| Workers deliver pizza with Woowa Brothers' Dilly server robot at a Pizza Hut restaurant in Mok-dong, Seoul, in this 2018 file photo. Korea Times file |
By Kim Jae-heun
Woowa Brothers, the operator of the country's No.1 food delivery platform Baedal Minjok (Baemin), has recently introduced a server-robot rental service to cope with intensifying competition in the food delivery market as well as the need for manpower at restaurants.
The long-lasting COVID-19 pandemic and increased labor costs has made it hard for restaurant businesses to find employees in the past few years. While young people are shunning jobs at restaurants due to the physically demanding nature of the work, the pandemic has also restricted foreign workers from entering the country.
According to a survey conducted by The Korea Food Service Industry Research Institute last September, 74.9 percent of the 207 restaurant owners said their workplaces are severely understaffed and 22.9 percent said it became more complicated to hire foreigner staff due to the government's strengthened quarantine measures.
“Our Dilly robots allow restaurant owners to fully concentrate on receiving calls and preparing food while the robots take charge of serving in the food halls. Also, robots are safer in terms of virus infection,” a spokesperson for Woowa Brothers said.
Woowa Brothers' robot rental service can also help companies to improve profitability. It is estimated that the cost will be 600,000 won a month per robot and the company is planning to introduce them at small-sized restaurants starting this month.
Dilly robots have been used at large-sized franchise restaurants so far where there is less traffic congestion in the food halls.
“The emergence of newcomers like Coupang Eats made competition in the local food delivery market more intense and Woowa Brothers has not been making profits for a while. Once restaurants introduce server robots, it will guarantee stable income for Woowa Brothers,” an industry official said.
In 2020, Woowa Brothers had an 11.2 billion won loss and failed to turn things around last year.
Woowa Brothers first introduced the Dilly robot at a Pizza Hut restaurant in Mok-dong, Seoul, in Aug. 2018, and commercialized the service after a testing period of a year and a half. As of Feb. 2021, a total of 500 stores use Dilly robots to serve food.