This Chicago Chain’s Growth Plans Hinge on Pizza Robots

• Chicagoland’s Slice Manufacturing unit will leverage Nala Robotics’ pizza-making system, known as Pizzaiola, in its aggressive enlargement plan.
• Pizzaiola can prep and make Slice Manufacturing unit’s widespread 28″ jumbo slice in addition to varied Chicago-style stuffed pizzas together with pastas and wings.

Associated: xRobotics’ xPizza Dice debuts at Missouri Valley School

Slice Manufacturing unit has 12 areas in Chicagoland however needs to develop throughout the U.S.—and a pizza-making robotic from Nala Robotics will assist them do it.

Nala Robotics, an AI know-how firm within the culinary phase, has introduced it should provide Slice Manufacturing unit with a voice-controlled, autonomous chef known as—appropriately sufficient—Pizzaiola. The robotic system may make pasta, burgers, wings and salads.

Nala Robotics stated it should custom-design and set up Pizzaiola at Slice Manufacturing unit’s latest areas to assist gasoline nationwide enlargement efforts. The pizza chain has laid out an aggressive enlargement plan closely leveraging Nala Robotics’ know-how and automation experience. The totally automated robotic chef will cook dinner Slice Manufacturing unit’s widespread jumbo slice and varied Chicago-style stuffed pizzas whereas additionally serving up the chain’s pasta dishes and assortment of hen wings.

“Our partnership with Slice Manufacturing unit, the primary of many within the pipeline, represents one other vital milestone for Nala Robotics and the adoption of our restaurant-as-a-service [RAAS] platform,” stated Nala cofounder and CEO Ajay Sunkara. “Our {custom} answer will assist Slice Manufacturing unit develop manufacturing to satisfy rising demand for the jumbo slice craze it created within the Chicagoland space, plus provide all kinds of meals choices to maintain prospects glad whereas additionally saving on labor prices.”

To make sure efficiencies, the robotic working system screens greater than 1,200 parameters each microsecond, starting from robotic visual view and meals high quality to point-of-sales, the corporate says. As soon as a pizza order is positioned, Pizzaiola selects, presses and stretches the dough, provides the sauce, cheese and toppings, after which cooks, slices and packing containers the pizza. Pizzaiola additionally will be capable to fulfill on-line orders and particular person jumbo slices that may be scheduled for pickup on the chain’s flagship Slice Via drive-through inside a couple of minutes of ordering, Nala Robotics says.

Slice Manufacturing unit founder and president Dom DiDiana’s household moved from Naples, Italy, to Chicago within the mid-Nineties and opened their first family-run Italian restaurant a number of years later.

“We’re recognized for our jumbo pizzas and jumbo slices, and this partnership with Nala Robotics will assist us enhance manufacturing exponentially as we develop areas and repair areas,” DiDiana stated. “What’s actually thrilling is that we now have the potential to run totally autonomous pizzeria-style eating places with a lot of menu objects, whereas protecting our household recipes in keeping with the identical nice style and distinctive meals high quality our prospects have cherished for a few years.”

Pizzaiola can reportedly make as much as 50 pizzas an hour in all kinds of types and with quite a few completely different toppings. It may possibly work with 5 dough sorts, 4 completely different sauces and 35 choices for toppings and cheeses.

Month-to-month leasing choices for Pizzaiola begin at $7,000 monthly. The corporate, primarily based in Arlington Heights, Illinois, has been demonstrating its know-how at three company-owned eating places in Naperville, Illinois, underneath the Nala Eating places Group title. These embody: One Imply Rooster, a fried hen idea; Surya Tiffins, a South Indian eatery; and Thai 76, a fast-food Thai canteen.