Stir-frying robots are "firing" chefs.

Zhang Xulei is gratified that after replacing chefs with cooking robots, no diners have reported a change in the taste of the dishes.

As the person in charge of Lanzhou Happy Canteen, Zhang Xulei operates more than 20 community canteens in Lanzhou. This year, several canteens in the main urban area have quietly introduced cooking robots. The number of chefs has been reduced by half, and the cost of raw materials such as seasonings has dropped by more than 30%.

Since the community canteens mainly serve the surrounding residents, especially the elderly, the mobility and instability of traditional chefs are the biggest challenges to the continuous operation of community canteens in Zhang Xulei's eyes. She believes that it is an inevitable trend to replace chefs with cooking robots.

There is an old saying in the catering industry: "The chef is the soul of the restaurant." The skills, experience, and stability of chefs were once regarded as the fundamental guarantee for the quality and flavor of Chinese cuisine. However, this situation is changing.

With the increasing prominence of problems such as high chef mobility, rising labor costs, and difficulties in chain replication, coupled with the recent pre - made food controversy, catering enterprises that have encountered difficulties in exploring the pre - made food path have turned their attention to cooking robots.

When interviewed by Economic Observer, several catering enterprises such as Lanzhou Happy Canteen and Meitiandao Chinese Restaurant all mentioned that they have replaced some or all chef positions with cooking robots since this year. Public information also shows that chain catering brands such as Xiaocaiyuan, Laoniangjiu, and Laoxiangji have all mentioned in their prospectuses that they plan to purchase cooking robots to support their standardized expansion.

Under the surface, a revolution in the kitchen driven by cooking robots is quietly and rapidly unfolding.

01 Being "Constrained" by Chefs

Happy Canteen is a public - private partnership project implemented by the Lanzhou government, mainly serving the surrounding community residents, especially the elderly. Due to its public - welfare nature, the customer base of Happy Canteen has high loyalty, and many people have almost all their three meals in the community canteen.

However, in Zhang Xulei's view, the traditional chef team has always been the most uncontrollable factor in the past operation. "One night, a chef drank some wine with his friends, sent us a message in the middle of the night, and said he wouldn't come the next day." Such unexpected situations are unbearable for community canteens that rely on stable food supply.

At the same time, community canteens cannot afford high - level chefs who can lead teams in large restaurants. The chefs Zhang Xulei recruited in the past either had low education levels or poor cooking skills, and the canteen has always been unable to get rid of the dilemma of difficult quality control.

Although ordinary chefs have poor cooking skills, their hard - to - manage "big chef temper" is even more unbearable for serial catering entrepreneur Jiang Lubin. He once asked a Sichuan cuisine chef to develop a new Hunan cuisine dish. The chef didn't even let him finish speaking and directly said he couldn't do it. Jiang Lubin later realized that there are disputes among chefs of different cuisines, and they are inherently averse to developing cross - border new products. However, he himself believes that there isn't much difference between Sichuan cuisine and Hunan cuisine.

Chain catering brands feel the pain of being "held back" by chefs more acutely. Yang Jiancheng, the founder of Xianglu Technology, a cooking robot company invested by institutions such as JD, Tencent, IDG, and Source Code, summarized the anxieties of catering bosses after cooperating with a large number of leading catering customers: The biggest pain point is the bottleneck of "talent replication" in large - scale expansion. The success of one restaurant can rely on one great chef. However, it is impossible to replicate 100 identical great chefs when opening 100 stores. The long training cycle, high mobility of chefs, and the direct impact of their personal state on the taste of dishes have become obstacles to the expansion of chain catering.

In the past, Jiang Lubin also deeply experienced the risks brought by team instability such as chef's state changes and resignations. When transforming into the full - service restaurant business, he hoped that his restaurant could standardize Chinese cuisine like KFC. After investigating cooking robot enterprises, he found that cooking robots can not only stir - fry but also stew, braise, blanch, and season, and can completely replace chefs. Therefore, in the restaurants of his full - service brand Meitiandao, there are no longer chefs, only cooking robot operators.

02 Kitchen Revolution

After cooking robots are introduced into the kitchen, a series of changes will occur.

Lanzhou Happy Canteen uses the Yaogun Smart Chef cooking robot. Zhang Xulei said the biggest feeling is that "everyone in the kitchen can cook now." The number of chefs in the kitchen has been reduced from two to one, and each canteen has saved about 6,000 yuan per month in labor costs for a kitchen helper. Some of the transferred chefs have been transformed into dish R & D personnel.

In addition, Zhang Xulei's company has also established a R & D team of 4 - 5 people, specifically responsible for converting dishes into standardized parameters that cooking robots can execute. "All the cauliflower and pork dishes stir - fried in all stores on the same day have the same taste, without any significant differences." Zhang Xulei said that this stability is crucial for maintaining diners' experience and brand reputation.

Jiang Lubin's restaurant kitchen has undergone a more radical transformation: The stoves have disappeared, and only cooking robots remain. The cooking robot operators in the kitchen do not need to master complex cooking skills. They only need to put the pre - prepared ingredients into the designated compartments of the cooking robot. The robot automatically completes the tasks of feeding, seasoning, and stir - frying.

Taking Meitiandao's 150 - square - meter and 200 - square - meter stores as examples, 2 operators can simultaneously control 6 to 7 cooking robots to meet the meal - serving needs. In the past, the kitchens of such - sized stores needed to be equipped with 5 chefs and 5 helpers, with a monthly labor cost as high as 75,000 - 80,000 yuan.

