this kind of prediction flavor and differentiation I think what they're dealing with in some restaurants right now is just getting the order correct McDonald's in the United States had experimented with their AI drive -through
system and they just discontinued it they canceled it because what they had found was that it was just not ready yet because there were two major problems that the AI was having number one was accents in the United States people speak with a lot of different accents but the AI was having trouble recognizing
that and the other problem was if people differentiated from the menu at all the AI didn't know what to do for example if you ordered a cheeseburger but you didn't want ketchup and you said to the AI can you hold the ketchup please the AI would say nothing you know they wouldn't know what to do beyond
that so that restaurant chain decided to discontinue so I don't think we're we're there yet is you know looking at that example I think restaurants are still trying to figure it out you know how to do this perfectly because they still want to serve their customers to the best of their ability right
can I also direct more to the food production aspect of things the automation is it's a big talking point here in China right now and this is definitely affecting the kitchen a lot because I suppose for sous chefs for example maybe now you don't really get so many opportunities to work on the quote
unquote basic cooking skills that can all be automated and what about the future of you know Michelin star chefs I mean this is affecting the kitchen so much and do you see that this can really effectively one day with all this automation standardized cooking Chinese cuisine yeah and what happens next
you know I think that is that actually depends on you know different demands because for all of these factories that are using these automation they are trying to produce a huge maybe you know instant or frozen food factory or industries but for restaurants you know if you're going to a three -star Michelin restaurant
do you want to be informed that okay this dish is made by a robot no thank you that is you know qualified as a three -star what's the dish let's find that out first shall we maybe you know a lot of people are questioning whether you know dishes made through such you know standardized processes can really
taste better than those prepared by human chefs especially I think Chinese people you know we can even tell if the dish was cooked using an induction cooker or a real gas flame people call it go to you or you know the the smell of the pot smell of the flame personally you know when I go to restaurant
it's to enjoy the food cooked by a good chef but you know when everything is made by machines it feels like eating pre -made or instant food so I think a lot of people are still questioning and the usage of machines it might depend in Seoul I went to a robot coffee shop and what it was is you paid you
ordered and then you could watch the robot the robot would spin around and get the cup and then put it in the water machine and then press the button for the grinds and I did everything did it taste any different than the person making that coffee no was I thinking how dare a robot make my coffee no I
was happy why it was cheaper than going to a different shop so that's what was important to me in that moment but if you're talking three -star Michelin restaurant then obviously that's a whole whole different ballgame yeah and this reminds me of last time when I went to Shanghai via high -speed rail
departing from Beijing connected to the next topic and yes I went to this a vending machine of a robot made ice cream shop and then you can see the robotic arm making the ice cream and then after you pay you get the ice cream cone and I do wonder maybe in the future that we might see more and more food
factories they're just gonna go all automated but with these restaurants and with services that actually need to face people restaurateurs or these business operators are going to make this cautious decision and how much automation they want to involve into their business process and also maybe the human touch
becomes the real moneymaker and if you want it to be top notch more expensive stuff then it's artisanal probably human -made
