Article

Robotic boba tea kiosk looks to get the jump on a bubbling hot product

The Bobacino machine automates both food preparation and self-service, a pairing the company sees as a new direction for commercial foodservice.

Artist rendering of the Bobacino kiosk.

September 15, 2021 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

How fast can a brand get a hot new product to market?

The makers of Bobacino, a robotic machine designed to dispense boba tea, an Asian beverage projected to jump from $5.3 billion to $8.7 billion globally by 2024, are betting on an automated kiosk that prepares and serves the refreshment in 16-ounce cups.

Scheduled to hit the market during the first half of 2022, Bobacino marks the second automated foodservice robot supported by Wavemaker Labs, the Santa Monica, California-based lead investor behind the Piestro robotic pizza machine introduced in July of 2020.

Darian Ahler sees food preparation and self service combining in commercial foodservice.

"A lot of our focus has been at the intersection of food and automation," Darian Ahler, CEO of Bobacino and director of product strategy for automation at Wavemaker Labs, told this website in a phone interview.

Food prep and self-service

Like the Piestro machine, the Bobacino machine automates both food preparation and self-service, a pairing that Ahler sees as a new direction for commercial foodservice.

"That seems to be the direction that fresh food vending is going," Ahler said, pointing to the Chowbotics robotic salad maker. "I think what we're trying to do here is really push that you can have a fresh made — whether it's a boba tea or a pizza — from a machine utilizing 100% automation as opposed to delivering something prepackaged, and really driving home the idea of freshness and convenience and customizability for the customer.

"The cost of operation will be significantly reduced compared to a brick-and-mortar shop."

The Wavemaker Labs team recognized the fast growth of boba tea, also known as "bubble tea," globally, including in the U.S.

"We really felt that the experience you could get from an automated kiosk as well as the experience you get from ordering a boba really was a match made in heaven," he said. "We needed to make this modular so that it can work in an environment where it can work very quickly and be able to serve a number of drinks (so) that it will be profitable."

The robotic arm takes the 16-ounce cup to the liquid dispensers.

Boba market expected to grow

While most of the boba tea market is based in Asia, "We've seen an appetite for growth here in the United States," said Ahler, who got his feet wet with customer facing automation at Truebird Coffee Co., which launched an automated coffee machine in 2020.

One benefit of the robotic machine is that it lowers the risk of introducing a product to markets that have not been well exposed to it versus opening a restaurant that takes between $200.000 to $500,000.

"With Bobacino and the modularity and flexibility that we have in our model, we can deploy these things into Arkansas or Minnesota or wherever, and we can test new markets and get people more acclimated with boba and see where those markets are going… to want to take hold with very low risk to ourselves or people that want to launch a boba brand," Ahler said.

"If they are not seeing the traction we want, we pick it up and put it somewhere else," Ahler added. "Maybe it's a different street corner or a different town."

The company built the 5-foot-by-5-foot-by-6-foot tall machine inhouse using an off-the-shelf robotic arm.

Intro planned for Los Angeles

Bobacino plans to operate the first unit — which only serves one type of drink — in a high traffic area in the Los Angeles market. The long-term plan is to offer the machines to independent operators and foodservice establishments looking to serve boba tea, especially boba tea shop owners.

While the initial version of the machine only makes one drink, Ahler said the plan is to offer three to five drinks with some customization possible, such as adding a sweetener or a flavor.

The team has not finalized the prices for the drinks, nor has it determined how active a role the company will play in providing the ingredients for the machine. Ahler said the company will assemble a team of purveyors to supply products to machine operators.

"We want to make sure there is consistency across their product," he said.

The robotic arm delivers the drink to the pickup window.

How it works

The customer will place his or her order on a touchscreen.

The robotic arm then picks up a cup and brings it to the dispensing area. A dispenser then emits boba tea, then ice, then moves the cup to the liquid dispensing section where tea, milk and sweetener can be dispensed. The arm then takes the cup to a heated cup sealer, mixes it and places it at the pickup window.

The ingredients in the machine are kept at the appropriate temperature in stainless steel kegs while the boba tea dispensers are plastic. The milk will be refrigerated.

The dispensers can be removed, cleaned and replaced.

"The machine at the end of the day is very serviceable," Ahler said. Daily cleaning is a 30-minute process.

The machine has a card reader for taking credit cards, but the company also plans to have mobile payment.

Pay by face

Customers will also be able to select and utilize PopID's PopPay facial recognition solution as a payment method on the same screen they view Bobacino's menu and place their order. Through an opt-in only system, the customer's face will be scanned and authenticated to dispense the drink.

The machine does not presently accept cash, but Ahler is aware that some jurisdictions require cash acceptance, so the team is exploring adding cash acceptance.

No customer data will be saved on the machines.

Once the first unit is deployed, the company will have an employee on hand to make sure the machine functions autonomously. Eventually, there will be no need for such an employee.

The company, which has four dedicated full-time Bobacino employees besides Ahaler, has already raised $500,000 against a fundraising goal of $3 million on StartEngine by October.

The team has not determined a selling price for the machine, Ahler said, but he does not expect it to exceed $50,000. There will be both sale and lease options.

"The goal is to make this accessible to entrepreneurs and existing shop owners," he said.

Meanwhile, the company is exploring franchise opportunities for large foodservice franchisors.

"Somebody would be franchising from a large corporate entity and then we would be supplying the technology to that corporate entity which would then be used by the franchisee in their deployment initial expansion," he said.

Ahler and his team are convinced that a self-service, robotic unit offers the fastest way to be at the front of a growing product demand.

Photos courtesy of Bobacino.