Flippy Fry Station Robot and Zippy Kitchen Intelligence

Miso Robotics was founded in 2016 by Caltech engineers to bring AI and robotics into commercial kitchens, and runs an Innovation Lab in Los Angeles. After first building a burger-flipping robot, it pivoted to the fry station, the most dangerous and hardest-to-staff position in quick-service kitchens. Flippy 2 was installed at chains such as White Castle and Jack in the Box, and Flippy 3, half the size and twice as fast, was deployed in White Castle restaurants after a 2024 to 2025 re-engineering.

Flippy is an enclosed robotic fry station that works with existing commercial fryers: staff drop food into the AutoBasket handoff zone and the robotic arm, powered by NVIDIA cuMotion, cooks the full fried menu, using AI vision to identify items, monitor doneness and adjust timing. It integrates with the POS and offers real-time alerts and remote diagnostics. Zippy, formerly Zignyl, is a digital shift manager that combines AI sales and labour forecasts with live goals and incentives for frontline teams across locations.

• Robotic arm: NVIDIA cuMotion-powered arm manages multiple baskets and agitation for even browning.
• AI vision: identifies food items, monitors cook quality and detects doneness in real time.
• AutoBasket handoff zone: staff load and collect food while the robot handles everything in between.
• Retrofit design: works with existing commercial fryers, standard footprint and utilities.
• Connected operations: POS integration, real-time alerts and remote diagnostics.
• Zippy digital shift manager: AI forecasts, live goals and incentives to align teams and control labour.

• Fried chicken and burger chains in Vietnam automating the fry station in high-volume stores.
• Airport, mall and stadium food outlets keeping fried menu quality consistent at peak times.
• Franchise groups using AI shift management to set labour budgets and incentives by forecast sales.

• Higher output: Flippy handles 100 baskets per hour versus about 50 for a human worker, according to the vendor.
• Safer kitchens: enclosed operation keeps hot oil away from staff, with zero reported injuries in live deployments.
• Consistent quality: AI-controlled cooking removes over- and undercooking and reduces food waste.
• Lower labour cost: a Zignyl franchisee reports labour falling from 28-29% to 23-26% of sales.

Quick-service chains face high turnover and injury risk at the fryer, making it one of the first stations to be automated with robotics. Kitchen robots are increasingly paired with workforce and forecasting software so operators manage automation and staff from one platform, a model relevant to fast-growing fried chicken and fast-food chains in Asia.

Founded in 2016 by Caltech engineers; Innovation Lab in Los Angeles. CEO Rich Hull and CTO Bachir Kharraja joined in 2023. The company raised over 130 million USD through equity crowdfunding, partners with NVIDIA, Ecolab and AWS, acquired the Zignyl workforce platform (now Zippy) and, in 2026, Zume Pizza technology. Customers include White Castle and Jack in the Box.