Secretive Seattle startup Picnic unveils pizza-making robot — here’s how it delivers 300 pies/hour

#News(General) [ via IoTGroup ]

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Secretive Seattle startup Picnic unveils pizza-making robot — here’s how it

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After three years of quietly toiling away on a robotic food system, Seattle startup Picnic has emerged from stealth mode with a system that assembles custom pizzas with little human intervention.
Picnic — previously known as Otto Robotics and Vivid Robotics — is the latest entrant in a cohort of startups and industry giants trying to find ways to automate restaurant kitchens in the face of slim margins and labor shortages.
It’s highly variable,” said Picnic CEOClayton Wood.
Picnic invited me down to their headquarters in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood last week for a chance to sling pies with their secretive pizza robot.
I visited Seattle startup @PicnicNews last week to see how their pizza robot can assemble 300 pies per hour.
Picnic’s platform assembles up to 300 12-inch pizzas per hour, far faster than most restaurants would be able to make the dough, bake and serve the pizzas.
Machines have been making frozen pizzas for years, but Picnic’s robot differs in a few respects.
There are also a few details that may save Picnic’s pizzas from tasting as if a robot made them.
Once an order for a pizza has been made, it enters a digital queue in the platform, which starts making the pie as soon as the dough is put in place.
Picnic’s business model is essentially pizza-as-a-service.
Picnic’s pricing plans, which depend on the volume of pizza being made, are designed to be at or below the labor and waste-related costs that companies can avoid with the system.
The good news for Picnic is that there may be room for several such companies in America, where people spend $46 billion annually at pizza restaurants.
“The potential for Picnic’s technology is broad-reaching for the pizza and other food industries,” said Kati Fritz-Jung, a former Little Caesars executive who serves as an advisor to Picnic

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