Electronics

Pizza-making vending machines on their way to the U.S.

Pizza-making vending machines on their way to the U.S.
Let's Pizza vending machines will be introduced in the U.S. later this year
Let's Pizza vending machines will be introduced in the U.S. later this year
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The Let's Pizza dough-making mechanism
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The Let's Pizza dough-making mechanism
One of the finished Let's Pizza pizzas
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One of the finished Let's Pizza pizzas
Let's Pizza vending machines will be introduced in the U.S. later this year
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Let's Pizza vending machines will be introduced in the U.S. later this year
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Remember how people reacted when McDonalds announced that it was going to start selling pizzas? Well, if buying pies from a chain best known for cheap hamburgers might have been difficult for some folks to get their heads around, they will likely find this even stranger – buying them from a vending machine. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what Dutch company A1 Concepts is hoping Americans will do, when its Let’s Pizza machines arrive in the U.S.

First of all, it should be pointed out that the machines don’t just spit out premade pizzas.

Instead, the process begins with the client paying, then selecting one of four types of pizza available at any one time. The machine then mixes flour and water, kneads that mixture into dough, rolls the dough out into a 27-centimeter (10.5-inch)-wide crust, adds toppings, cooks the pie in its infrared oven, then dispenses it in a take-away box. The whole process takes under three minutes.

Each machine can store enough ingredients to make 90, 100 or 200 pizzas, depending on which source of information you go by.

One of the finished Let's Pizza pizzas
One of the finished Let's Pizza pizzas

All of the ingredients are fresh (as opposed to frozen), and are kept refrigerated in single-dose vacuum-packaged containers until needed. The company is very big on emphasizing that the pies are made “in a human-free environment” – so if you pictured an actual person making the pizzas inside each machine, well, there isn’t one.

According to the Pizza Marketplace website, the machines have been around in Europe for the past three years, but will make their North American debut in the third quarter of this year. A U.S. headquarters will be opened in Atlanta at that point, with a rollout of machines soon to follow in various markets.

The suggested price for each pizza is US$5.95. If any of our readers have had the chance to try one of the pies, we would be interested in hearing what you thought of it.

A Let’s Pizza machine can be seen in action, in the video below.

Source: Let’s Pizza (UK) via Pizza Marketplace

A1 concepts Let's Pizza

View gallery - 3 images
8 comments
8 comments
Misha Ioffe
now RED BOX presents Dinner and a Movie!!!!! :P
Carlos Grados
Fresh is best.
Mark Moed
The best Dutch invention since wooden shoes!
JPAR
One MAJOR flaw..... the dough contains no yeast and has no time to rise. Therefore this could be better described as a 'pizza cream cracker' machine......
Loving It All
Sorry, but I have to think we're looking at lazy journalism here. If this device has been commercial in Europe for three years, how is it no one was available to ask what they thought of the product? Well, yes, you have to do some looking and asking. And that IS a lot more work than taking a byline on a press release.
Bruce H. Anderson
Many years ago an associate was involved in a fresh/hot vending venture. It was a combination of frozen food and convection heating. It didn't get much traction. This pizza cracker (thanks JPAR) doesn't look that good, the machine is awfully large, and can see this a being a sanitation nightmare.
Gregg Eshelman
It can't do ham (Canadian bacon) and ground beef plus two to four types of cheese.
What's the pizza cutter like? Does it have a rolling blade or is it just a plastic knife?
I want to see the original video, sans dubbed English.
Ken Long
About time. In the 1960, I seen a Pizza machine do the same thing at local Fairs.
You could see as it was made.