The rumor that Lao Gan Ma is laying off employees by using AI has struck a nerve on the genuine anxiety prevailing in the catering industry.
After rumors spread that Laoganma's number of employees plummeted after adopting AI, the intelligent transformation of catering and food enterprises has once again sparked discussions.
So far, the online rumor that Laoganma "reduced more than 600 pepper pickers to 48 people" has not been conclusively confirmed, and both Laoganma's official hotline and human resources department have denied this statement. However, according to a report from Guizhou Daily, Laoganma has indeed introduced an AI visual quality inspection system in its production links. Li Xin, executive deputy general manager and chief quality officer of Laoganma, introduced in an interview that this has reduced the defective rate of products in key processes of Laoganma to 0.02%.
The reason why this incident has attracted widespread attention recently is that the role of AI in the catering industry is changing, and its application is gradually eroding the boundary of human labor, bringing a new "crisis".
Because the catering industry has absorbed a large amount of labor force with a relatively low entry threshold.
People's deep anxiety about AI replacing jobs in the catering industry ultimately stems from the fear that this will take away employment opportunities for ordinary workers. Compared with some industries that have higher requirements for education, skills and work experience, the catering industry provides a large number of posts with low entry thresholds, such as dish washing, vegetable preparation, cutting and serving plates, giving people of different ages, educational backgrounds and professional experiences the opportunity to make a living.
For many people, these posts are important entry points for employment. Therefore, when AI begins to enter the catering and food industry, it will not only affect the efficiency and cost of enterprises, but also relate to the livelihood of many workers — leaving the catering industry, they may hardly find other job opportunities, especially for the elderly group.
In the past few years, the digitalization of catering enterprises mainly focused on online ordering, food delivery, cashier and member operation; now, technology has further entered the back kitchen, supply chain and store management, trying to participate in the work that originally required manual completion.
According to multiple interviews conducted by Jiemian News, AI has now entered multiple links of the catering industry, including production, quality inspection, operation and in-store service.
Image source: Jiemian Image Library
The primary reason why chain catering enterprises invest in and use AI is to let technology improve the corners of actual production work that are difficult for human resources to cover, and highly ensure the consistency of product quality and food safety.
For example, Xiaoyuanchun has introduced AI in links such as ordering, training and store diagnosis. According to the disclosure of Xiaoyuanchun to Jiemian News, its self-developed intelligent ordering system has covered all stores, and generates ordering and material preparation suggestions for the next day based on data such as historical sales, passenger flow, weather and holidays; the store diagnosis system helps managers identify operational anomalies such as excessive returned dishes and meal delivery timeout.
The tasks of the front hall and back kitchen of its stores are divided into specific time periods, which reduces employees' dependence on personal experience and the master-apprentice training mode. These data are gathered in Xiaoyuanchun's office, and the situation of more than 800 stores is refreshed every minute, which directly improves the management efficiency of stores across the country.
Haidilao's AI intelligent inspection system can identify some problems in store operation through computer vision, and hand over some work that required repeated manual inspection, recording and tracking in the past to the system. According to the "2026 Research Report on AI Application in China's Catering Industry" released by Hongcan Industrial Research Institute, this system has covered all Haidilao stores across the country, with an identification accuracy rate of over 95%.
Mixue Bingcheng established an AI company in 2024. According to the 2025 report of Mixue Bingcheng, it is promoting the construction of an intelligent in-store monitoring system, which has achieved full coverage of monitoring cameras in all national stores, and gradually popularized intelligent identification equipment. The system can automatically identify, capture and record non-compliant situations, then push the problems to relevant personnel for follow-up rectification, forming a closed loop from problem discovery to rectification.
Luckin Coffee has conceived a full-link digital solution of "people, products and places". At this year's World Artificial Intelligence Conference, the company proposed to apply AI to product R&D, supply chain management, site selection, construction and operation and other links.
From this perspective, the first thing AI changes is the decision-making mode of the catering industry.
However, in actual usage scenarios, AI is not omnipotent. Especially in the catering industry that accommodates a large amount of labor, how to define the boundary between AI and human labor has also become a topic worthy of discussion.
