Robotic Pizza News
Interesting concept by Stellar Pizza noted on the TheSpoon Apr 2022. Contact info@retailsystems.org for more info.
In Brief
- Main problem addressed is rising food costs
- Selling direct to customers helps with that
- Working the dough is tough + all the permutations of ingredients
- Tsai used to work for SpaceX as engineer and loves food
- Ideal is one person per vehicle (driver)
- Has raised $9M
- Due to launch this summer in Los Angeles, CA
- Website is eatstellarpizza
Excerpt
In 2019, Benson Tsai left his job building rockets for SpaceX to start a company building a different type of technology-powered vehicle: a truck with a pizza robot inside that cooks and delivers finished pies to customers.
Stellar Pizza’s solution is to build serially by first developing the technology and then the restaurant brand. The reason why Stellar Pizza chose to operate its own restaurant brand is to stay vertically integrated and customize the technology to fit its needs.
The long-term vision for Stellar Pizza is to move the pizza production closer to the customer by having just one person, a driver, who hands off the pizza to the customer or another delivery driver. This application is a hub and spoke model with the main truck and a fleet of delivery drivers making deliveries. Last-mile delivery has been a huge area of innovation since the start of the pandemic, especially automated delivery. McKinsey found that of the $11.1 billion raised by last-mile delivery startups, $9.9 billion went to startups with unconventional technology such as drones and autonomous vehicles.
Video
More links
- Pizza Automation Option – Basil Street Pizza(Opens in a new browser tab)
- Pizza Vending Machine (APK) Now in Denver – Basil Street Pizza(Opens in a new browser tab)
- Robotic Restaurant Launched by Pizza Hut in Israel(Opens in a new browser tab)
- Digital Pickup Window Coming To Pizza Hut – Drive Thru Restaurants Snowballing — Three Lanes Now with Burger Lockers(Opens in a new browser tab)