On the first day of the Chinese New Year, the day of family reunion, at noon on the first day of the Chinese New Year on February 1, Xujiahui Street in Xuhui District held a special "reunion lunch" activity for the elderly residents in the community, and the residents came to the newly opened canteen for the elderly in the community, "Food Shangshu Society", to celebrate the New Year together.
The robot arm cooking noodles can choose the softness and hardness
The "Food Shang Shu She" community elderly canteen is located at No. 109 Nandan East Road, on the 1st floor of xujiahui Street Community Cultural Center. Entering the canteen, there is a convenient barrier-free passage at the gate, which is convenient for the elderly in wheelchairs to enter and exit, and the wall at the entrance is carefully arranged with many old objects full of age, phonographs, hot water bottles, cookie boxes, tumblers, kerosene lamp photos, etc., which quickly evoke residents' childhood memories of old Shanghai.
The spacious and bright hall dining area has elegant and comfortable sofa seats and specially furnished stained glass windows. In the selection area that residents are most concerned about, the rows of food selection stalls are clear at a glance, steamed vegetables, stir-fried vegetables, soups, noodles, miscellaneous grains, buns, dim sum, milk tea, a long table placed a variety of dishes, the cooking aunt does not "shake hands", and there are many tricks for dishes with meat and vegetables.
The biggest feature of this community canteen is the fully automatic, unmanned restaurant back kitchen. A mechanical arm that is hard at cooking noodles attracts the curious eyes of residents, taking the noodles, throwing the noodles, flipping the soup basket, adding toppings, and a steaming bowl of Honbang noodle soup noodles is freshly baked. The elderly can also require the noodle cooking robot to control the cooking time according to the demand for the softness and hardness of the noodles, and eat soft, digestible or tendon- and chewy noodles.
In the regular stir-fry stalls, there are steamed yellow croaker, braised pork, brine shrimp and other meat, as well as a variety of small meat and vegetarian dishes, every day lunch, dinner there are nearly 20 kinds of dishes to choose from, to meet the different taste needs of residents.
In addition to the mechanical arm responsible for cooking the noodles, through the glass window of the mouth, you can also see several other "machine chefs". Cylindrical is an intelligent stir-frying machine, next to the universal steaming oven, intelligent frying oven, frying, steaming, boiling, frying, baking samples proficient, the participation of mechanical chefs to make the back kitchen clean and full of scientific and technological sense, so that residents feel the mechanical chefs with the "core" production.
The reporter noted that in addition to the intelligent cooking and ordering links, the payment link of the "Food Shangshu Society" also adopts the AI intelligent settlement desk. Residents put their plates under the AI camera, and the screen automatically displays the price and nutritional content of each dish. Brushing your face or brushing your meal card can identify the corresponding preferential information, saving time and effort in the settlement process, and reducing contact with personnel.
"The canteen tastes good, if you come with a few more signature dishes, you will come here next year Chinese New Year's Eve meal!" Uncle Bu lives in the community near the canteen for the elderly, and on the first day of the Chinese New Year, he and his neighbors come to the newly opened canteen to "visit the shop", and the rich dishes and clean and hygienic environment are the most important elements for the elderly.
Xujiahui Street introduced that the initial pricing of the community canteen is 3-6 yuan per serving of vegetables, 6-9 yuan for small meat, 10-16 yuan for large meat, 60-69 years old can enjoy 90% discount per meal, and 70 years old can enjoy 15% discount. Elderly people with household registration in Shanghai can go to the canteen to apply for a meal aid card with their ID card and the elderly with household registration in Xujiahui Street with their residence permit. According to the feedback of residents, The Street Will also dynamically adjust the price of dishes, the amount of dishes per dish, the taste, etc., to ensure that residents of different consumption levels can eat, eat well and eat healthy in the canteen for the elderly.
Digitalization reduces labor costs and consumables
In recent years, a number of community elderly canteens with "AI + Internet of Things" technology as the core have emerged in Shanghai, based on safety, quality and affordable prices, while exploring intelligent and digital upgrades for the elderly.
Li Zhenyu, head of operation of "Food Shangshu Society" and general manager of Shanghai Linju Catering Co., Ltd., said that with the deep aging of Shanghai, whether it is food safety, meal standards or canteen services, it has put forward higher requirements for the elderly meal assistance industry, and the status quo of the industry must change. Since 2019, Shanghai Linju has begun to explore digital canteen management, improving the standardized operation efficiency of elderly canteens through intelligent module combinations.
In addition to the visible robot kitchen, various AI technologies, there are also digital processes that are invisible to the naked eye to escort the canteen. At the first pass of the purchase channel of vegetables and meat, through digital traceability, the canteen operator can know the origin of each ingredient. After all the clean vegetables used for cooking are washed and cut, they are transported to the canteen in vacuum packaging, avoiding the common loopholes in the back kitchen where vegetables are directly processed without washing.
"Intelligent hardware is developed and produced by specialized manufacturers, we are responsible for software design, from recipe research and development, dish cooking, dish production to the final cashier clearing link, can achieve integrated operation." Li Zhenyu said. Among them, the intelligent cash register link is also optimized and designed for the consumption habits and consumption logic of the elderly in the community.
More and more enterprises are joining the market for the elderly, how to balance the profit demands of market-oriented operation and the social responsibility of meal assistance services? Li Zhenyu said that although enterprises need to operate elderly canteens to bear their own profits and losses, through digitalization and refined management, labor costs and consumables can be effectively reduced, and in the long run, the market can be developed more healthily and orderly.
"The main cost of the catering industry is manpower." Li Zhenyu introduced that in the operation structure of the digital canteen, the company only needs to allocate a chef in the R&D team of the headquarters to be responsible for the development of dishes, and almost no chef is involved in all the community canteens. In the most "manpower-eating" helper link in the back kitchen, taking the scale of the "Food Shangshu Society" as an example, in the past, a shift required 12-16 helpers, through refined management, only 12 people needed to work in shifts a day, and each person had a clear division of labor.
Digital management can also reduce losses in advance. "In the past, the extensive back kitchen relied on human experience to estimate the purchase volume, and excess purchases and unused materials were very easy to cause waste." With the help of digital background operation, a canteen can achieve standardized calculation of how many dishes need to be equipped with each meal every day, reduce the consumables at the same time, and ensure that the daily materials used in the canteen are purchased on the same day, and the people eat fresh dishes.