Fresh pizza may be coming to a vending machine near you. The Let's Pizza machine can do what no mechanized predecessor has done. It kneads and unrolls dough, stamps it flat, adds fresh ingredients, cooks, boxes, and delivers a pizza -- all in less than three minutes. Its distributor, A1 Concepts of the Netherlands, plans to put the machines in airports, malls, theme parks, and, yes, colleges.
"Everything about these pizzas is fresh," Ronald Rammers, CEO of A1 Concepts, told us. "There's a bag of flour, specially mixed, that comes straight from Italy. We combine it with fresh water, fresh sauce, and fresh toppings."
Click on the photo below for a Let's Pizza slideshow.
Let's Pizza vending machines will make their American debut in Atlanta in August. (Source: A1 Concepts)
The Italian inventor Claudio Torghele spent six years perfecting the mechanized vendor, with the idea that it would do more than simply zap a frozen pizza with microwaves. His machine mechanically mixes the dough from bags of water and flour and then passes it through a series of shaping and pre-heating stations that create a flattened and partially baked pizza base. A conveying tray moves the preheated crust beneath metering devices that squirt on the tomato sauce. Other distribution components add cheese, sausage, ham, and fresh vegetables. The machine then moves its product to an infrared oven for about a minute before putting it in a cardboard container and sliding it through a slot in the front of the machine.
Torghele told us he conjured up the idea while visiting California and seeing the emphasis on fast food. His vision originally called for a pasta machine. "After we started building it, we decided that pizza would be a more global product, so we changed it."
Of course, the first thing I thought about was spoilage, insects and sanitation. Well, I guess that's a lot of things. But if the ingredients were in single serve containers, this could be mitigated.
I agree with Chris PE's comment about vending machines being in our blood! I remember a vending machine that would actually make a little blow-molded figure right in front of your eyes! Amazing! I still remember the aroma of the warm, waxy plastic they used.
Very interesting pizza vending machine and video. I was wondering if the pizza will be more like what we have in America vs Italy. My daughter said the pizza she had in Italy was different from the US.
Seems like I remember my wife telling me it took 7 minutes in their oven in a take it/bake it store. That was at 700 degrees. So 13 minutes might not be out of line for the whole process.
If you can flour the drum it doesn't stick anywhere near so much, so that may be how they resolve the stickiness issue.
If you heat anything for 7-10 minutes at 700 degrees, it may not be appealing, but there are going to be darn few germs left alive. Most restaurant food poisoning comes from uncooked food or dirty humans handling it.
Where else etc? My first thought was an Army barracks. I think your point about bugs is the key issue. The day after the pizza vendor is installed is the first day a lawsuit will be filed for food poisoning. Cleanliness will always trump anything when it comes to preparing and serving food.
Actually college students SHOULD be very good pizza judges since they probably consume more pizza per year than any other species. My guess is after a few beers they would tend to pick up a piece off the floor and eat it. After all the alcohol in the beer should kill the germs.
RMorrison, I believe the pizza machine cooks and dumps its old contents on a daily basis, so there's no worry about old ingredients. As for IR ovens versus clay, I have no idea.
Somehow I don't think the denizens of college dorms are the most discerning consumers of pizza in the world. With the complexity, maintenance and hygenic issues I have to admire the engineering challenge, but I'll stick to my take-and-bake.
I was thinking it was a good idea until I got to #1 and #2 of your post, Warren. I would think that those things would be a maintenance nightmare. In addition, how do you contend with spoilage? It can mix the dough and toss it after 24 hours, but what about everything else. It's not like the toppings and all have a finite life that can be calculated.
Wow! What will the Italians come up with next? Painting on ceilings? Who knows? But pizza on demand sounds great, except...
1. Sticky things like this tend to clog up stuff. Just ask the guys who developed the glue machines for ICs.
2. Bugs! Always with the bugs! How do you keep the little critters out of the system without making them part of the protein package?
3. Where, other than college dorms, can you place these? Do you really want to get out of your easy chair, lug your overweight bottom down to the machine, wait 15 minutes and get your small pizza? Or do you just want to stay with your TV, call Jabba the Pizza Hutt, and have it delivered to your door!
4. The size must really be small to fit into this environment. Since size matters when it comes to cost, is it really worth it?
I bet on a Navy ship, it would sell like French fries! I would have camped out in front of it!
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