Miso Robotics, Panera Bread Team on Coffee Monitoring System

Pasadena-based Miso Robotics has partnered with yet another major restaurant chain to deploy its automated food-service technology—this time teaming with Panera Bread to roll out an AI-powered coffee monitoring system that aims to provide customers with freshly brewed coffee throughout the day.

Panera will begin using Miso’s CookRight Coffee system at select Midwest locations later this month, the companies said Tuesday. The technology uses proprietary sensors that can measure coffee temperature, how much coffee has been dispensed and how long since a newly brewed batch was last placed in a coffee urn, making it easier for Panera workers to maintain their coffee stations.

The tablet that Panera employees will use to check coffee metrics. Courtesy of Miso Robotics

Miso began developing CookRight Coffee in September with input from Panera, whose employees had complained that the constant back-and-forth of checking on the restaurant’s coffee dispensers was a time suck. Miso sought to address those concerns by designing a user interface that allows Panera employees to access and view a coffee station’s metrics on a tablet without needing to physically check the urns.

Miso Robotics chief strategy officer Jake Brewer.

Courtesy of Miso Robotics

“We’re able to scale products quicker and quicker, because we’re using the same building blocks,” Brewer said. “Coffee was just the next one that was kind of timed with a big customer who was looking for it.”

Miso, which is backed by Santa Monica-based food-tech incubator Wavemaker Labs, is currently in the process of raising a Series E funding round that initially launched with a $40 million target. Brewer said Miso has already secured more than $5 million in funding through the round, which he noted is now projected to raise between $25 million to $30 million in total capital.