In the second piece of vending machine news to come out of Monday, I bring you the ALDI Pizzabot.
Yep.
ALDI has launched what it’s labelled as a first-of-its-kind robotic pizza vending machine. It’s called Pizzabot and you can find it at the Corner Store in North Sydney.
In the pitch we got from ALDI, the supermarket giant said the Pizzabot was “snazzy new robotic tech” that was “serving up restaurant-grade gourmet pizza in just two minutes”.
Pizzabot will serve you only two woodfired pizza flavours for now – Pepperoni and Italiana – for a cost of $8.99.
Pizzabot comes to us as a result of a partnership between ALDI and Bondi startup Placer Robotics.
ALDI reckons the bot can cook 450 pizzas a day (or about 17 pizzas an hour).
The vending machine itself has a glass front, so you can see the pizza being cooked and packaged by the robot.
“To ensure a restaurant quality meal that can be enjoyed while shopping, the pizza bases are handmade and partially cooked in Bondi and topped with premium local ingredients,” ALDI confesses. “The pizzas are then chilled in Pizzabot’s precision temperature controller so they are ready to be cooked to order in a matter of minutes.”
Pizzabot is a trial, and exclusively available in ALDI Corner Store, North Sydney, for a limited time. Unfortunately, there are no current plans to launch the bot in standard stores.