Chipotle Pilots New Line of Robots in California After $20 per Hour Wage

Chipotle Mexican Grill announced it is piloting an automatic avocado peeler and pit remover at one California location, and an automatic bowl and salad machine at another as higher minimum wages increase relative yields from automation. Earlier this year, Chipotle raised its prices up to 7% in California to account for the state’s new $20 per hour minimum wage for fast food employers. Chipotle says it invested $100 million across the two companies making specialized robots for its stores; given Chipotle says it takes staff 26 seconds to pit and peel each of the 129.5 million pounds of avocados it uses each year, an estimated two avocados per pound would mean the Autocado machine could save almost 1.9 million staff-hours per year, or just over 238,000 days of workers’ labor — that’s over $37 million per year at $20 per hour.