Good Thinking

Hamburger-making machine churns out custom burgers at industrial speeds

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A hamburger made using Momentum Machines' automated hamburger maker
The hamburger-making machine
A machine-made hamburger
A machine-made hamburger
A machine-made hamburger
A machine-made hamburger
A machine-made hamburger
A machine-made hamburger
A hamburger made using Momentum Machines' automated hamburger maker
A machine-made hamburger
Artist's concept of a restaurant with the hamburger machine
The hamburger-making machine
The hamburger-making machine
The hamburger-making machine
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Hamburgers are a multi-billion dollar business, and while fast food chains have got the process down to an efficient production line process, making them is still labor intensive with armies of burger flippers and sandwich assemblers. In a move that could put millions of teenagers around the world out of their first job, Momentum Machines is creating a hamburger-making machine that churns out made-to-order burgers at industrial speeds and aims to use it in its own chain of restaurants.

According to Momentum Machines, making burgers costs US$9 billion a year in wages in the United States alone. The company points out that a machine that could make burgers with minimum human intervention would not only provide huge savings in labor costs, but would also reduce preparation space with a burger kitchen replaced by a much smaller and cheaper stainless-steel box.

The hamburger-making machine

This self-contained, automatic device sees raw ingredients go in one end and the completed custom-made burgers come out the other at the rate of up to 400 per hour. The machine stamps out the patties, uses what the company says are "gourmet cooking techniques never before used in a fast food restaurant,” applies the toppings (which are cut only after ordering to ensure freshness), and even bags the burgers.

The company plans to open its first restaurant in the near future and to market the machines to third parties, arguing that one can pay pay for itself inside of a year. The company is targeting restaurants, convenience stores, food trucks and vending machine applications. In the meantime, the device is still undergoing development with a feature to allow for custom-ground and mixed beef to be included in the next generation.

Source: Momentum Machines via Foodbeast

View gallery - 13 images
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28 comments
mooseman
Mmmmmmmm..... making me hungry........ ;) Those buns look a bit burnt though - I hope they'll work on that. All in all, though, a very cool machine!
John Stone
This was bound to happen, I even thought of this idea also. I just feel bad for the kids who'll lose their jobs because of this machine. Though it is drudge work.
mooseman
Agreed, John. There seems to be almost **no** job in which humans can't be replaced by machines.
Although flipping burgers isn't the greatest job, it has given countless tens of thousands of people money to get by.
Derek Howe
cool, I worked at burger king in my teenage years, although I was a cashier not a cook. I think this machine will sell very well.
Like many cool future technologies/innovations, this will put more people out of a job (like the article said), but at least it will employ "some" of those people to build the machines, and fix them when they break.
The biggest threat to jobs I think would be 3D printing, imagine a world where almost anything you want, would be printed at your own home. Whether that be a part to fix your truck, or a burger & a milkshake.
I think the job market will look vastly different 50 years from now, with various machines, robots, and 3D printers, I question what will future people do...
livin_the_dream
Don't worry about the kids, when our society has finally removed all menial tasks the kids will stop having to be degraded with minimum wage and instead be a bit more innovative, starting their own burger businesses instead of working for some other tyrant! This is great, as it means I can start a business with lower risk, no worry about sick staff,etc... Although I'll still need to pop in and fill up the inputs frequently at 400 burgers/hour. Hell, this might even replace the wife!
Arc
@ John stone / Mooseman, imo you should not feel bad about this, unavoidable as with every other job that will get automation replacement as well. This is progress, and will finally liberate humans from labor.
bergamot69
@Arc,
Its all very well having machines to 'liberate humans from Labour', but here's the problem.
Without jobs people do not earn, so do not have the money to spend on relatively expensive luxuries like fast food. Whilst, as has already been stated, working in a burger bar isn't exactly the most rewarding of pursuits, it is very often the first experience that many teens have of the world of work, and so provides useful experience.
Apart from that, it is good to have some kind of human involvement in the purchase of food- especially in this modern world where there is so much less one-to-one human interaction, with so many ways to shut fellow humans out of one's attention with mobile devices, social media (which may be enabling on one level but which is mostly done remotely from other humans). Kids don't seem to play out on the streets anymore and are ferried from place to place by parents as they are locked into their own personal media- such as DVD displays built in the back of the headrests so children don't have to look out the windows at the world around them. Replacing burger making with a glorified vending machine is one more step towards the slippery slope that we are on in removing our fellow humans from everyday interactions.
Brave new world? The Developed World is fast turning into a dystopean de-humanised zone that was once the stuff of science fiction.
I don't want fries with that, thank you very much.
Bob Fately
This was an inevitable advance in technology - for those lamenting the loss of peasant-labor jobs what will you say when iRobot (or someone) announces a strawberry-picking robot?
We are at a tipping point, though - the old rule of "don't worry, the folks replaced by this technology will find jobs we can't imagine today" will no longer be true. Yes, there will be jobs we cannot imagine in 10 years time, but they will require high levels of skill/education/intelligence which the majority of folks will not have.
So the real question is - how to change society in such a way that labor for income no longer takes center stage in life? You sci-fi fans ought to ponder the world of, say, Star Trek - at a time when you can walk up to a vending machine and ask for "Earl Grey Tea, hot" or for that matter "Rolex Seamaster Professional" and get what you ask for, the notion of jobs as we have always known them will evaporate.
Perhaps people will "do their time" in those jobs that cannot be automated (police, medicine, whatever) but after their 5 year stint will be allowed to "go forth and self-realize" - write poetry, explore the stars, sit back and get stoned, anything. And some will want to invent/discover/learn new things as well.
But the really big question is - how will we get from here (capitalism: rewards for building a better mousetrap) to there? The authors of "Race Against the Machine" (which talks about this) have some solutions that, to me, ain't gonna work.
Nick Thompson
burnt? Looks just right to me... Also doesnt look like someone sat on it before they serve it up like every other fast food burger ive ever been served. The good thing about something like this, is I imagine they can adjust cook times - so even at a fast food joint you could order a "medium" or "medium well" burger and get just that.
Kiss all those minimum wage jobs good-bye... better start learning robot repair :)
Mark A
Now if it could only eat it for me too. But then if it ate too many burgers would the machine get bigger?