Sally: the greatest chef for salads

Silicon Valley?s newest celebrity chef goes by just one name, Sally.?This chef?has just one specialty: salad. Still, Sally will make you the most perfectly proportioned salad you?ve ever eaten: through science. Sally is a green-and-brown robot, a?brand-new creation from Chowbotics Inc. (that?s a real name) and a major new player in a potential multi-billion market for food-service robots. Sally occupies about the same amount of space as a dorm room refrigerator, and uses 21 different ingredients?including romaine, kale, seared chicken breast, Parmesan, California walnuts, cherry tomatoes, and Kalamata olives?to craft more than a thousand types of salad in about 60 seconds, while the customer watches the process. The machine?weighs in at 350 pounds, making it?more appropriate for industrial settings than for home kitchens at the moment. ?Sally will be going on a diet,? said its creator, Deepak Sekar, 35, founder of Chowbotics Inc., looking into his and Sally?s future. The benefits of Sally are manifold, according to Sekar.??Sally is the next generation of salad restaurant,? he claims, comparing it?to chains such as?Chopt and Fresh & Co. For one thing, a robot can make salad faster than a human can. Also, you will know precisely how many calories your salad is delivering; there won?t be the problem of consuming one piled high with garnishes that turn out to be more fattening than a burger. And it?s more hygienic to have a machine prepare your salad than to have?multiple people working on a line?or worse still, a serve-yourself salad bar.Sally does require a human set of hands to prep the ingredients that go into its?canisters, which are then installed in the robot. (Sekar called the process of chopping ingredients in the machine "too complicated right now," although it's something he promises for the future; he offered?an analogy: "It's like paper getting stuck in a printer; it shuts down the process.")This spring, Sally will debut in Silicon Valley, at Mama Mia?s, a fast-casual restaurant in Santa Clara, Calif., and at the corporate cafeteria at H-E-B Grocery Co. in Texas. The?public launch will come on April 13 at co-working space Galvanize in San Francisco, where the public will be able to order Sally's salads. Sekar hopes to see Sally installed soon in hotels, where business people check in late and room service is dreary, as well as at convention centers, airports, and gyms. Sally will be a key amenity for fast food chains such as?McDonalds, exponentially expanding the array of fresh offerings. ?If a location installs Sally, they?ll have a thousand kinds of salad, using fresh ingredients, while their kids are eating Big Macs and fries.? He noted that the ingredients are fresh and kept in refrigerated compartments?stored better than at many salad bars. And then there's the millennial-oriented, ?eat-o-tainment? opportunity of?watching a salad be assembled by a machine. According to Sekar?s plans, Sally?s next incarnation will be as an instantaneous deliverer of ethnic foods?Chinese, Mexican, or Indian?possibly even breakfast, depending on the demand. Much farther down the line, Sekar envisions home versions of Sally. ?Remember the first computers in the ?60s were the size of a room. An affordable home food robot might not take decades to create, but it won?t be next year.?? Sekar built the first prototype of Sally in 2014. ? I?ve always believed that cooking is fun. But during the week, life is so rushed between work and family. When I looked at time I spent cooking, 85 percent was spent doing repetitive tasks, like chopping. I wanted to do something else with that time.? His first robot focused on prepping the Indian food that he and his wife cooked at home, such as?spiced, fried cauliflower. The owner of more?than a dozen McDonald's in the San Jose area, Cosme Fagundo, was impressed enough to help Sekar bring it to market. Click here to read the complete article, "Meet Sally, the Robot Who Makes Perfect Salads" Photographer:?Kristen LokenPic. 1:?Meet the new salad bar: Sally, the salad robot.Pic. 2:?Exactly how many calories are in that salad? Sally can tell you.Pic. 3:?Sally has two Dads: chef Charlie Ayers (left) and creator Deepak Sekar.