Picnic, the Seattle based pizza robot company, unveiled their second generation pizza robot this week.
The new system, which you can see in action in the video below, is a fully customizable assembly line pizza topper machine that features four different modules: sauce, cheese, pepperoni and the “granular” module, which dispenses up to three pre-cut ingredients. Like the first generation Picnic robot, the system is focused on toppings and doesn’t include a pizza oven.
The system, which like the first gen robot utilizes a conveyor belt and automatic dispenser modules, has a few noticeable differences. The biggest difference visually is that each module now is visible behind a glass casing and you can see the cheese, sauce, pepperoni and other ingredients containers as they dispense ingredients. The ingredient containers are also easily removable for washing and the tops of the modules are also clear, giving the operator a clear view into the how much of each ingredient remains.
The whole assembly line is also behind the glass unlike the first-generation Picnic. Finally, there’s a big red emergency stop shut off button on the front of each module housing.
As with any new product, actually getting them into the hands of users provides lots of useful feedback. I imaging putting the first-gen Picnic into heavy use at the Smart Kitchen Summit 2019 (where it debuted), CES and at T-Mobile Park gave the designers lots of ideas for improvement.
The new robot comes on the heels of a recent fund raise by Picnic. The company had announced a $3 million round earlier this month which it indicated it would use towards hiring and new product development. The new raise and robot come amidst an increasingly hot market for robotic pizza assembly, as companies like Middleby jump in.
One of the features that Picnic emphasizes in their new video is the solution is highly sanitary and allows for pizza assembly with limited human contact. At Smart Kitchen Summit Virtual earlier this month, Picnic CEO Clayton Wood indicated that interest in their pizza robot has actually increased with the pandemic as restaurants have been disrupted and more operators are looking into how to reduce human contact with food.
You can watch the new Picnic pizzabot in action below.
Picnic Pizza System from Picnic on Vimeo.
Leave a Reply