Can Robots Make Perfect Pizza?

Many years ago, when I lived in New York City, everyone I knew had a drawer in the kitchen with Chinese takeout menus and local restaurants on their (landline) speed-dial. Now, in Los Angeles, people use food delivery apps and cross-reference carb counts with virtual trainers (truthful story).

In 2022, the market for food delivery was estimated at $83 billion worldwide, according to McKinsey. That'southward four percent of food sold through restaurants and fast food bondage, with 26 pct of traditional delivery orders placed online.

It's clear food delivery isn't going away, especially among those in high-density urban areas, who often have dozens of options at their fingertips every dark. But the nutrient preparation and delivery business has slim margins, while eating greasy delivery every dark isn't the healthiest pick. Which makes the industry ripe for disruption, upgrades, and automation.

Robots in the Kitchen

I've already met the robot that makes a mean Americano, but when I heard about the robots at tech food startup Zume Pizza in Silicon Valley, I was intrigued and took a flying north.

Outside Zume's Mountain View HQ are a fleet of tomato-reddish vans equipped with country-of-the-art automated ovens from equipment manufacturer Welbilt, which cook the pizza en route to their destinations for maximum freshness.

Zume Pizza

Before the pies are loaded into their their mobile ovens, though, they're assembled inside headquarters by a team of human and robot chefs. As a teenager, I worked in restaurants on weekends, and then I'm familiar with kitchen etiquette. But Zume Pizza didn't look like any kitchen I'd seen earlier.

This was a high-tech product facility (with succulent culinary aromas) where the robots—Bruno (at the 800-degree pizza oven), Pepe and Giorgio (dispensing the sauce), and Marta (spinning the sauce)—handle the tough, heavy, and dangerously hot tasks.

Zume Pizza Marta Bot

Griffin Costello, Zume Pizza'due south kitchen manager, acts as the bridge between the kitchen and engineering teams. "Nosotros aren't running a traditional kitchen hither," he said. "Information technology's more of a production line with automated robots doing the traditional tasks which require the heavy labor."

Zume Pizza Costello pointed to the robots that were prepped for heavy or dangerous tasks, from chopping upwards ingredients to shoving things in hot ovens.

"A lot of what goes on in a co-bot line is troubleshooting programmable logic computers which are running all the time," explained Costello. "It takes a lot of work to automate a robot. For example, Bruno is a 6-axis robot and but instruction him the movement of 'the line to the oven' requires a lot of repetition and practice.

"When we demand to modify something we take him aside, put him into manual mode to command and operate until nosotros get the movement right, then put him back to work."

Soon, Zume'south setup might non exist limited to this Silicon Valley kitchen; the company today said it's rolling out its high-tech co-bot platform for potential licensing to food giants.

Setting up Zume

Co-founded in 2022 by President Julia Collins and Chairman and CEO Alex Garden, Zume raised a $48 million Series B at the end of 2022 and now delivers pizza across the Bay Surface area, including all tech hubs Cupertino and Sunnyvale. Orders are placed via iOS or Android apps.

Collins spent time at Danny Meyer'southward Union Square Hospitality Group before becoming Director of Restaurant Development and Food Service at Murray'due south Cheese. Garden has a long history every bit a tech entrepreneur and executive, including stints every bit President of Zynga Studios and GM of Xbox Music, Video, and Reading. I caught up with Alex Garden to detect out how he moved from gaming to pizza.

Alex, How did the idea for Zume come about?
I was sitting on a aeroplane next to a guy who owned a very large pizza concatenation and we got talking. I quickly grasped that the logistics were outdated and the manufacture relies heavily on a prolific use of stabilizing chemicals and food processing to increase distance between production and delivery—i.e. the high levels of sugars, salts and preservatives in our food—which, equally we now know, link to cancer and other health outcomes.

So I joined forces with Julia Collins, who has a long history in the food business, and we decided to re-invent the entire supply chain using our patented Baked On The Fashion (BOTW) technology. We've now registered 1,700 patents and climbing. We own all the intellectual property for our hardware/software automation organisation.

Explain how the co-bot system works.
Initially, nosotros wanted to utilise commercial food equipment to build out the automation, but it didn't exist. So we partnered with ABB, who make industrial robots, and created all of the custom parts for the robot end effectors, i.east. spreading tools, ourselves. Nosotros also built out sensor packages, transfer shuttle components on the line, and coordinated the robot activity through a PC-based system that we programmed besides. In terms of software, we have created a robust stack, including prediction as a service, inventory management, logistics, and the cobotic operation surround.

So you've created a complete cease-to-end future co-bot system. Are you lot developing a hardware/software as-a-service model to license out?
We're looking into that now. The really cool thing is that hundreds of companies have come in to talk to us about this platform—peculiarly as we've built all of this in less than 3 years.

Talk about today's Welbilt announcement.
At outset, nosotros made our own appliances, as in the ovens that get in the customized trucks, but we never wanted to exist in the appliance business organization. Then we worked with Welbilt to build out the ovens nosotros needed. Then, six months ago, we saturday down with Hubertus M. Muehlhaeuser, CEO of Welbilt, initially to talk nigh them manufacturing "the Zume oven" just now they're so convinced about our platform, that they're making well-nigh their entire catalog compatible with our organisation.

Is your pizza healthier as a consequence of the swift co-bot system?
Zume Pizzas have one-half the calories, half the cholesterol, and half the fatty compared to leading brands. It took us ii.v years to perfect that platform, become the economics right and, of course, nutrient prophylactic is paramount.

Now you lot're starting to scale.
By the terminate of 2022 we'll be delivering to 26 trade areas in the Bay Surface area, earlier expanding further next year.

How many pizzas can yous brand an hour?
Each of our BOTW delivery vehicles have half-dozen ovens, and a single BOTW vehicle volition take the ability to bake 120 pizzas per hour.

Last question: what's your favorite (Zume) pizza?
That's a tough question; it changes all the fourth dimension. I'd have to say our seasonal pie, the "Nachorizo" with nachos and chorizo.