Robots begin to replace humans in F&B industry

Woowa Brothers' rental robot serves food at a restaurant, in this promotional picture provided by the food delivery firm. Courtesy of Woowa Brothers

By Kim Jae-heun

An increasing number of local food firms and retailers are beginning to adopt a variety of robots to replace employees amid soaring wages as a result of a shortage of workers and as a way to boost work efficiency, industry officials said Thursday.

To capitalize on the trend, Woowa Brothers, the operator of the country's largest food delivery platform Baedal Minjok, has been bolstering its rental service for server and delivery robots to restaurants and other labor-intensive hospitality establishments.

Server robots can carry dishes of food weighing up to 40 kilograms all at once. Not only do they serve food in restaurants but also promote menu specials and celebrate customers' birthdays upon request.

A robot fries chicken at E-mart's Yeonsu branch in Incheon on Wednesday. Courtesy of E-mart

Delivery robots have not become commercialized in Korea yet, but Woowa Brothers has launched a pilot version to test them in certain areas in the capital region including Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.

“Our subsidiary B-ROBOTICS and the headquarters are in charge of the rentals for server and delivery robots, respectively. We believe that robots cannot fully replace human labor, but they can be very helpful as assistants. For instance, people avoid doing simple but arduous tasks such as serving in a restaurant and delivering food to people's homes. Robots can replace these jobs,” a Woowa Brothers official said.

The country's largest retail store E-mart also adopted a chicken-frying robot at its newly renovated Yeonsu branch in Incheon.

“One of the strengths of using robots is that they can produce products with consistent quality. It also improves production by 30 percent compared to human work,” an E-mart official said.

“Robots are also useful for dangerous tasks like frying chickens. Chickens are fried in oil, and sometimes people get burned while making them. But if we use robots, there is no concern over safety issues.”