Philippe Goldman of PAZZI Robotics is leading a revolution in fast food technology. Here we find out about how robots are solving a worldwide production and service crisis.
“By 2030, we believe that robots will replace many humans working in fast food restaurants.” says Philippe Goldman, CEO of PAZZI Robotics, who has just been named by Business Worldwide Magazine as the Most innovative CEO in the Fast-Food Industry.
It may sound scary, but as with all industries in the world, robots end up replacing to undertake non-value-added tasks, increase productivity and reduce workforce costs and dependency.
Solving a Global Food Crisis
Indeed, since the Covid-19 pandemic, the hospitality industry has been going through a crisis situation caused by a lack of staff.
1.5 million and 300 000 jobs are currently missing in the United States and France because of the toxic work environment in fast-food restaurants: low pay and repetitive and standardized tasks in narrow, hot kitchens.
Instead of mistaking humans for robots, why not really put robots in the kitchen and dedicate humans to what they do best: meaningful human interactions, service, recipe creation, etc? That’s the question the French start-up asked ten years ago.
PAZZI Robotics is today the most advanced tech solution for food operators, saving restaurants from the staff shortage crisis by developing robotic applications for kitchens and helping them on their operational tasks – with higher hygiene standards and better economics.
The Power to Conquer Huge Markets and Improve Service
With more than 100 000 units belonging to the leading fast-food operators and a solid QSR industry valued at more than $800B sales, this revolution will provide the robot manufacturers with an enormous market to conquer, and food operators with the solution to face their biggest challenge; labour sustainability.
10 years ago, nobody in the world was working on the field of robotic applications for restaurants, especially for the kitchens of the QSR operators. At that time, food operators thought that digitalization would solve most of their operational problems. But it did not.
Technical challenges were seen as too complex: insufficient space, lack of agility of robotic solutions, manipulation of organic elements and on-demand orders far away from the models of factories where robots were used to operate full time.
A Bold Move
But, in 2017, Philippe Goldman saw in two young and unconventional inventors, Sébastien Roverso and Cyrill Hamon, the potential to lead this future revolution. Together they decided to meet this technical challenge after two successful fundraising rounds. It took them almost seven years to develop the first stand-alone, automated pizza kitchen in the world, and it is now operated in France seven days a week.
It was a huge gamble, especially in France – the home of gastronomy – to replace the pizzaiolo with robotic arms, visible to the public. But they clearly brought great agility to cooking operations, with the opportunity to provide a very qualitative and tasty pizza at the end.
Mastering complex automation processes in the kitchen has represented a huge number of technological difficulties: baking, dosing, saucing, manipulating the dough, cutting, putting in boxes live before customer’s eyes in a small space at different temperatures from -20°C to 400°C.
No Human Intervention Needed
The PAZZI pizza kitchen is unique. It needs not a single human intervention, from the order to the delivery of the pizza. The robots work at a fast pace of 80 pizzas / hour, with a high level of hygiene and customer satisfaction.
The technology is based on a proprietary advanced multi-layer software, capable of operating in any type of kitchen regardless of hardware. The technology was developed over several years and was granted by a range of patents, making Pazzi Robotics the world’s biggest robotic solution for fast food chains.
From the first autonomous pizza restaurant to the leader in kitchen automation
PAZZI Robotics will continue to develop its stand-alone automated pizza kitchen for multi franchise food operators around the world, and the solution will be ready for market introduction next year. The demand has already proven to be high in many countries.
By the end of 2022, PAZZI Robotics will already be providing its software technology and knowledge to existing franchisor food operators, shaping the kitchens of tomorrow.
Speaking to Business Worldwide Magazine, Philippe Goldman said: “Get ready to see more and more robots making your pizzas, burgers, fries and more in the coming years! This means more customization, speed, 24/7 availability and hygiene. We named our company Pazzi Robotics because pazzi means “mad” in Italian – this seemed fitting for such an ambitious and crazy project!”
Pazzi Robotics has also been named “Best Automation and Robotics Solution” at the Food4Future Bilbao world summit 2022.
More information on https://pazzirobotics.com/