Mainland developer Country Garden bets on robots as it looks to become world’s largest intelligent catering group

Country Garden wants to turn Qianxi Robotics Group into the world’s largest intelligent catering group and aims to take it public when the timing is right

Qianxi plans to increase the output of service robots to meet the rising demand in China where sales are expected to reach US$3.86 billion this year

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The Foodom Skyfall Food Kingdom Robot Restaurant in Shunde district, Foshan, uses robots from Qianxi Robotics Group. Photo: Iris Ouyang

Published: 1:30pm, 4 Apr 2021Updated: 11:35am, 8 Apr 2021

Corrected [11:34am, 8 Apr, 2021]

[11:34am, 8 Apr, 2021]
Corrects year of company's robot business to 2018 in 15th paragraph.

Chinese property developer Country Garden is looking beyond its core real estate operations to power growth as regulators tighten the screws on the country’s highly leveraged property sector to prevent any financial shocks.

As part of this strategy, the company is betting on its catering robot business – Qianxi Robotics Group – with the aim of turning it into the world’s largest intelligent catering group. And it aims to take it public when the timing is right.

Qianxi currently operates 80 robot restaurants in nine mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area, offering Chinese cuisine, fast food, hotpots, claypot rice and noodles. It also undertakes upgrading and retooling of traditional canteens of companies and government-run facilities and uses some of its more than 500 robots in hotels, commercial centres and hospitals in the bay area.

“We certainly will go public … which can benefit us in financing and gaining more recognition from the market,” Xiao Ran, deputy general manager of Qianxi Robotics Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Country Garden, said in an interview.

A robot from Qianxi Robotics Group in use at Country Garden’s Foodom Skyfall Food Kingdom Robot Restaurant in Shunde district, Foshan. Photo: Iris Ouyang

He said that the company, which is yet to post a profit, has not decided on a firm date for the listing, but the shares would either be listed on the mainland or Hong Kong.