Jiang Lubin said that after using cooking robots, the monthly labor cost of the above - mentioned stores has dropped sharply to about 19,000 yuan. Although the one - time procurement cost of each cooking robot is more than 10,000 yuan, he still thinks it is cost - effective compared with the continuously high labor expenditure. Jiang Lubin said that even for a large 370 - square - meter store, only 4 operators are needed to manage 11 machines.

Yang Jiancheng summarized the kitchen model using cooking robots as the "1 kitchen worker + 2 machines" model, which can replace the "3 great chefs + 3 stoves" model in terms of meal - serving efficiency. In this model, ordinary employees can operate the equipment after training, significantly reducing the labor cost and recruitment threshold for catering enterprises.

Zhang Xulei also got a data from her colleague: The seasoning cost has also been reduced by about 30%. In the catering industry, although the unit price of seasonings is not high, the proportion of procurement cost is not low.

Zhang Xulei said that cooking robots can achieve precise ingredient feeding, with an accuracy of ±0.5g for solid seasonings, avoiding human waste. At the same time, the ratio of main and auxiliary ingredients can be more precise, which also reduces food waste and makes cost accounting clearer. "For example, when stir - frying one kilogram of vegetables, some chefs may put half a catty of meat in one place and one or two of meat in another, but the robot can put the right amount of meat very precisely."

Many catering bosses value the improvement of restaurant efficiency. After using cooking robots, from the moment a customer scans the QR code to place an order to the completion of payment, the average total time in Meitiandao only takes 26 minutes. Even for an order of 8 to 10 dishes, the restaurant can serve all the dishes within 10 minutes, and all are freshly made on - site. This has greatly increased the table - turnover rate, and the net profit margin of the restaurant has also increased to 20% - 25%. Jiang Lubin said that the net profit margin of ordinary Chinese restaurants is only 10%.

03 Game of Business Realities

Compared with the consideration of introducing cooking robots, catering bosses rarely want to publicly talk about using cooking robots.

Jiang Lubin once asked several consumers, and the feedback he received was quite different: Some consumers have a relatively high acceptance, while some show strong resistance because they don't understand cooking robots. Reporters also asked the owners of several restaurants that use cooking robots, and they are not willing to be interviewed under their real names and disclose to the public that their restaurants use cooking robots.

Liu Yu, the general manager of Yinbian Consulting, a strategic consultant for many catering enterprises, said that in consumers' perception, "freshly stir - fried" often still means a great chef cooking in person. On the one hand, catering enterprises need to face up to consumers' demand for freshly stir - fried dishes. On the other hand, they are facing many real - world pressures, such as optimizing operating costs, improving the standardization level of food production, and the difficulty of effectively building a chef talent system. Therefore, cooking robots have become an auxiliary tool for catering chain enterprises to balance the demand for freshly stir - fried dishes and flavor guarantee as much as possible.

In the view of two unnamed chain restaurant operators, the fuse behind catering bosses' accelerated layout of cooking robots this year is the pre - made food controversy that broke out before. In the past, chain catering enterprises represented by Xibei tried to improve efficiency through pre - processing in central kitchens. With the fermentation of many disputes over pre - made food, now many catering enterprises "turn pale at the mention of pre - made food," comparable to food - safety - level concerns. Cooking robots are a choice that can balance freshly stir - fried dishes and flavor as much as possible.

The person in charge of a specialty restaurant with 16 stores also investigated several cooking robot companies this year. He believes that the dishes cooked by cooking robots are actually delicious and can reach the daily level of restaurant chefs, but they are not as good as those cooked by top - notch chefs. However, after several struggles, he still didn't make up his mind to purchase. "If consumers know that the dishes are cooked by cooking robots, will they still enter my restaurant?" He is not sure about this question.

Jiang Lubin said that restaurants with a per - capita consumption of dozens of yuan can use cooking robots, but if high - end restaurants use cooking robots, consumers will feel it's not worth it.

Liu Yu believes that high - end catering sells the unique cooking concepts, cultural experiences, and the charm of real - fire cooking of chefs, while cooking robots are essentially tools to improve management granularity and achieve stability and do not solve cultural problems. Therefore, cooking robots cannot enter all types of restaurants, and the market will eventually move towards a hierarchical situation where specialty restaurants and standardized chain restaurants coexist.

However, cooking robot companies all believe that this year is the eve of the explosion of this industry. On the one hand, they have truly seen the pain points of catering practitioners, and the rapid growth of sales data this year also provides evidence. Yang Jiancheng revealed that the annual growth rate of Xianglu Technology exceeds 200%, and the order volume last year was 10,000 units. The commercial equipment "Star Chef" of the cooking machine Shiwan under the smart small home appliance brand Tineco was launched in March 2024. It only sold 400 - 500 units in the whole year of 2024, but about 1,000 units were sold in the first half of this year, and the number of cooperating merchants has expanded to more than 200. "It is expected to achieve a five - fold sales increase compared with last year," said Wu Peng, the person in charge of the operation department of Tineco Shiwan Star Chef.

For this reason, cooking robots are also trying to overcome the last technical barrier of Chinese cuisine standardization. Xianglu Technology focuses on the precise quantification of complex seasoning systems. Next, they will develop a vision - based feedback system to enable the machine to "see" and "think" and realize the transformation from replicating recipes to creating recipes. Tineco's "Star Chef" is trying to overcome the frying and stewing categories that are in high demand in Chinese cuisine, hoping to achieve hotel - level quality in meal - serving.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Economic Observer", author: Zheng Yuxin, published by 36Kr with authorization.