Can cooks be replaced with machines? A startup in Chennai is attempting to answer that question.
“We have pre-programmed nearly 600 dishes into it,” says Saravanan Sundaramoorthy, CEO and founder, Robochef. The “it” he is referring to is not a humanoid. Robochef is a massive stainless steel structure, which looks like unwieldy kitchen equipment with very little visually pleasing detail.
Inside Robochef, moving belts that carry utensils, and containers that deliver spices and vegetables into the main cooking vessel, are operated by sensors tuned using computer codes.
Robochef is currently a ghost kitchen (a kitchen set up for preparing delivery-only meals). “We have tied up with caterers who supply in bulk to events and hotels. Our product has helped them improve their gains, and takes out the dependency on a cook,” says Saravanan.
There are two variants of the machine — the commercial variant priced at ₹45 lakh, meant for commercial ghost kitchens, and the domestic variant priced at ₹6 lakh.
