Bella Bot, an autonomous delivery robot supplied by GW Projects Ltd, has joined the team at a retirement village where Elior provides catering services to assist with the day-to-day restaurant service.
The robot delivers trays of food to the tables and assists with clearing the tables, freeing up the Elior team to spend more time interacting with the residents. Bella can deliver four 10kg trays at once – twice the load capacity of manual delivery – and can deliver up to 400 dishes a day.
Laura Tighe, managing director of health, care & retirement living for Elior UK, said: “Bella has been very well received by the residents and their guests. The main benefit we have seen is that resident engagement has stepped up as Bella’s assistance with delivering food as enabled our staff to spend more time chatting with the residents.
“At a time when it is challenging to recruit staff, it is amazing to be able to provide our colleagues – through the adoption of robotic technology - with some additional support so that they can focus on customer service.”