Krispy Kreme Says Robots Will Be Frosting and Filling Doughnuts Very Soon
Robots are taking over Krispy Kreme.
The famous donut chain recently announced that robots will begin filling, frosting, and even decorating their delectable donuts soon, to cut time in the doughnut production line.
“Probably within the next 18 months, you’ll see some automation starting to go into the frosting, the filling, the sprinkles, and even the packaging,” Krispy Kreme CEO Mike Tattersfield explained to Yahoo Finance Live.
Mike Tattersfield
Krispy Kreme’s incentive to “hire” robots is an effort to maximize the fresh hub and spoke model opportunity in the U.S., as well as increasing the access for delivering fresh donuts daily.
“We’ve got some pretty big factory stores…we do 12,000 points of access today, which get fresh doughnuts globally,” Tattersfield mentioned. “You need to start looking at what the automation capacity of that is because it is going to the grocers. It is going to the convenience shops.”
Mike Tattersfield
Within the next 18 months, Krispy Kreme’s robots are likely to make 18% of the donut chain’s doughnuts which are expected to bring in $2 million worth of annual savings from a $6 million investment.
J.P. Morgan Analyst John Ivankoe says that the popular donut shop shells out more than $100 million on doughnut production labor in the United States and “$60 million is related to post-production labor that includes inline icing, inline filling and traying/boxing functions which can be automated.”
However, despite the donut making robots, Tattersfield made an important note to say that Krispy Kreme employees will still be at the core of their donut shops with also the intention of omitting tedious tasks.
“We still are going to continue to drive the experience side with our Krispy Kremers and Insomniacs, so I always find that when companies do a great job, they’re balanced in how they try to do that and you try to get the repetitive task out of the business,” he stated.
Mike Tattersfield
He also mentioned that the ability for someone to grow as an employee is what sets them apart from the rest.
“It’s really about the growth opportunity,” he explained. “When you’re in a company of our size that even, today, it’s still just 400+ producing doughnut shops with a long trajectory of growth … that growth across country becomes a very attractive proposition. I love to see that our doughnut shop managers are now owners.”
Mike Tattersfield
