There’s nothing new about takeaway food being delivered to customers via robot. A lot of big delivery companies such as Just Eat have trialled it. But no one has tried cooking the food enroute to customers until now.
Zume, a US pizza delivery startup, not only uses robots to build its pizzas to order when a customer orders via app, but is now using robots to cooks its pizzas on the way to customers. Although humans help construct the pizzas, they’re transported to the mobile oven and cooked according to what’s on the pizza as they head to their final destination.
The equipment used to back the bread-based food on the move has been provided by Welbilt. The ovens are super-efficient, cooking the pizzas fast, so it doesn’t matter how close by the customer lives, because the pizza will be backed to perfection by the time it arrives.
Zume CEO Alex Garden spoke to Mashable about the concept, describing it as “a restaurant on wheels.” Although mobile cooking already happens in mobile units (such as those burger vans parked on the side of roads or at hardware store car parks), it’s not usual for them to actually deliver food to customers, or the cooking equipment to be used while moving.
The next stage of Zume’s endeavour is to introduce other kitchen supplies so other products can be cooked to order, on the way to customers. It wants to install steamers, griddles and grills to its delivery vehicles so any food can be cooked – not just pizzas.
The company also wants to expand fast out of the Bay area. It’s planning to add another 24 delivery locations to its roster by the end of the year, which means it needs to make sure it has the infrastructure to complete orders. Automation allows for this to happen, Garden explained.
“Automation exists to improve the quality of human lives,” Garden said. “We believe we should be leveraging automation to automate boring, dangerous, repetitive work.”
