Former SpaceX Engineers Launching Startup Where Robots Make Pizzas in 45 Seconds

1) Margins on pizza are not very high. Dominos has a 30% gross margin and that's with all the non-pizza crap they've convinced people to buy over the years. The quote a $10 price in the article (though it's not clear if that's their cost or what they're selling for). Say their magical pizza robots instead allow for a 50 or 60% gross margin. If they're selling for $10, you still gotta sell a crap-ton of $10 pizzas to make any real money. That might not be impossible except for the fact that... 2) Competition is incredibly difficult. There are a zillion pizza places everywhere in the US. In addition to the major chains, there are also mom and pop pizza stores too. They are not going to sit idly by while this company scoops up marketshare with its cheap pizzas. They're going to market aggressively (which hurts net margin) and cut prices (which further compresses gross margin). It's going to be especially hard for this company because they're going up against established brands that everyone already knows - they're going to have to outpromote these giant companies.

If you really have this magic pizza robot tech, go sell it to Dominos. They will happily pay you vast amounts of money and you can juice your margins with a subscription model for parts and service.

A mobile pizza assembly line. This is what counts for innovation dragging us towards the singularity now?

I don't consider that a selling point since the imperfection is part of the experience. Give me a hand tossed New York slice sitting under a lamp for a couple hours and re-baked just when I order it. The air bubbles in the dough and uneven crispiness make each bite just a little different.

Or, like many SV companies, is pizza the proof-of-concept and they're shooting to be the global juggernaut of robot food-making and license to the other fast food places? I suspect that's the long-term vision.

Let's assume pizza is just the start, and the real goal is robotic chefs. Ok, that's great. Please say that is what you are doing and why. I don't know that robotic chef is in huge demand. How would having robotic chef's make the world a better place, maybe it's possible, but I just don't see it.

Also the headline should be "bake a pizza in 45 seconds" as the article states, but I guess it doesn't sound that impressive when consumer pizza ovens can already bake one in 60 seconds.

Either way, good luck to them. There is a lot of competition in both spaces.

My approach to pizza is intended to be good on cost, preparation time, flavor, and nutrition and in my view is terrific on all four.

Table of Contents

     === Steps Forward
     === Making the Pizza Dough
     == Equipment
     = Stainless Steel Bowls
     = Other Equipment
     == The Water and Yeast
     == The Flour
     == Mixing in the Salt and Flour
     == Dough Kneading
     == Dough Rising
     == Eight Pieces
     === Tomato Sauce
     === Making a Pizza
     == A Teflon Circle
     == Forming the Pizza
     == The Toppings
     == Cooking
     == Slicing

For my success and my situation, here are five steps forward:

First, I make the pizza at home and, thus, cut out some time delays and lots of costs.

Second, I make my own dough. Key here are the simple, bold, blunt facts (a) pizza dough is just bread dough, actually especially simple bread dough, and (b) making pizza dough is fast, fun, and easy.

Third, to cook the pizza, I use just a covered cast iron frying pan on a stove top so save on heating a whole oven.

Fourth, my pizza is for one, about 7 1/4" in diameter. For larger pizzas, nearly all of the content here can still apply.

Fifth, I settle on one pizza with just the same ingredients and then buy the ingredients in bulk quantities at Sam's Club. The ingredients for one pizza cost about $1. All the ingredients can be stored, depending on the ingredient, at room temperature, in a refrigerator, or in a freezer, and be fine for months.

=== Making the Pizza Dough

The usual short version of pizza dough is flour, yeast, salt, and water, and so is my pizza dough.

For flour, I get the 25 pound bags of bread and pizza flour from Sam's Club.

For yeast, I use

Fleischmann's Instant Dry Yeast.

My last purchase was from Amazon, 2 pounds, as one purchase, in two packages, each one pound. The yeast comes as loose, small granules. After opening a package, I cover and refrigerate the rest.

== Equipment

= Stainless Steel Bowls

I use two stainless steel bowls. I believe the bowls, at least the larger one, are now sold at Walmart.

The larger bowl has at its top outside diameter 12 1/4" and inside diameter 11 1/8". The inside depth is 6 1/2"

The smaller bowl has top outside diameter 11 1/2" and inside diameter 10 1/2". The inside depth is depth 3 1/2"

= Other Equipment

1 T (tablespoon) measuring spoon

large wire whip

large cooking spoon

spatula

pastry board (white plastic, 20" x 15")

chef's knife

a second supply of flour, not large, say 1 cup or so, for dusting as helpful -- see below.

== The Water and Yeast

Add to the larger bowl (accuracy here and with the flour is likely important)

650 ml

water at room temperature and 1 T (tablespoon) of the yeast. Cover and wait, also at room temperature, an hour or so for the water to soften the yeast (this waiting is likely optional).

== The Flour

In the smaller bowl, using some digital scales, add

1000 grams

of the flour.

== Mixing in the Salt and Flour

Add 1 T of ordinary table salt to the water and yeast. (There are suggestions that should add the flour right away or the salt might kill the yeast.) With the wire whip, mix the yeast and salt until uniform in the water.

