Robots and Bowl Food – Exploring Spyce… and lessons for the Passenger Experience? – APEX EXPO and The Lufthansa Flying Lab
In this adventure
- A call from Germany
- Off to Heathrow T2. Wait. Terminal 2??
- LH2473 London Heathrow to Munich Airport
- Exploring innovation on the ground at Munich Airport
- LH424 Munich to Boston with Lufthansa and Recaro Aircraft Seating
- Into Boston, The Holiday Inn Bunker Hill
- Exploring Boston
- Robot and Bowl Food – Exploring Spyce… and lessons for the Passenger Experience?
- Oodles of Noodles – Pho and Ramen in Boston
- The APEX Conference and Expo – What you missed
- Back to Boston Logan International airport
- LH423 Boston Logan to Frankfurt-am-Main
- The joy of Frankfurt Airport
- LH924 Frankfurt to Heathrow… with a neo
- Train? Thataway
- The outlook for the next six months
Food glorious food!
I’m going to continue a trend I did in the San Francisco trip report – and do some food reviews. And there are some rather interesting experiences along the way. Stick tight… this could be infesting. As well as hunger-inducing.. But I’m going in-depth in one food place in this segment first, as there are some things to think about – not just from a food point of view, but a passenger experience point of view.
Robots and Food – Off to Spyce
$10 for a Thai Bowl and a Drink.
Robots you say? Well, let’s go and have a look at the experience. Much easier to describe.
Yes. There is paper in the form of a menu.
As you enter, you’ll notice a bank of touch-screen computers. That’s where you order and pay (if paying by card. If you want to pay cash – head to the counter). As for the ordering screens, very intuitive, with the ability to add extra toppings and servings.
Pick a diet…
Pick a bowl… any bowl…
A Thai bowl. Very well traveller.
Yes. You can customise this to the n’th degree if you want.
Enter your name stranger!
Once you’ve done that – it’s time to pay. You can use Cards, Coupons or Cash.
I went for a Thai bowl with a drink for $10 all in (including the tax). The bowl itself was $7.50+tax
Then when payment is made, the magic happens. There’s a conveyor robot that collects ingredients and drops them in your cooking pot, and then the rotating cooking pot cooks away. All with circular LCD screens showing what was going on.
We are the Robots…
Robots cooking food!
Then there were two.
In the end the food is dropped into a bowl, and the toppings are added by hand. Well, the robots can’t have all the fun.
As a packaged bowl – it all looks like this:
Cracking the lid open,. here’s what I got in a Thai bowl
So, How did it taste? Pretty damn good is the answer. The flavours were nice and fresh, with the chicken well cooked, and taste in every bite
And yes. There was a fair bit of spice. How I like my food thank you very much.
And those $7.50 bowls are pretty deep.
Overall: Whilst the novelty value of Spyce is having robots cook your meal is interesting, the fact is the food is rather good too. Recommended.
However there are some good takeaways for the passenger experience industry.
A place like Spyce shows some interesting aspects of the aviation industry in terms of how we are making the move to personalisation in the industry. And ways to hit those buttons – be it choice, personalisation and payment via human friendly interfaces.
It also shows that whilst technology can achieve a lot of things, the human factor is still very important – be it to finish off a product, provide direct advice or provide assistance.
For a deeper review, The Boston Globe has an in-depth look. As well as feeling bad about food being cooked by robots. https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2018/05/08/robots-made-lunch-enjoyed-that-wrong/YXyTNtHKkCe66AZAbhglkN/story.html
Next: More Food – Or Oodles of Noodles – Pho and Ramen!
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