This delivery pizza is made by robots and baked en route to your house - Los Angeles Times
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This delivery pizza is made by robots and baked en route to your house

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Zume Pizza, a company in Mountain View, Calif., is using robots to make pizza. And it’s delivering that pizza in a special truck outfitted with 56 ovens, in which the pizzas bake before they’re delivered. This should eliminate the problem of your soggy, lukewarm pizza being delivered after bouncing around in the back of a dirty car.

The company was started by restaurateur Julia Collins and Alex Garden, former general manager of XBox Live. The two decided it was time to crack into the $39-billion pizza industry — with robots.

Here’s how it works: When a customer places an order, a robot sauces a pre-formed uncooked pie, then sends it down a conveyor belt to a human, who adds the toppings. The pizza is then loaded into one of those 56 ovens on a special delivery truck, where it will bake en route to its destination.

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“We’re starting with pizza, but the implications for BOTW [baked on the way] technology extends to the entire food-delivery industry,” Garden said in a statement. “By eliminating dwell-time, we can make pizza with locally sourced, chemical-free ingredients, so that customers don’t have to compromise quality for convenience.”

The pizzas range from $15 to $18. And the toppings go beyond your average cheese and pepperoni: On something called a Veggie Jackson pizza, you’ll find mozzarella, young goat gouda, baby spinach, yellow squash, green squash, Kalamata olives, roasted red peppers, red onions, gremolata and tomato sauce. There’s also a gluten-free option for some of the pies.

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Zume Pizza has one delivery truck, but the company plans to add two more by the end of the year. Services are available only in Mountain View, but there are plans to expand to San Jose, and eventually throughout the entire Bay Area and the rest of the country.

Zume Pizza is available for order at www.ZumePizza.com or through the app at the App Store or Google Play.

I like anchovies on my pizza. Follow me on Twitter & Instagram @Jenn_Harris_

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