5 tech things: Amazon palm scan checkout debuts at Seattle arena concession outlets

In this special edition of its 5 Things series, Food Management highlights five recent technology-related developments affecting the foodservice world.

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Fans attending sports matches, concerts and other events at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena can now opt to pay for their purchases with their palm at three additional food and drink outlets across the venue as the Modelo Cantina, Metropolitan Grill and 1st Ave Nachos concessions have rolled out Amazon’s Amazon One biometric palm-recognition technology as a standalone point-of-sale payment option. Four checkout-free contactless stores in the arena already support Amazon One payments in combination with Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology that allows customers to select what they want from the shelves and leave without stopping to pay.

Read more: US arena extends support for biometric palm payments across food and drink concessions

Cooking automation startup Jasper has deployed robotic kitchens in or next to residential high-rises, charging residents a subscription fee plus the cost of ingredients for meals. The platform is able to prepare a wider range of menu items (ranging in cost from $1.20 to $16.90), including cod with steamed potatoes, paprika cream chicken and desserts like sticky toffee pudding. “By running robotic kitchens in or next to residential high-rises, Jasper eliminates labor and delivery inefficiencies to offer residents freshly prepared gourmet meals at the cost of home cooking," explains CEO Gunnar Froh.

Related:5 things: Service worker strike averted at University of Minnesota

Read more: Jasper’s robots assemble fresh meals for nearby apartment dwellers

The robotics division of Japanese tech and energy conglomerate Softbank recently showed off a future in which food service robots work hand in hand to deliver a meal to the customer through a demo that featured a Yo-Kai ramen vending machine, a Servi server robot from Bear Robotics and Softbank’s own Pepper humanoid robot acting as a host and entertainer. The demo is an illustration of a potential fully automated robotic future as most implementations of food robotics currently involve single robots that automate only a portion of the food service process (prep, cooking, serving), but Softbank hopes to change that by providing integration services to combine all the pieces into one integrated service offering.

Related:5 things: Dodger Stadium, U.S. Senate foodservice workers win big raises in new labor contracts

Read more: Softbank Brings Yo-Kai, Servi & Pepper Together to Demo End-to-End Roboticized Food Service

Four-legged autonomous delivery robots will be coming to the University of Texas (UT) early next year as part of a five-year campus study on interactions between people and robots as UT researchers have received a $3.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to support creating a robot delivery network on campus. The team plans to study how robots and a community can co-exist and how to create, safely operate and maintain a robot network among humans. UT community members will be able to order supplies such as wipes and hand sanitizer through an app on their phone, and the robots, about the size of a medium-sized dog, will deliver them door to door on campus.

Read more: Dog-like robots will make deliveries on a Texas campus to see how people, robots interact

Ohio-based restaurant concept Mala Hotpot has added high-tech automation to the classic Asian hotpot experience that traditionally allows diners to customize a soup-based dish with a variety of ingredient choices. At Mala Hotpot, each table has its own heating elements and cooking pots where diners prepare their creations from the ingredient they choose from the menu, with the chosen ingredients then delivered by a robot to their table already prepped, washed, chopped and ready for the pot.

Read more: You’ll Have Your Meal Delivered By A Robot At Mala Hotpot, A Quirky Ohio Restaurant

Bonus: Part 2: Meet the Food Management Best Sandwich runners up

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]