Dump into the large bowl with the water, yeast, and salt roughly, just by eye, 2/3rds of the flour and use the wire whip to mix to a smooth viscous cream. Here are trying to get the ingredients as uniform as can while there is still little enough flour in the mixture to have the mixing, with just the wire whip, easy. Really, if want, can just keep adding the flour and mixing with the wire whip until the mixture is too stiff (viscous) to mix with the wire whip. If add too much flour, the wire whip can be difficult to clean!

Then dump the remaining 1/3rd or so of the flour into the large bowl and mix with the large cooking spoon.

== Dough Kneading

To be uniform, the dough needs more mixing, kneading. There are claims that this "develops the gluten". My experience is that apparently all or nearly all that is important is just the mixing.

So, add about 1 T of flour to the pastry board and scatter the flour.

Dump, scrape the dough from its bowl onto the pastry board.

Set this large bowl aside but don't bother to clean it yet; will use the bowl again.

Even if measure the water accurately at 650 ml and the flour accurately at 1000 grams, there is some question how dry the dough will be at this point in the work.

The idea of kneading is (a) to press and spread the dough to increase the area of the board it covers, (b) to fold the dough so that the wetter parts are inside and the dryer parts are outside, and then to return to (a).

The spatula can be useful for moving loose flour/dough to the main mass where can fold it into the main mass with the kneading.

When starting this kneading, if there is no relatively dry surface and the dough sticks a lot to your fingers, then dust the outside with about 1/2 T of flour.

Should not have much trouble with the dough sticking to your fingers. If the dough is too sticky, then it can take surprisingly little extra flour, maybe just 1/2 T, to make the dough sticking not a problem.

Kneading for 8 minutes is likely longer than necessary.

How to know there is enough kneading? All of (a) -- (c) just below are sufficient and quite doable:

(a) The dough looks about as well mixed and uniform as it will get.

(b) If press with a finger, the dough springs back some.

(c) The outside looks smooth, no longer like the irregular, sticky mass that started on the board.

== Dough Rising

You want the yeast to grow and generate flavor but especially CO2 to make the dough and the pizza puffy.

So, put the mass of dough back in the large bowl, cover the bowl (not in contact with the dough) with a towel or other means to keep out air, and let the dough rest at room temperature for several hours until it is, say, within 1" of the top of the bowl.

Just exactly how long you let the dough rise is not critical: You just want the yeast to generate some small bubbles of CO2. With a lot of rising, will tend to get some large bubbles and more volume, but the next step in the dough handling will pop the large bubbles which means that they were not very useful.

If you let the dough rise too long, then the top can dry out.

== Eight Pieces

From this one recipe of dough, I get 8 pizzas, each about 7 1/4" in diameter. But, if want to make larger pizzas, then divide the dough into 6, 4, or maybe 2 pieces!

Put 1 T of flour on the pastry board, dump the dough onto the flour, and roll the dough around in the flour.

At this point I squeeze and stretch the dough to make a roughly uniform log the diagonal length of the cutting board. Then using a chef's knife, I cut the log into 2, then 4, then 8 roughly equal pieces.

I put each piece in a covered plastic container of volume about 12 ounces. For dough I want to eat as pizzas in the next day or two, I put the containers in the refrigerator. For the rest, I freeze them.

The freezing works well for keeping the dough.

The dough not frozen can continue to rise and need a container larger than 12 ounces.

=== Tomato Sauce

The tomato sauce used can be quite simple and still yield a good pizza. Here is a relatively complicated sauce I improvised from the standard flavorings that I believe also makes a good pizza:

2 6 ounce cans of tomato paste

one 105 ounce can of Sam's Club Maker's Mark crushed tomatoes

3 T garlic from Walmart bottled, diced garlic

2 T Tone's dry oregano

2 T Tone's dry basil

Combine in 6 quart pot. Mix. Simmer to sterilize and reduce a little. Put about a quart in the refrigerator to use for pizzas soon and freeze the rest.

=== Making a Pizza

== A Teflon Circle

My use of a covered cast iron skillet as an oven can burn the bottom of the pizza before the rest is hot. So, to protect the bottom, I make the pizza on a sheet of Teflon. I get the Teflon as "Dehydrator Sheets" 14 x 14" from Amazon. So far, after hundreds of pizzas, I am still using the first, same sheet of Teflon! I cut the sheet to a circle 8 1/4" in diameter.

== Forming the Pizza

With a piece of thawed dough, 1/8th of the whole recipe, weighing about

     (1000 + 650) / 8 = 206.250 grams

== The Toppings

I add about

48 grams tomato sauce,

43 grams of (still frozen) shredded Mozzarella cheese (from Sam's),

23 grams (four circles) of pepperoni sausage (relatively large circles, already sliced, from Sam's).

The toppings and their amounts can vary enormously. Commonly the US uses way more in sauce, cheese, and other toppings than, say, some famous places in Italy and needed for a good pizza.

== Cooking

I cook the pizza in a covered cast iron frying pan with bottom cooking circle 8 1/2" in diameter for 22 minutes (with the frying pan starting at room temperature). I use a large burner on an electric stove, and, on that stove, have the power dial at about 8 o'clock -- for another stove, you may have to experiment.

This cooking results in the bottom crisp and nicely brown and the rest nicely hot without boiling the Mozzarella cheese.

== Slicing

To eat, using the chef's knife, I cut the pizza in just two pieces.