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Korean startups

Chicken startup shakes up crowded market with robotic arms

Robo Arete, founded by an ex-venture capitalist, makes robotic arms to deliver quality, tasty fried chicken

By Feb 22, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)

2 Min read

Robert Chicken's robotic arm can fry up to 50 chickens an hour (Courtesy of Robo Arete)
Robert Chicken's robotic arm can fry up to 50 chickens an hour (Courtesy of Robo Arete)

Preparing fried chicken requires a simple, but laborious process: Placing pieces of chicken on dough and frying powder; putting them into an iron basket to fry in the hot oil of 170 degrees Fahrenheit for nine and a half minutes; and shaking the basket several times to prevent them sticking together.  

At Robert Chicken, operated by food tech startup Robo Arete, all the chores are done by a robot, more precisely, a robotic arm.

Back in 2018, its founder and CEO Kang Ji-young got the idea of starting a chicken franchise with a chicken-frying robot, while working as a local venture capitalist.

"I thought the day would come where a robot fries chicken and a drone delivers it," she told The Korea Economic Daily.

"But there was no such startup in South Korea, so I started the business." 

Robo Arete, established in September 2018, develops kitchen robots to replace human cooks.

It also operates six franchise stores of Robert Chicken mostly in southern Seoul, which offer take-out and delivery services. Their average daily revenue tops 1 million won ($840) to meet break-even points, while the stores vary in size.

"A robot arm can fry up to 50 chickens for an hour ... It can replace three part-timers," Kang said in a recent interview.

The three-year-old startup has already received an undisclosed amount of funding from Bluepoint Partners, a domestic startup accelerator; Naver Corp's investment arm DS2F; and We Ventures, a venture capital firm.

The forte of Robert Chicken lies in delivering fried chicken of identical taste and quality, regardless of the branch, on top of the robot's labor efficiency.

To serve fried chicken, the robotic arm evenly places the chicken pieces on the flour and then frying powder to get crispy skins. 

In the middle of frying, the robot keeps shaking the chicken basket but only a limited number of times to prevent overcooking. Before mixing the cooked chicken with sauce, it shakes the basket again to remove residual oil.

To maintain the taste and quality of its food, the franchise also restricts the reuse of frying oil.

Robo Arte's founder and CEO Kang Ji-young
Robo Arte's founder and CEO Kang Ji-young


CEO Kang envisions a chicken franchise store staffed by only one human worker, who takes orders and packages the food, while the robot takes the heat in the kitchen frying the chicken.

The former employee of South Korea-based Fast Ventures believes her chicken franchise with a robot cook will penetrate into the notoriously crowded and fragmented fried chicken market not only at home but abroad.

In the labor-intensive industry, Kang stressed that her franchise stores will be able to reduce labor costs, which have been on an upward run since the pandemic hit. 

She is aiming to introduce her franchise in the US and other overseas markets within the year, serving various chicken recipes such as chicken burgers, chicken wings, the Indian dish of chicken masala, and the American favorite of chicken and waffles.

"We will develop recipes for New Yorkers and serve them with Robert Chicken," Kang said.

Write to Jin-won Kim at jin1@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.
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