Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

The "dough feeder". The sauce and cheese modules – even the pepperoni-sprinkler. All lay still.

A now defunct duo of robots were supposed to be churning out pizzas at a Moto Pizza restaurant in Seattle.

However, in May the pair were rendered "basically useless" when their supplier, Picnic, abruptly shut down. Technical support for the robots evaporated at that moment, says Lee Kindell, founder and chief executive of Moto Pizza.

He was left wondering what to do with the $160,000 (£118,000), cabinet-like machines and whether buying in pizza bots was really worth it.

"I don't know if I want to do a partnership again because of the failures," he says.

The robot pizza-making business has, it's true, been littered with sorry tales of overcooked promises and melting fortunes. Besides Picnic, other companies that have come and gone include Zume and Pazzi, which used robot arms to assemble pizzas, as well as Basil Street, a purveyor of pizza vending machines.

Although so-called fast food might seem an easy target for automation, it's proved harder than many expected. Plus, bringing robots into pizza restaurants could take away entry-level jobs in the hospitality sector. Is the future really filled with robotic pizza?

"We haven't yet seen any of the success stories materialise the way some people thought they would," admits Sara Senatore, senior restaurants analyst at Bank of America. Her employer has financial interests in multiple high street pizza chains including Papa Johns and Domino's.

Food preparation bots are sometimes clumsy – dropping ingredients in the wrong places at times, she explains. Conversely, "Humans are very efficient at making pizza."

But Kindell, despite his frustrations with Picnic, is surprisingly undeterred. He is a fan of full automation. "I want to be able to walk up to, let's say, a type of kiosk, put in your order, and it makes a fresh pizza," he tells the BBC.

Kindell, who once made all his dough by hand – until an elbow tendon injury forced him to investigate using machines instead, is now working on his own version of a pizza-making robot.

He declines to share details but the contraption will make square pan-style pies and that the machine is inspired by the way 3D printers work. If things go well, he says he could have a fully operational version of the device by the summer of 2027.

Given that he admits he has "no experience" in robotics, I question why he would want to invest in such a dicey business. Kindell says that failed pizza robot companies have nonetheless generated useful data and made strides in developing their technology. It's just a matter of time before someone gets these things to work, he insists.

On jobs, he claims that even "fully autonomous" pizza robots won't threaten workers. Kindell previously used Picnic's robots at T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners, a baseball team.

Usually, he'd need about 10 people to make pizza in such a setup. With the robots that number fell to just two. But the other eight people were still employed, he says, in roles where they interacted with customers, and advertised the pizza around the stadium.

"We had so many more people able to hand out the pizza," says Kindell. "It was so much faster."

For some pizza robotics engineers, speed is certainly a motivator. Last year at the John Glenn Columbus International Airport in Ohio, Canadian firm Appetronix installed a 24/7 robotic pizza unit for the Donatos pizza chain.

Appetronix is working on newer versions of the technology that it claims will assemble pizzas at a furious pace. The goal is to eventually have a pizza sliding out of such machines "every minute", says co-founder and chief executive Nipun Sharma.

To that end, his team is investigating methods of depositing sauce onto a pizza base far faster than the 9.5 seconds currently required. "Think of it as a shower head that blasts the sauce in 1.5 seconds," says Sharma.

The company is even investigating lasers and ultrasound as potentially speedier methods of slicing pizzas than a traditional knife blade.

Many people enjoy hand-crafted pizza, though, I suggest. Doesn't a machine making your dinner take away the human connection we might otherwise feel with food? "What we're going after is a chain market," replies Sharma. "You want the pizza to taste the same every single time."

This divide, between businesses focused on repeatability, and those who promise a more artisanal, human-fronted experience, predates robotics. But it will likely shape how and where technology arrives in the world of pizza.

Five years ago, Paul Giannone – owner of Paulie Gee's pizza restaurants – vowed to Mashable that he would "never" use a robot. "That is still the case," he tells the BBC. "Our shops offer a dining experience with personal customer service a high priority."

Senatore says that human interaction is potentially an even more important factor today than in the past, including for restaurants that do decide to introduce pizza robots.

"It's a risky proposition to not have people," says Senatore. Pizza parlours could lose their "human touch", she adds, and potentially also frustrate customers should the machines go wrong while no-one is around to step in.

But expect new pizza tech to keep appearing. Not least because the meal-assembling robot companies that have seemingly disappeared are actually still influencing food start-ups. The intellectual property formerly owned by Zume – more than 300 patents – was bought up by Miso Robotics, of California.

"Their vision for robotic pizza making was really brilliant," says chief executive Rich Hull. "I just think they were a beat too early in the market." Customers weren't "ready" for robot-made pizza, he asserts.

Miso Robotics makes a French fry-cooking bot called Flippy, already in use in some US fast food restaurants. The Zume patents could help Miso Robotics expand Flippy's capabilities, suggests Hull, though he does not cite any specific example. "That's one of those things that we're going to be learning about," he says.

The natural cut-and-thrust of the fast food pizza business looks set to continue. Kindell remains set on automating pizza production.

"There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a fully autonomous pizza robot," he says. "It's just, who's going to do it first?"