Kyochon F&B to install chicken-frying robots in U.S. stores

Kyochon F&B, a major Korean chicken franchise, will install automated chicken-frying robots at two of its stores in California to ensure uniform quality on its fried chicken products and save on labor costs.

A worker supervises a chicken-frying robotic arm installed in a Kyochon store in Namyangju, Gyeonggi, in January 2023. [YONHAP]

Kyochon F&B, a major Korean chicken franchise, will install automated chicken-frying robots at two of its stores in California to ensure uniform quality on its fried chicken products and save on labor costs.

Two machines will be implemented and beta-tested in Kyochon’s Mid-Wilshire store and one in the Rowland Height store in Los Angeles within the year at the earliest, the company said Monday. The robot arm has been installed in six locations in Korea, including Kyochon’s R&D center in Osan, Gyeonggi. This is the first time robots will be implemented in a U.S. store.

The robots were developed exclusively for Kyochon’s recipes by robotics company Neuromeka under the two companies’ memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed in 2021, according to Kyochon F&B.

One frying robot can fry 12 to 16 chickens in an hour on average, a spokesperson for Kyochon F&B said. A Kyochon shop manager said in a video uploaded by Neuromeka last year that he expects one robot to replace a minimum of two employees if the software improves.

The machines are automated to perform the first and second rounds of frying and remove excess breading and oil. Human workers will still be needed to bread and dunk the chicken pieces in the oil and coat the fried pieces with sauce.

“The cooking robots can make chicken that is uniform in taste and quality, and can make operations more efficient by preventing safety incidents that are prone to happen in the cooking process,“ Kyochon F&B said in its Monday news release.

“We also expect to significantly cut down on labor costs, especially in California as the minimum wage is almost 30,000 won ($22) an hour there,” the company added, in reference to the California bill effective from April 1 this year that set the minimum wage to $20 an hour for fast food workers in the state.

Kyochon F&B's fried chicken store in Mid-Wilshire, California [KYOCHON F&B]

Kyochon F&B is one of the many food franchises in the United States that is getting into restaurant robotics to automate its in-store food preparation process, especially due to a tighter labor market after the pandemic and a rise in minimum wages. Big chains such as McDonald’s, Chipotle Mexican Grill and White Castle have also introduced automation robotics in some of their stores.

But while experts have seen rapid advancements in recent years and said that restaurant automation is inevitable, human workers are still needed as limitations exist, such as installment costs and reorganizing kitchen space. U.S. fast food chain Wing Zone installed Miso Robotics’ burger-flipping robot, named “Flippy,” in 2022, but paused the robot during its testing phase, according to U.S. media outlet Food On Demand.

The brand needed more proof of economic viability before investing more into testing the technology, Wing Zone’s chief operating officer David Bloom told Food On Demand.

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]