Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 114 posts

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#41

Post by navpatel »

aestetix wrote: post #14

So.... when all the people who were cooking the pizzas are out of work, who will be left to buy the pizzas? The same goes for all low wage jobs that are being automated away. I'm not sure how many people have really thought through the long term implications of what happens when you automate all the "grunt" work. As a successful business, your income comes from customers. Your customers need to make money somehow. Al…

The same thing that happened to stable boys, bank tellers and farmers. In 1870 53% of the labour force were farmers, by 1970 that was 4.6% (https://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm). If you told someone in 1870s that 50% of the labour force will be changing their job, they would have a similar reaction.

Granted the speed with which changes are occurring now is much more rapid; if we consider the largest number of people affected in the smallest period of time, it's probably self-driving cars & trucks that will make the greatest impact.

Driving or making pizza isn't exactly high-skill work (in terms of time taken on training), hopefully the transition happens slow enough for these people to retrain for other work.

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#42

Post by jonknee »

vessenes wrote: post #36
tansey wrote: post #28

I guess I don't understand what is really novel about this. Don't brands like Digiorno and Freschetta already have highly-optimized pizza assembly lines? Is it really that hard to make the topping/sauce dispensing dynamic instead of static? I also don't understand the appeal of having the pizza be super hot-n-ready. If you have an efficient baking-to-delivery pipeline, and an insulated container for the pizza, then h…

So if you are a deep pizza nerd, the pitch that you'd have a neo-neapolitan style pizza at your door in short order is a great pitch. The issue with fulfilling this pitch is that pizzaiolos are expensive, hot ovens are hard to get close to people, etc. etc. Trying to solve all this is probably at one level a 'passion project' for a Valley engineer. A true 90 second Neapolitan pizza does not age that well, the crust i…

> Pizza though, pizza has like 90% gross margin. If you could get rid of labor, you'd have a huge advantage economically against competitors.

That's true, but this company looks like they have a lot more labor than a typical pizza chain. If you ever watch a big chain make pies it is astonishingly fast, way faster than this "robot" version (which is really not robotic at all, there are so many people involved!).

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#43

Post by throwawaysocks »

bko wrote: post #25
ghaff wrote: post #20

> "Just imagine Domino's without the labor component," said Garden. "You can start to see how incredibly profitable that can be." So that quote leads me to imagine crappy pizza that's maybe a little cheaper than other crappy pizza. Doesn't exactly make me want to rush out and try it.

It appears that millions of Americans prefer Dominos pizza considering they command 25% of the US pizza delivery market and sell 1.5 mm pies a day. Sorry their pizza isn't up to your standards. http://marketrealist.com/2015/03/dominos-pizza-serving-1-5-m...

> prefer Dominos

IDK. I order Dominos a lot because I sometimes work weird hours and literally nothing else that delivers is open. That doesn't mean I prefer Dominos. I definitely don't. But it delivers to a large geographic region almost 24/7.

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#44

Post by jonknee »

elicash wrote: post #39
tansey wrote: post #28

I guess I don't understand what is really novel about this. Don't brands like Digiorno and Freschetta already have highly-optimized pizza assembly lines? Is it really that hard to make the topping/sauce dispensing dynamic instead of static? I also don't understand the appeal of having the pizza be super hot-n-ready. If you have an efficient baking-to-delivery pipeline, and an insulated container for the pizza, then h…

What's novel is cooking in the vehicle while it's being delivered. With multiple vehicles circling around neighborhoods, that potentially cuts the time from order to delivery to ONLY the cooking time.

It's only finishing cooking while it is being delivered. It first has to be assembled and par baked, which means unless you order a very common pie (say a large cheese) you will have to wait like we do now.

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#45

Post by [deleted] »

aestetix wrote: post #14

So.... when all the people who were cooking the pizzas are out of work, who will be left to buy the pizzas? The same goes for all low wage jobs that are being automated away. I'm not sure how many people have really thought through the long term implications of what happens when you automate all the "grunt" work. As a successful business, your income comes from customers. Your customers need to make money somehow. Al…

[deleted]

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#46

Post by ZoeZoeBee »

coherentpony wrote: post #32

I'm genuinely curious, what's the difference between robots replacing American jobs and foreigners replacing American jobs? Politicians go to great lengths to protect the sanctity of American jobs by passing strict immigration regulations and instantiating border checkpoints hundreds of miles inside the border. They don't seem to be mirroring their actions for robots.

Inevitability and lack of resources. We can all agree that robots are in the process of replacing many careers regardless of immigration. When the robot needs replacing you purchase a new robot. When the low skilled worker you imported is made obsolete by an even cheaper robot, now that worker must be taken care of by the state. Chances are that worker also plans on reproducing during their life, creating more unnecessary workers

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#47

Post by CuriouslyC »

bko wrote: post #37
kyledrake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they up to yours? I agree with the spirit of the poster. Nobody's going to lose sleep with anticipation for a cheaper McDonalds (that delivers!).

I think Domino's pizza is great. I don't think you're the target market for McDonalds but they feed a lot of lower income Americans. If they can reduce costs and help those Americans save a little bit of money, it would be greatly beneficial.

Being a huge pizza nerd, I have to ask, what is domino's pizza great compared to?

There is a nice saying that is apropos - "pizza is like sex, even when it is bad, it is still pretty good."

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#48

Post by jonknee »

rm999 wrote: post #12
whyenot wrote: post #10

A consumer isn't going to care about the automation. Does the pizza taste good? I'm especially interested in how these "mobile ovens" will work out. If a delivery is 1 mile away vs 5 miles away, length of time in the oven will be different, yet you don't want to deliver under-baked dough or something that is burnt.

The video in the article says they automatically turn the oven on when they're 3 minutes from the delivery (they have like 50 ovens in the truck). I think that's actually the coolest part of their idea.

That many ovens seems ridiculous considering the pizzas need assembled and par baked before getting loaded into the truck. If I order my pie I have to wait until 50 other people get theirs, the driver returns to the store and loads up another 50 and then I get mine?

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#49

Post by jonknee »

jostmey wrote: post #5

Wow, they have a hose that sprays out pizza sauce and a way of putting a pizza in an oven. So how much are they saving in labor cost?

From the video it appears your stereotypical stoned college student working the late shift at Dominos could make pizzas at about 5-10x the rate of that robot assisted assembly line. Their "automated" method uses more people than a manual operation!

Re: Zume, a new startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics

#50

Post by kyledrake »

bko wrote: post #37
kyledrake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they up to yours? I agree with the spirit of the poster. Nobody's going to lose sleep with anticipation for a cheaper McDonalds (that delivers!).

I think Domino's pizza is great. I don't think you're the target market for McDonalds but they feed a lot of lower income Americans. If they can reduce costs and help those Americans save a little bit of money, it would be greatly beneficial.

I don't buy the low cost argument here, because they don't feed them nutritious food, they prey on them by selling them predominantly high chemical, low nutrition addictive junk food that leads to diabetes and obesity, which is now the leading cause of death. Are we automating doctors next?

I get that everyone in Silicon Valley right now is obsessed with unfictionalizing Snow Crash, but the best way to make cheap food is to buy real food and learn how to cook it. There's a discount grocery store a block away and I frequently buy Actual Food there for prices that even a robot welding machine programmed to move pizzas around can't compete with.

Post reply on HN