Technology

Buffalo Wild Wings testing robotic wing fryer

Provided

October 22, 2021

Miso Robotics has released Flippy Wings, a robotic chicken wing frying solution designed for high-volume restaurants, including innovation partner and multi-brand restaurant company Inspire Brands, according to a company press release.

Buffalo Wild Wings, part of the Inspire family of brands, began testing Flippy Wings at the Inspire Brands Innovation Center this fall. Built on Miso's Flippy platform, Flippy Wings is designed to meet the specific needs of restaurants, particularly those that specialize in buffalo wings.

Through a Robot-as-a-Service model, the solution allows restaurants to redeploy team members to more guest-facing functions, improving the guest experience.

"We're incredibly proud to not only unveil Flippy Wings, but to also have an exceptional brand like Inspire share our vision of kitchen automation," Mike Bell, CEO of Miso Robotics, said in the release. "From day one, Flippy Wings will cook more food with less waste and save staff for higher value contributions. Flippy Wings fries fresh, frozen or hand-breaded products like a pro, avoiding cross contamination and increasing throughput while reducing costs. It is fast, safer to operate than traditional fryers and the whole system can be set up in just a few hours over existing equipment. We think team members in restaurants everywhere are going to love having Flippy Wings working for them."

Flippy Wings includes an AutoBin system which provides kitchen staff an array of food-safe bins where products are dropped to be cooked. AI vision automatically identifies the food, then Flippy Wings picks up, cooks and drops it off into a hot holding area. Team members are able to cook more while spending less time attending to the deep fryer. The frying area is also made safer as Flippy Wings eliminates several hot touchpoints and decreases oil spillage. Also, Miso's tests show a 10% to 20% overall increase in food production speeds when deploying the machine, according to the release.

The first Flippy Wings unit, dubbed "Wingy" by the kitchen team, is currently installed at the Inspire Brands Innovation Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where the robot is being tailored and tuned to specifications. A Flippy Wings unit will be installed at Inspire's Alliance Kitchen, their pioneering ghost kitchen, to test it in a real cooking environment, before debuting at a standalone Buffalo Wild Wings location next year.

"Technology is making a fundamental impact on the end-to-end restaurant operational model," Paul Brown, CEO of Inspire Brands, said in the release. "Intelligent automation including AI and robotics will not only transform how we communicate with and take orders from our guests but also how we prepare and serve food to those guests. This transformation will ultimately result in improved efficiencies in our restaurants and an overall elevated experience for our guests and our team members."

Miso Robotics is primarily funded by individual investors, with nearly 12,000 shareholders. Inspire Brands is a multi-brand restaurant company whose current portfolio includes nearly 32,000 Arby's, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin', Jimmy John's, Rusty Taco and Sonic Drive-In locations worldwide. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Miso's AI platform powers products including Flippy, Flippy Wings, CookRight Grill and Automated Beverage Dispenser.