When robots aren’t out saving the galaxy, they’re making pizza? That may soon be the case — at least in quick-service restaurants (QSRs).
Little Caesars received a patent on Tuesday (March 13) for what it calls an “apparatus provided for assembling pizza,” The Spoon reported.
The machine can complete the tasks needed to make a pizza oven-ready: It reportedly comes with “a pizza sauce-spreading station, a cheese-spreading station and a pepperoni-applying station.”
To add on the required ingredients, the pizza robot comes with an arm that can hold the pizzas along with a dial system to make sure the robot can put the right amount of cheese and pepperoni on top.
As a result, staff at Little Caesars will be able to complete other tasks besides, well, preparing pizza. For consumers, the technology could allow consumers to receive a more consistent product — and get that pepperoni pie a little bit faster.
According to ZDNet, the change from human pizza makers to robotic workers makes sense. Quick-service restaurants such as Little Caesars work like small factories with several separate tasks spread across an assembly line, after all.
However, the spread of innovative tech has been slow in the industry, due to the high cost of robots and the low cost of wages for human workers.
That has now changed: Robots seem to be an attractive alternative to human workers, as workers at QSRs demand higher wages and the price of robots has gone down as more companies adopt them.
As a result, Little Caesars is hardly the only company looking to bring new technology to the age-old business of pizza making: Other companies have begun investing in robotic technology too.
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