ABB Robots and Ice Cream: Soda Fountain to Robot Counter

From 1940 soda jerks to a robot making Dairy Queen Blizzards in Shanghai, here is how ABB FlexPicker and YuMi robots handle ice cream, desserts and toppings.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/25/20261 min read

In 1940, Eckerd's drugstore in Columbia, South Carolina, printed postcards of its new soda fountain, 42 and a half feet long. Behind counters like that, soda jerks scooped ice cream, pumped syrup and spun milkshakes by hand, one order at a time. Ten years later parlors still worked the same way, with a server leaning over the freezer tubs.

Black and white postcard of a long marble soda fountain counter with rows of stools
Black and white postcard of a long marble soda fountain counter with rows of stools

Eckerd's 42 1/2 foot soda fountain in Columbia, South Carolina, on a postcard from about 1940. Photo: Eckerd's via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Factories took over the pints and bars long ago, but the counter barely changed. Soft-serve machines do the freezing now, yet a person still holds the cup, adds toppings and blends each order. Robots have had a hard time with that part, handling cups and spoons at a busy counter.

Sepia photo of a woman in an apron leaning over an ice cream counter
Sepia photo of a woman in an apron leaning over an ice cream counter

A server at work in an ice cream parlor, 1950. Photo: unknown photographer / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

On August 29, Dairy Queen and the robotics startup Sharpa opened a robot-run counter on Wujiang Road in Shanghai. A wheeled robot called North makes Oreo Blizzards in 55 steps, using the same machines and cups the human crew used, and flips each cup upside down before handing it over.

Gloved hand holding a cone under the nozzle of a stainless steel soft serve machine
Gloved hand holding a cone under the nozzle of a stainless steel soft serve machine

Soft serve being dispensed by hand from a commercial machine. Photo: TexasFoodservice / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB lists ice cream among the foods its packing robots handle. The IRB 360 FlexPicker, a delta robot that carries up to 3 kg, can pick wrapped bars or cones off a conveyor and drop them into cartons at high speed, with ABB's PickMaster software and a camera finding each one.

Row of ABB delta robots placing small wrapped items into cardboard cases on a conveyor
Row of ABB delta robots placing small wrapped items into cardboard cases on a conveyor

ABB IRB 360 FlexPicker robots filling cases on a packing line. Photo: ABB

ABB has also taken these robots out of the factory. At BurgerBots in Los Gatos, California, a FlexPicker adds the toppings and a YuMi cobot finishes assembly, 27 seconds per burger. A YuMi or GoFa could run a sundae toppings station the same way, since both are built to work beside staff without a fence.

Man at a laptop next to a glass enclosed delta robot cell
Man at a laptop next to a glass enclosed delta robot cell

An engineer sets up an ABB FlexPicker cell with PickMaster software. Photo: ABB

I expect dessert robots to move closer to where we eat, first to mall kiosks and maybe later to a countertop arm at home that builds a sundae from pods in the freezer. Flipping the cup is easy for a robot. Keeping hands, cups and sticky counters clean will take longer.

Two armed ABB YuMi robot closing a burger box in a restaurant kitchen cell
Two armed ABB YuMi robot closing a burger box in a restaurant kitchen cell

An ABB YuMi cobot finishing a burger at BurgerBots in Los Gatos, California. Photo: ABB

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