[tansey]

I guess I don't understand what is really novel about this. Don't brands like Digiorno and Freschetta already have highly-optimized pizza assembly lines? Is it really that hard to make the topping/sauce dispensing dynamic instead of static?

I also don't understand the appeal of having the pizza be super hot-n-ready. If you have an efficient baking-to-delivery pipeline, and an insulated container for the pizza, then how much are you really improving the quality? Ten minutes of sitting still in an insulated bag is fine with me.

And how do they handle the hand-off issue with an AUV? You get a notification and then the car sits there waiting to deliver the pizza for several minutes while you walk outside? At that point, the pizza is just as cold as it would have been if you had a human bring one to your door-- and at least the latter doesn't make you put on shoes.

Just seems fraught with issues that really require what you might call "AUV-complete" or "robot-complete" tech. If you have a very smart, powerful drone that is capable of picking up a pizza, keeping it warm, and effectively delivering it to people's doors with 99.99% reliability, then this sounds obvious. Otherwise, this seems like an idea that's too soon to succeed.

[CuriouslyC]

The beauty of getting a super fresh pie baked in a blisteringly hot oven must be experienced to be understood. The reason for this is that when a pie is fresh out of a super-hot oven, the exterior of the crust is very crispy, while the interior is so moist and light it's like biting through foam. As the pizza sits, heat continues to travel from the exterior to the interior, and moisture travels from the interior to the exterior, resulting in a crust that has a slight leathery character, and an interior that is firm and quite chewy.

Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent this process, heat retaining delivery bag or no. You just have to get it and eat it fast :)

[jghn]

One issue is that most Americans aren't used to that sort of pizza, like a proper neapolitan fresh out of a hot oven - rather we're mainly already used to the delivery style pizza which generally has been made to be more forgiving of the rigors of the delivery process.

There are dozens of pizza spots within a couple of miles of me. The ones that are my gotos for delivery are not the ones I'd go to in person and vice versa. The best pizzas are in the latter category, but getting those delivery quickly moves them very far down the rankings.

[spyder]

Yea, I don't see what's new here, a lot of pizza assembly lines exists that can do it faster and better, for example this does the sauce faster, and can do the toppings too, (and guessing from the music :) it's an old machine)

https://youtu.be/rajNU2gels0?t=21

There are even pizza vending machines that are doing the dough too and the result doesn't look horrible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_lxiU8eLM

[makomk]

Yeah, that advert for automated pizza manufacturing is a few decades old at least, judging from the title fonts. Apparently Pizzamatic Corp, the company behind those automatic pizza-production machines, have been in business since 1962 - not a new invention at all.

[vessenes]

So if you are a deep pizza nerd, the pitch that you'd have a neo-neapolitan style pizza at your door in short order is a great pitch.

The issue with fulfilling this pitch is that pizzaiolos are expensive, hot ovens are hard to get close to people, etc. etc. Trying to solve all this is probably at one level a 'passion project' for a Valley engineer.

A true 90 second Neapolitan pizza does not age that well, the crust is going to be soft under the tomato sauce, and it will get a bit nasty if it sits long. It's supposed to be oven to plate to mouth very quickly.

On the other hand, could this be a business, not a passion project? Most restaurant gross margin is under 50%, declining the fancier the restaurant. That's before labor and other fixed costs, meaning restaurants are generally a pennies business.

Pizza though, pizza has like 90% gross margin. If you could get rid of labor, you'd have a huge advantage economically against competitors.

[jonknee]

> Pizza though, pizza has like 90% gross margin. If you could get rid of labor, you'd have a huge advantage economically against competitors.

That's true, but this company looks like they have a lot more labor than a typical pizza chain. If you ever watch a big chain make pies it is astonishingly fast, way faster than this "robot" version (which is really not robotic at all, there are so many people involved!).

[ams6110]

Disagree. I worked at a Dominos franchise for a couple of years. It didn't make much money. Delivery pizza is insanely competitive and relies heavily on discounts and coupons. Most of the labor cost is the delivery personnel who can realistically on average make about three or four round-trips an hour. You need a lot more drivers than you need in-store personnel and I would doubt that the amortized cost of a robot kitchen is much less than a minimum-wage human.

[thaumasiotes]

> Most of the labor cost is the delivery personnel who can realistically on average make about three or four round-trips an hour.

This sounds high to me. Just to be clear, are you talking about one trip out delivering to four different addresses before returning, or four trips out each to a single address all within one hour?

[ams6110]

I guess it could vary a lot depending on how the store is set up. We had a limited delivery area that was generally no more than 10 minutes drive radius from the store. At the time we had a 30 minute guarantee so we tried to get the pizza made and out of the store in less than 15 minutes. Anything that went out over 20 minutes old was likely to be a giveaway.

So, 10 minutes out and 10 back is 3 round trips an hour. Often you could take more than one order per trip if the locations were along the same route.

Many common delivery locations were well under 10 minutes from the store so on average 3/4 runs per hour was possible for an experienced driver who knew the area and didn't get lost -- we had no mobile phones or navigation devices -- and didn't waste time.

[petra]

What's the difference between pizza and other delivery based business making such high margins ?

[sharemywin]

there isn't a lot of money in delivery. Uber is trying to get 20% margin. And pizza delivery is break even at best. you charge $2.50 and if someone makes 2 deliveries during a slow hour ($5 or more after taxes, insurance etc.)

[tashoecraft]

The current pizza box design is horrible for pizza quality. It's one of the worse things to do to a pizza as it will sog the crust. Having it finish the car is a solid idea, and will lead to a much bette finished product. However it seems they are positioning against dominoes and such, which isn't what is want. A high quality pizza would benefit the most from this tech.

[elicash]

What's novel is cooking in the vehicle while it's being delivered. With multiple vehicles circling around neighborhoods, that potentially cuts the time from order to delivery to ONLY the cooking time.

[jonknee]

It's only finishing cooking while it is being delivered. It first has to be assembled and par baked, which means unless you order a very common pie (say a large cheese) you will have to wait like we do now.

[bpicolo]

I agree. This doesn't look particularly innovative in that regard. Pizza sounds like a pretty easy food to assembly-line. I guess the difference is really fresh vs raw end goal?