Image source: Jiemian Image Library
A number of Luckin employees from Hubei, Liaoning, Jiangsu and other regions told Jiemian News that after the introduction of the AI management system, they are facing new challenges. The AI scheduling in Luckin stores generates predictions based on the past order volume of the store and even the weather conditions, and the store manager needs to arrange the number of staff in the store according to the requirements in the system.
However, the working hours arranged by such a system are almost only enough for the task of making drinks, and do not include the working time for employees to clean, register inventory and other work. Qi Zhang, a Luckin store clerk in Hubei, told Jiemian News that taking a store that produces 300 cups a day as an example, the system may require 15 working hours for employees according to the previous cup output speed of this store. But outside these 15 hours, cleaning tools and countertops, and sorting inventory all require unpaid overtime, leading to an increase in the actual working hours of employees.
In addition, this AI system lacks the ability to judge the specific situation of the store. For example, when the weather changes suddenly and the number of group orders increases, the system will not change the working hour arrangement strategy, resulting in a conflict between the actually arranged manpower and the workload in the store. "For a store with a daily volume of 300 cups, there may be at most two people on duty, and during a long period like 10:00-18:30, there is likely to be only one person on duty." Zhang Qi said to Jiemian News.
This system also monitors whether employees exceed the time limit for making drinks, and whether they scan the code to issue cups in advance to avoid timeout, but employees cannot speed up their work more for this reason — because as long as the speed increases, the system will put forward a faster cup output speed requirement for the next stage, and the working hours will be further compressed.
When there was no AI, these work arrangements were made by the store manager according to the actual situation, which was more tolerant. Zhang Qi said that although the store manager can also make some flexible arrangements in the gaps of the system requirements, the data of all aspects of each store is assessed on a monthly basis, and the store manager ultimately has to consider whether the store meets the standards at the end of the month.
These cases are not against the use of technology in the catering industry, but just remind catering enterprises that they may need to maintain an appropriate degree.
Technology will replace part of the labor, but it can also improve production efficiency and complement human work. The key to using technology is to be able to distinguish exactly which tasks should be done by technology.
Applied to the catering industry, a clerk's work not only includes ordering, making drinks or serving dishes, but also handling customers' temporary requirements, coordinating and solving unexpected situations. AI may take over the standardized part of it, but it may not be able to complete the entire post independently. What people need to be alert to is that after the machine takes over the tasks, whether employees have reduced their workload and become more efficient and relaxed, or are forced to take on more other tasks.
Image source: Jiemian Image Library
Of course, technology may indeed reduce the demand for certain posts.
Zheng Xuanhui, co-founder of Zhigu Tianchu, told Jiemian News that in a canteen serving more than 2,000 people, the total number of employees in the front hall and back kitchen is more than 60. After using cooking robots, the number of manpower can be reduced to more than 20, and there is even room for further reduction.
However, the emergence of new technologies will also create new posts. Whether these new posts can be made good use of is the actual impact on employment. "Machines do not completely replace human labor. For example, in the future, there will still be a person in charge of dishes, and dish engineers who operate the machines instead of people who stir-fry with a spatula." Zheng Xuanhui said.
For catering enterprises, AI may save time to serve customers and improve the efficiency and quality of service.
For consumers, the significance of technology should not only stay on faster meal delivery. Whether AI can reduce wrong orders, stabilize taste, reduce food safety risks, and enable stores to still provide reliable services during peak hours is a more direct experience.
The application of AI in the catering industry is still in the development stage. Head enterprises have larger store scale, data accumulation and technical investment capacity, and can take the lead in exploration. The "2026 Research Report on AI Application in China's Catering Industry" released by Hongcan Industrial Research Institute shows that the penetration rate of AI application in China's catering industry is about 15%, and it is expected to rise to 50% by 2028.
The reason why the recent rumor about Laoganma has attracted attention is that this news is exactly at the intersection of traditional production methods and technological changes, simplifying a complex industrial change into a story of "machines replacing humans". But for the catering industry, the changes brought by AI will not have only one answer — what really needs to be continuously questioned is who will finally obtain the efficiency created by technology.
This article is from "Jiemian News", reporter: Li Ye, editor: YAHAN Xiang, published with authorization from 36Kr.