Skip to main content

Food Technology: Robots in Restaurants & Vending Machines that Sell Live Crabs

Image
By
Today’s two short MSNBC videos are about food technology. Video I shows a restaurant in Jinan China that uses robots to serve food. To me, these robots look no more than just some “moving food carts,” but it is an interesting concept. At least, the restaurant has put itself on the news. I personally like the e-menu concept better.

Video II is about vending machines in Nanjing China that sell live hairy crabs. It seems that technology has allowed us to sell almost anything in vending machines (we talked about selling fresh fruit and vegetables in vending machines before). Isn’t it amazing? Actually, selling live crabs in vending machines is easier than what many people may assume. Crabs are in “habitation” under cold temperature. In Syracuse, I buy live blue shell crabs in the morning and usually keep them in the fridge before I cook them for dinner. They will be alive but remain very “calm” in the fridge. So, it is feasible to sell live hairy crabs in refrigerated vending machines. However, why do Chinese want to buy live crabs? Well, because Chinese can be very sophisticated in their meals and only want “fresh” ingredients. It costs ¥15 RMB (about $2.5 USD) for each live hairy crab that is sold in vending machines.

I guess I need to visit China in the fall for some delicious crabs as fall is the best season for hairy crabs. Before that, I am glad to see the food technology in China. What new food technology do you see?

Video I: Robot-Servers in a Restaurant


Video II: Vending Machines that Sell Live Hairy Crabs

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yammer: A Social Networking Site Exclusively for the Workplace

By
Effective internal communications among employees are related to some desirable organizational outcomes, such as robust morale, a clear vision, low turnover, and high employee engagement. The question is what platform can serve the purpose. This ABC News video introduces “ Yammer ,” an exclusive internal communication tool for companies. A user must use a valid company e-mail address to sign up for an account. Once an account is validated, the user will be led to the company page that is pretty much like a Facebook page. The difference is that only the users whose e-mail addresses share the same domain can see the wall and communicate with each other. I have no question about whether Yammer could be a useful internal communication tool for companies, but I just wonder: how many social networking sites do people need for communication? Why people have to “create” so many platforms or channels for “effective communications”? To many people, Facebook is only for “friends,” whe
6 comments
Read more

Can leisure and work-from-home demand stimulate extended-stay hotel growth beyond COVID-19?

By
The lodging industry is   struggling   to fill the empty rooms in 2020. For months, U.S. hotels are running at an occupancy of 50% or lower.     Not every segment   suffers the same impact from the pandemic, however. Demand for   home-sharing  facilities had already bounced back over the summer. Airbnb reported a higher booking than last year. Marriott’s home-sharing arm is also doing well, seeing a sevenfold increase in booking over last summer.     Similar to what a residential rental or home-sharing facility   offers , guestrooms in extended-stay hotels also feature a full-size kitchen or a kitchenette. Extended-stay hotels are designed for travelers who want to stay at a “home” when away from home. A guestroom at the Residence Inn Miami Sunny Isles Beach   Extended-stay hotels vs. home-sharing facilities     Because COVID-19 is primarily transmitted through direct or indirect human contacts, people are highly encouraged to avoid unnecessary human interactions, leading to more   con
9 comments
Read more

The 7 Ps marketing mix of home-sharing services: Insights from over one million Airbnb reviews

By
The 7 Ps marketing mix framework is a widely used managerial tool that helps businesses identify the principal components of a service product. The 7 P elements include Product, Promotion, Price, Place, Participant, Physical Evidence, and Process.   The 7 Ps framework can assist marketers in making decisions regarding segmentation, positioning, and differentiation. Even for the same type of products with different brands, marketers can still drive higher sales through the improvement of a product’s marketing mix.     The empirical study about 7 Ps of home-sharing services   Building upon the 7 Ps marketing mix framework, I led a research team in a big-data, supervised machine learning analysis of over 1.14 million English reviews of 37,092 Airbnb listings in San Francisco (SFO) and New York City (NYC). We aimed to discover new meaningful business intelligence through the analysis of an immense quantity of online review information that is created by consumers in the cyber marketplace
Post a Comment
Read more