An autonomous pizza chain run by robots

In France, a new chain of tiny restaurants will run autonomously by using robots to make pizzas

Spotted: French robot-pizza chain PAZZI is opening its first location to the public this month in Montevrain, France. The concept uses three robot arms produced by Universal Robots to operate a fully autonomous restaurant about the size of a large kiosk.

Shoppers order and pay for their pizza using a touchscreen, and the robot arms do the rest. The robot arms work in tandem – assembling, baking, slicing, packaging and serving the pies without human assistance. They have learned to replicate the movements of a pizza chef, creating unique pizzas by placing ingredients randomly. According to PAZZI, the robots can make a pizza every 30 seconds from nearly 5 million recipe combinations.

PAZZI, which means “crazy” in Italian, is designed as a turnkey “tech good food” concept. It was founded by engineers Sébastien Roverso and Cyrill Hamon and is working with chef Thierry Graffagnino, a three-time world pizza champion.

The pizzas will use sustainable, organic ingredients and also provide a unique experience. Customers can watch the robots at work on their pie. PAZZI is targeting the healthy robotic restaurants for high-traffic areas such as railway stations, shopping centres and universities, where junk food often predominates.

The company has recently secured €10 million in funding in a Series A round led Singaporean investment fund Qualgro. The money will be used for research and development, and to open more restaurants, including an outlet in Paris in September 2019.