Sushi Robot History and Where ABB Robots Fit

A sushi robot sounds like a novelty, yet in many of Japan's budget sushi chains the rice has been shaped by machines for decades. The chef still slices the fish, and a machine often presses the rice. This post follows that split from the Edo period street stalls to the first rice robot in 1981, then looks at what US sushi restaurants are adding this autumn, from bullet train conveyors to delivery robots. It ends with where ABB's food and collaborative robots could fit, in home kitchens and in the factories that pack supermarket sushi.

A sushi chef at work beside the conveyor in a Kyoto sushi restaurant. Photo: Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungato) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

From Edo street stalls to the first sushi robot

Nigiri as we know it is usually credited to Hanaya Yohei, a cook in Edo (today's Tokyo) who developed it in the 1820s. Fish was sliced and laid on a ball of vinegared rice pressed by hand, and before refrigeration he cooked or marinated it lightly to keep it safe. Cheap sushi was sold from street stalls called yatai. The skill sat in the chef's palm: enough pressure for the rice to hold together when picked up, little enough that it falls apart in the mouth. Apprentices spent years learning that pressure, and the fish still comes through markets such as Tokyo's, where buyers judge tuna at auction by eye and by hand.

Buyers inspect frozen tuna at the Tsukiji fish market auction in Tokyo, 2014. Photo: Joe deSousa / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The first big change was in how sushi reached the customer. Yoshiaki Shiraishi spent five years designing a conveyor and its speed, and in 1958 he opened Mawaru Genroku Sushi in Higashiosaka. Plates circled past the seats and diners took what they wanted, so a few chefs could serve a full room. A conveyor sushi restaurant served at the 1970 Osaka World Expo, and the format spread across Japan. Genroku grew to about 250 restaurants. Shiraishi also tried sushi served by robots, but that idea never caught on.

The Genroku Sushi headquarters building in Fuse, Higashiosaka. Photo: Tokumeigakarinoaoshima / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The rice itself was the next target. Kisaku Suzuki, founder of Suzumo Machinery, started work in the 1970s after Japan cut back rice farming, hoping cheaper sushi would lift rice demand. His team worked with sushi chefs for five years, and in 1981 Suzumo finished what it calls the world's first sushi robot, a machine that forms nigiri rice balls. The breakthrough was a sponge-like urethane rubber on the metal parts that touch the rice, which copies the give of a human palm. Suzumo says its robots are now used in more than 80 countries.

Nigiri plates passing on a conveyor belt at a sushi restaurant in Kyoto. Photo: MissionControl / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Bullet trains, rice robots and ABB at the sushi counter

In the US, the sushi robot story this autumn is mostly about serving. On 26 September LongIsland.com reported that Shinjuku Station, an all-you-can-eat chain, plans its first Long Island restaurant in Westbury, aiming for the end of November. Diners order on tablets, small orders ride to the table on miniature bullet trains, and larger ones come by robot. The report is clear that the cooking still happens in the kitchen. Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, which opened in Denton, Texas, in May, uses an express belt and a drink delivery robot.

A bullet train shaped delivery conveyor carries orders at a kaitenzushi restaurant. Photo: Syced / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Rice machines are just as busy behind the counter. On 17 September The Knockturnal covered an event by AUTEC, a Japanese sushi machine maker, at Izakaya Futago in Manhattan. Its ASM895A Maki Maker pressed rice into an even sheet, the chef added fillings and rolled it by hand, and an ASM260A Roll Cutter sliced the roll. That is how most sushi kitchens split the work: machines handle the repetitive rice work and the chef handles the fish and the look of the plate. Suzumo says its fastest machines form up to 4,800 rice balls an hour.

A delivery robot brings food to tables at Robo Sushi in Toronto, 2019. Photo: Sikander Iqbal / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB does not make sushi machines, and we found no ABB sushi project. Its food robots work next door to this job, though. The IRB 360 FlexPicker is a delta robot that picks toppings and small food items off moving belts, and at BurgerBots in Los Gatos it works with a YuMi cobot to build burgers. A FlexPicker placing fish slices onto rice from a conveyor is a plausible cell, tracked with conveyor tracking like any picking line. Similar ABB kitchen work is covered in our post on fast food kitchen automation.

ABB IRB 360 FlexPicker delta robots picking items on a moving line. Photo: ABB

What a sushi robot could do next, at home and in the factory

At home, sushi making is still mostly manual. Plastic rollers and molds help people press rice and roll maki without a bamboo mat, but nobody sells a home robot that makes nigiri. The cooking robots that are reaching homes are aimed at stir fries and one-pot meals, where a pan and a stirrer do most of the work. Sushi needs raw fish handled cold and clean, rice at body temperature and soft pressure, which is a hard mix for a countertop machine. A home rice-ball former is the likeliest first step.

A plastic home sushi roller being loaded with nori and fillings. Photo: Kuruman / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Factories are a nearer target. Supermarket and convenience store sushi is made in large batches, packed in trays and shipped cold, and that work looks a lot like other food picking. Robots such as the FlexPicker or a YuMi could place toppings and load trays after a rice machine forms the base. The open problems are hygiene, washdown and gentle grippers that do not tear thin fish. Before any arm touches food, a cell like this is usually laid out and tested in RobotStudio.

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

Restaurants sit in between. A collaborative arm like the GoFa CRB 15000 can work next to a chef because it slows and stops when it senses contact, so one could slice rolls or plate sides while the chef handles the fish. Cost is the main obstacle for small sushi bars, and so is the skill to program and clean a robot every day. Most likely the chef stays at the counter, the rice keeps coming from a Suzumo or AUTEC machine, and robots take over the trays, the plating and the delivery.

ABB's GoFa cobot is guided by hand and stops when it senses contact. Photo: ABB

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