Ok this is stupid. Currently the average price of labor is 25% for fast food. Automation may cut that in half to say 12.5%. The upper limit of savings is 12.5%. So most of that will go to profit with some, maybe, 5% going to the customer. This is a way to increase profits marginally. It has little to do with reducing the retail price of your hamburger.
Cost of labor as a percentage of total cost isn’t the important. Cost of labor as a percentage of REVENUE is the part that matters. More importantly INCREASE the in cost of labor as a percentage of PROFIT. The fact of the matter is that food service has razor thin margins, most restaurants are running at less than 3% profit, I worked at a McD that averaged $50 a month profit, using 10 more man hours than necessary was all it took to not profit. If you increase that labor cost by 20%, that’s 5% of total costs, that’s more than 100% of profits, that’s a closed restaurant. Reduce labor cost by 50% (just using your numbers here) that 12.5% of total costs, that’s 400% of profit, that’s a restaurant with a profit margin outside the previous realm of possibility.
Nobody said it had anything to do with reducing the retail price of the hamburger. It has to do with keeping the business open. Although with a profit margin over 10% suddenly they actually CAN reduce the price.