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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

pizza

EKIM Raises €2.2M for PAZZI the Pizza Robot

If someone were to update The Graduate for modern audiences, it seems like instead of “plastics,” the one word for Benjamin Braddock would be (… are you listening?…) “robots.” Especially if young Braddock wanted to get into the food business.

Pizza-making robots in particular are proving quite popular. Zume has one. Little Caesar’s has a patent for one. And now France, home of brie and baguettes, is getting its own pizza-making robot.

According to EU-Startups, French startup EKIM just raised €2.2 million (~$2.6M USD) to fund the creation of PAZZI, a small, autonomous pizza-making robot restaurant. This was the first institutional funding for the company, and Daphni and Partech were the investors.

Details are slim as the EKIM site is in French, but EU-Startups reports that the PAZZI concept fits in a 45 sq. meter area and has gone through a four year development process. In addition to pizza, PAZZI will offer “drinks, desserts and salads” (and, since this is France, one would presume wine). A pilot project will start in France at the end of this year, and then will be franchised out in 2019.

Even beyond pizza, robots are being recruited throughout the restaurant world. Spyce Kitchen just opened up their robot restaurant in Boston. Bear Robotics’ food-shuttling “Penny” showed off its stuff at the National Restaurant Association show this week. Meanwhile, Cafe X and Briggo robots are slinging coffee, while Blendid whips up smoothies.

But all of those operations are going on in the U.S. It’s interesting to think about how European audiences will react to automation. Here in America, we’re used to mass-produced, mass-marketed food. But European countries like France are steeped in proud culinary traditions full of artisan, handmade products. Will European audiences take to robot-produced food?

Because France isn’t the only one on a quest to automate pizza. Down in Italy, researchers strapped a biokinetic suit onto famed pizza maker Enzo Coccia to teach a robot how to make pizza like a master.

Perhaps I’m painting with too broad a brush. People are people, as the song goes. If the food is good and convenient, why not have it prepped by a machine? There does indeed seem to be a great future in robots, to complete this Graduate reference. Hopefully some pizza (or robot) fans in Europe can set me straight in person at our Smart Kitchen Summit in Dublin, Ireland next month.

Scoop: Little Caesars Has a Patent for a Pizza-Making Robot

It’s hard to fear the robot revolution when they come bearing pizza.

Little Caesars is the latest fast food chain to get in on the robot action. The pizza chain was issued a patent today for what is described as an automated “apparatus provided for assembling pizza,” which includes “a pizza sauce spreading station, a cheese spreading station and a pepperoni applying station.” The robot will have an articulating arm with a gripper attached to grab onto pizzas, as well as a rotary dial system to ensure proper cheese and pepperoni distribution.

The Little Caesar pizza robot in action.

The background and summary section of the patent frames the pizza robot as a tool to help retail workers. By partially automating the “labor-intensive endeavor” of pizza-making, the robot can free workers up to perform “other value added tasks.” It will also help improve efficiency, ensuring a more consistent quality pizza at a faster speed.

If Little Caesars put its new patent to use by employing an army of pizza robots in its restaurants, it will mark yet another step forward for automation in casual dining. We’ve already seen food running and bussing robots in the front of house and burger-flipping robots in the kitchen. Judging from the patent photos, Little Caesar’s proposed robot can handle the entire pizza assembly process, handing off a finished product to a human who could either place it on a buffet or slide it into a box for delivery.

Little Caesar isn’t the first company to create an automated pizza assembly system. Zume Pizza in Silicon Valley uses robots to stretch their pizza dough, add sauce, and shuttle their pies into the oven. However, last we heard, they still needed humans to add the toppings—something that Little Caesar’s robot is able to do on its own.

This patent shows that fast food chains are trying to optimize what customers like—speed and low price point—and reduce what they care less about: who (or what) is cooking their food.