Watch as This Robot Pizza Chain Operator Breaks Down the Cost Each Part of the Pizza-Making Process

For tiny operators (and ample ones as successfully) within the pizza trade, Andrew Simmons’s posts on Linkedin have flip into must-learn material.

That’s as a result of Simmons, who I wrote about last year as he experimented with using pizza automation expertise in his San Diego process restaurant, has initiate-sourced his learnings as he continues experimenting with diversified types of expertise. And boy, is he experimenting!

And it’s no longer correct automation (although that’s a ample half). He’s repeatedly tinkering with each half of his restaurant tech stack as he expands past his licensed restaurant and appears to assemble a nationwide chain of tech-powered pizza eating places. Add within the fact that he’s using a crowdfunding mannequin by which he sells subscriptions and a share of future pizza earnings, and Simmons has created a dwell in-process testing lab for the system to manufacture a next-gen pizza chain that every one individuals can be taught from.

One instance of his extremely detailed learnings that I stumbled on charming is his post this present day detailing the price-per-pizza after allocating the prices of the various pizza-making automation he’s deployed in one in every of his eating places. The video, seen under, reveals how rather a lot each half of the strategy — dough making, doughball prep, dough-pressing, toppings allocation — prices and the way he arrives at a 2024 mark-per-pie of $1.91.

Simmons particulars how he’s tinkered with numerous automation packages over the past yr and the way they’ve impacted the value. One change he’s tinkered with is switching out the Picnic pizza robotic for a Middleby Pizza Bot, which is additional costly however handles additional of the pizza-making course of and requires a lot much less human intervention.

From Simmons’s publish:

Closing yr, the financial mannequin was constructed using the Picnic Pizza State of affairs. It was additional costly final yr than it’s this present day. This yr, I’ve included The Middleby Firm Automation instrument into the equation, however each unit may effectively effectively work. Middleby is a diminutive additional expensive, together with about 60¢ to the per pizza estimate, however it takes the pizza from dough clean to cooked, whereas the Picnic requires some intervention to prepare dinner dinner it. Picnic runs about 38¢ per pizza this yr.

Simmons facets to recent adjustments in California’s employment legal guidelines as one motivator for his turning into an early adopter of those selections, asserting that the changes will end in additional restaurant chains experimenting with automation.

“Due to the pioneers on this process which have tried, adopted, succeeded or failed, instruments producers and restaurateurs alike; and to Governor Newsom, for accelerating adoption of automation,” wrote Simmons.

That it’s possible you may (and I point out you stop) put collectively Simmons’s posts about his plug to manufacture a robotic restaurant chain on Linkedin.