We have a love/hate relationship with pizza (well mostly love). Nothing is better than pressing a few buttons on your phone and having a pizza show up magically at your door. In turn, nothing is worse than actually waiting for your pizza. One company is aiming to speed things up in a big way by turning to pizza robots to revolutionize the way we get our food delivered.

Zume: Partnering People and Pizza Robots

The Mountain View California company Zume is making pizza quicker and more efficiently by taking the human element almost completely out of it. The whole process is done by a team of robots. The customer puts an order in through the company’s app which then sends a signal to the pizza robots. The machines then do everything from shaping the dough, spreading the sauce, and getting the pizza in and out of the oven. Zume claims these robots can do all of this in a fraction of the time it takes their human counterparts.

So far the completely automated kitchen is performing flawlessly as orders are filled quickly and accurately. Zume claims it has cut down delivery times to an amazing twenty minutes. Zume is delivery only so you can’t sit down at the location and have robot waiters bring your food(yet)

En Route Baking Could be the Future of Pizza Delivery

Zume’s pizzas are still delivered by humans but the process to deliver the pizzas might even be more impressive than how they make them. Their delivery trucks are retrofitted with ovens and the pizzas are cooked en route. This ensures you get your pizza as fast and as fresh as possible. As a Zume pizza truck drives to the customer, a platform referred to as Ratio, is capable of calculating the optimal route and sends a signal to each oven to begin cooking at a specific time. Zume refers its methodology as “Baking on the Way”. These delivery trucks can cook up to 70 pizzas per hour. (source: BI)

The innovation goes down to even the box. Your pizza comes in a circular pod made from sustainably farmed sugarcane fiber which is recyclable and compostable.

Revolutionizing the Way Get Our Food?

Zume’s pizzas are actually cheaper than competing brands and they are a no-tip business. According to the website, hospitality is included in their pricing, and this system is designed to compensate the entire team – both in the kitchen and out in the field.

Zume is currently only delivering to addresses in Mountain View, CA and some of the surrounding areas, but with interest from investors, the company looks to eventually expand into other locations.

The possibilities for companies like Zume are endless and go way beyond just pizza. If their model works, who says the same process couldn’t be used to make hamburgers or any other type of food.

Check out our article on robots in the restaurant industry and the one that make ice cream !