In this episode, Craig Turner, Chief Operating Officer of Agape Automation, discusses how the company is automating kitchens to help restaurant businesses expand. He also expressed his great belief in the future of culinary innovation and automation to assist pizza operators in growing. He discussed how Jim Grote founded Donatos Pizza and invented the Peppamatic, which automatically slicked and applied pepperoni to pizza. He shared the brief, saying that they built the edge innovation hub to fuel the future of food, and the first product they produced was a smart saucer that would be the future for Agape. He discussed the Smart Saucer process, which allows anyone to see what is going on within the machine, such as when it is switched on and off, cleaned, and distributed. He talked about how smart machines may help with the restaurant labor crisis. He expressed his desire to work on the next generation of the saucer and collaborate with a manufacturing partner to help take it to the next level in order to fulfill orders for all stores and begin building units for other pizza operator kitchens. He also discussed the many formats and automation in the way that they are constructing it to be ideal for future uses.
Agápe Automation is a food-tech innovation company located in Columbus, Ohio that produces the automated Smart Kitchen of the future. They envision Pizza Operators free to grow. Their objective is to automate kitchens with compassion in order for restaurant enterprises to thrive.