The inside scoop on Chipotle’s guacamole
It can always be time for guacamole and chips somewhere, right? To meet the demand of this tasty appetizer, Chipotle Mexican Grill has invested in a new collaborative-robot prototype to reduce the prep time of this very popular menu item.
Introducing the Autocado, a processing cobotic that cuts, cores, and peels avocados before they are hand mashed and served.
Chipotle teamed up with Vebu, a product development company, to analyze the most time-consuming food prep tasks and found that a batch of guacamole took about 50 minutes to prepare by hand. The Autocado, which is currently in test mode at Chipotle’s Irvine location, effectively cut that time in half.
Employees are now overseeing the Autocado—loading it with 25 pounds of similar-sized avocados and monitoring the cobotic as it slices the avocados in half, cores and removes the skin. The waste is discarded, and the fruit is safely collected in a stainless-steel bowl at the bottom ready to mash, add the seasonings and serve. Since Chipotle annually uses an estimated 100 million pounds of avocados, the increased fruit yield could save millions of dollars in food costs and utilize workers to manage increased guacamole production and greater customer service potential.
What’s next for Chipotle? The company is currently testing CHIPPY—a tortilla maker that employs artificial intelligence.