White Castle®, the world's first fast-food hamburger chain, announced today plans to expand work with Miso Robotics – creators of the first autonomous grilling and frying kitchen assistant, Flippy – to target up to 10 new locations (in addition to the initial testing location) following completion of their current pilot. The announcement comes following early results at one test location. The move will accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence and robotics in the restaurant industry, critical technologies needed to tackle new pandemic challenges such as social distancing in kitchens, takeout and delivery demand, and higher standards for health and safety via contactless solutions. White Castle will implement the new commercially available version of Flippy Robot-on-a-Rail (ROAR), announced earlier this month, into kitchens to enhance production speeds, empower teams behind the counter and maintain consistent quality and taste – while continuing to ensure the best customer experience.

White Castle's decision to pilot Flippy in the kitchen in July 2020 came as COVID-19 was presenting new constraints for restaurant success. The need to limit staff while maintaining cooking speeds and freshness – as order volume shifted to delivery and take out – created a new set of challenges operators needed to address to keep customer satisfaction high and remain competitive in a radically transformed industry ecosystem where concerns of food contamination had elevated. Miso Robotics offered the perfect solution: an intelligent platform and autonomous robotic team member for the kitchen capable of accelerating throughput, integrating with delivery and take out applications to optimize freshness and contactless food preparation and cooking.

Early results have shown promise and, as a result, White Castle has signed on to deploy Flippy ROAR – targeting up to 10 different White Castle locations.

"Artificial intelligence and automation have been an area White Castle has wanted to experiment with to optimize our operations and provide a better work environment for our team members," said Lisa Ingram, CEO of White Castle. "We believe technology like Flippy ROAR can improve customer service and kitchen operation.  This pilot is putting us on that path – and we couldn't be more pleased to continue our work with Miso Robotics and pave the way for greater adoption of cutting-edge technology in the fast-food industry."

Flippy ROAR is able to optimize staffing during late night shifts for the 24-hour restaurant, traditionally difficult slots to fill, now further challenged by social distancing – ensuring White Castle customer service standards stay high at all hours. With labor able to focus on front-of-the-house needs, team members are increasing their attention to order fulfillment for delivery and takeout. Miso Robotics' recent advancements to the platform and proprietary software, ChefUI, which powers Flippy ROAR, further assist team members in quality assurance by integrating with delivery applications to sync order completion with driver pick-up time, optimizing food prep production lines and freshness upon customer delivery. More sensors and camera capabilities also provide chain operators with visibility into real-time inventory needs and intelligent insights – such as projection and recommendations for bulk orders. Production speeds are being tracked to increase and meet demand needs, reaching an average of 360 baskets of fried foods a day. In total, approximately 14,580 lbs. of food over 9,720 baskets since the pilot was instituted in late September 2020. All meals are equipped with an added layer of health and safety – with Flippy ROAR serving as a contactless, automated solution with NSF International certification, a trusted industry organization providing standard testing and registration for commercial foodservice equipment and nonfood compounds.

"We have been so excited to work closely with White Castle to optimize Flippy ROAR to meet the needs of their kitchen for increased production, team member optimization and quality assurance," said Buck Jordan, President and Chairman of Miso Robotics. "Our platform has become increasingly powerful and intelligent – allowing us to quickly scale, integrate into operations and show our ability to help keep customer service standards on par with White Castle's industry reputation of excellence. As we move into the next phase of our partnership, we look forward to accelerating our results and delivering even greater value across White Castle locations."

Flippy ROAR will deploy across 10 locations in 2021. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About White Castle^®
White Castle, America's first fast-food hamburger chain, has been making hot and tasty sliders as a family-owned business for more than 99 years. Based in Columbus, Ohio, White Castle started serving The Original Slider^®, made from 100% USDA inspected beef, in 1921. Today White Castle owns and operates more than 365 restaurants dedicated to satisfying customers' cravings, morning, noon and night and sells its famous fare in retail stores nationwide, in a growing number of international locations, and at military exchanges around the world. The Original Slider, named in 2014 as Time Magazine's most influential burger of all time, is served alongside a menu of creatively crafted sliders and other mouthwatering food options, including White Castle's Impossible^™ Slider, named by Thrillist in 2019 as the "Best Plant-Based Fast Food Burger." White Castle's commitment to maintaining the highest quality products extends to the company owning and operating its own meat processing plants, bakeries and frozen-food processing plants. White Castle is known for the legendary loyalty of its team members, more than one in four of whom have worked for White Castle for at least 10 years, and of its faithful fans, affectionately referred to as Cravers, many of whom compete each year for entry into the Cravers Hall of Fame. The official White Castle app, available at iTunes App Store or Google Play, makes it easy for Cravers to access sweet deals and place pick-up orders any time. They can also have their orders delivered using one of White Castle's delivery partners. For more information on White Castle, visit whitecastle.com. 

About Miso Robotics
Miso Robotics (www.misorobotics.com) is revolutionizing the restaurant and prepared food industries with innovative robotics and artificial intelligence solutions. Miso was founded with a mission to leverage AI technology to help chefs cook food perfectly and consistently and enable restaurants to increase labor productivity, reduce costs and drive profitability while improving the overall dining experience. Miso employs a respected team of scientists, roboticists, engineers and industrial designers from Caltech, Cornell, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Harvey Mudd, UCLA, USC, Art Center and UNC Chapel Hill. Miso Robotics is now taking reservations for their equity crowd-funding raise, to invest in the future of restaurant automation go to https://invest.misorobotics.com/