Doosan Robotics to supply chicken

Doosan Robotics, South Korea’s largest collaborative robot manufacturer under the conglomerate Doosan Group, said Monday it will supply chicken-frying collaborative robots to fried chicken franchise Kyochon F&B.

Under the deal, Doosan will install its first collaborative robot at Kyochon F&B headquarters in Osan, Gyeonggi Province within this month, with plans to do so at other Kyochon franchise stores nationwide.

Doosan Robotics co-CEOs Park In-won and Ryu Jung-hoon, Kyochon F&B Vice Chairman Song Jong-hwa, and Kyochon F&B CEO Yoon Jin-ho attended the signing event of the new partnership held on the same day.

The robots are designed to realize Kyocho's unique recipes, while helping its franchise stores automate the overall chicken-frying process, according to Doosan.

“Kyochon’s fried chicken requires three steps – the first fry, removal of excess breading and the second fry. The collaborative robot will be able to improve the store worker’s performance and safety, while offering equally tasteful and high-quality chicken menu items,” said the company official.

Doosan said that its collaborative robot can cook up to 24 whole chickens -- approximately 480 pieces of fried chicken -- by frying six baskets at the same time. It can also easily replace oil in the fryer and remove oily stains on the floor. The company looks to offer 24-hour after-service for the robot as well.

The machine was certified by the US’ National Sanitation Foundation and received IP66 – a high level of waterproofness and dust resistance by the International Electrotechnical Commission.

“Kyochon F&B, who operates around 1,370 stores within Korea, is an ideal partner for our collaborative robots for fried chicken,” said Ryu, the Doosan co-CEO, in a statement. “Aside from chicken-frying robots, we plan to come up with a variety of food and beverage solutions for other franchise companies.”

Doosan Robotics has supplied service robots to Robert Chicken, CJ Foodville, Ourhome and XYZ for automating the cooking processes of fried chicken, noodles, on-site food service and ice cream.

The company’s annual production capacity of robots stands at over 3,200 units. Although it posted 13.2 billion won ($9.7 million) in operating losses last year, the robotics unit pledged to turn a profit in 2024 and hit 766.3 billion won in sales and 213.3 billion won in operating profits by 2030.