Foxconn Industrial Internet has reached an agreement to build autonomous Coffee Hauses in Mount Pleasant for Texas-based Briggo, which describes itself as “creator of the world’s first gourmet, robotic barista.”
Briggo currently has its Coffee Hauses installed at airports in Austin and San Francisco along with the Austin and Houston convention centers and the offices of companies like Dell, Lockheed Martin and 3M. The company’s hauses offer a fully automated experience that allows users to create a custom coffee or tea drink on-demand at any time of day.
While the product line is a departure from the LCD screens the company originally announced plans to make in Wisconsin, it does incorporate display elements along with robotics and cloud computing. Company executives have repeatedly said Foxconn’s Wisconsin presence would be about building more than televisions.
“The Fii team is passionate about its commitment to produce made-in-America products,” said Fii USA President Foo-Ming Fu. “By adding Briggo to our customer portfolio, we now have the opportunity to produce a cutting-edge, cloud-based, robotic retail platform through smart manufacturing capabilities needed to support their aggressive growth plans.”
Kevin Nater, CEO of Briggo, said Fii would provide the scale and speed needed “to revolutionize the global specialty coffee market.”
“Consumer demand for Briggo’s connected coffee experience has grown fast and it is time to scale-up our production capacity with this exciting global partnership,” Nater said.
A Briggo spokeswoman noted the company has partnered with SSP America to bring the Coffee Hauses to dozens of airports in North America while also working with other food service operators and retail partners to expand to other locations.
The Coffee Hauses will be produced in one of Foxconn’s Mount Pleasant facilities, either the Experimental Training Center on Globe Drive or the multi-purpose building on the company’s main campus, a Fii spokesman said.
Fii and Briggo have been in discussions since July. The companies have completed rapid prototyping for the product and established a supply chain that can easily be scaled up, the spokesman said.
