Zume Pizza Robots Make Pizza Automation A Reality

On Foodable

Robots in the kitchen, sounds like a dream right? Well, 2018 brings the dawn of a new era in the foodservice industry, automation.

Automation, as defined by Techopedia, is the creation of technology and its application in order to control and monitor the production and delivery of various goods and services.

One particular area that’s booming for foodservice automation, is pizza.

Startups like Silicon Valley-based Zume Pizza was founded in 2015 with the idea of cutting out laborious work for its employees, allowing them to move into more creative roles. The pizza startup has a total of six robots in its line of production to alleviate repetitive work.

Up and coming pizza restaurants aren’t the only ones adding robots to their concepts. A Pizza Hut branch located in South Korea has introduced a robot waiter, Dilly Plate. The addition to the restaurant is an effort to lessen staff pressures.

This boom in pizza technology is not the end. According to Technavio, the market for robots in the foodservice industry will experience a 29% compound annual growth rate from 2015 through 2019.

However, it may pose a threat to restaurant employees. A 2017 report from Cornerstone Capital Group states, between 6 million and 7.5 million U.S. jobs are at risk “in the coming years” due to automation, but Zume Pizza CEO Alex Garden doesn’t see it that way.

“For the first time in 20 years, we have more job openings than jobless people. We have to solve that problem,” Garden said. “When we automate a dangerous, repetitive task, we don’t get rid of that person. We train them and promote them and allow them to do more meaningful work.”

To learn more about how automation is impacting pizza restaurants, be sure to watch the video above an read more at Forbes.