Credit: Picnic
Just like my old Compaq used to make.
Pizza is a cornerstone of modern society. Yes, I am being serious. It is one of the most universally loved foods of the first world, and anything that brings more pizza into our lives can only be an absolute good. If only there were some kind of pizza-making robot… what? There is? Oh, awesome. Pizza time.
Food tech company Picnic has teamed up with Centerplate, the food and beverage service provider that serves the Las Vegas Convention Center for a special presentation at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show. Picnic specializes in a marriage of robotics and food service, and their current weapon of choice is a robotic pizza creation system. Through a hybrid of AI, cloud computing, and automation, Picnic’s system can create a completely custom pizza from scratch in record time. According to official estimates, the system can produce 300 fresh 12-inch pizzas in about an hour. Any kind of dough or toppings can be used, though for the sake of convenience, the display at CES will use frozen dough for a choice of cheese, pepperoni, or sausage pizzas.
When asked by the Las Vegas Review-Journal why they’re making pizza, Picnic CEO Clayton Wood simply said “We’re starting with pizza because pizza is very popular.” He added that he hopes the efficiency of an automated system can help to mitigate labor shortages in the restaurant industries.
If you’re one of the lucky few to get invited to CES, you can snag a slice of Picnic pizza from their display in the Central Hall near the Sony exhibit. For everyone else, Picnic’s system is also in use at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.
