Vending machines of loving grace scratch-cook pizzas to order

A1 Concepts "Let's Pizza" vending machines are robots that scratch-bake pizzas in three minutes, to order. In this video, the Let's Pizza is demonstrated by a model (made extra weird by dubbing from some unknown language) in the world's most painful looking stilettos, who stresses again and again how hygienic the machine is, producing pizzas "untouched by human hands" and "in a human-free environment." Your robo-pizza is thus prepared "with a guarantee of total hygiene." The dubbing, the rubegoldbergian gadgetry and the strange, squeamish emphasis on hygiene (as though pizza from a mere human kitchen comes covered in boogers, stray pubic hairs and a thin film of DNA) combine to make this the greatest product demo of all time, ever, in the history of the universe.

The brainchild of Italian entrepreneur Claudio Torghel, the machine will be distributed by A1 Concepts, based out of the Netherlands. It's expected to hit our shores later this year, according to the industry website Pizza Marketplace. The company is expected to set up its U.S. headquarters in Atlanta.

Just what America needs: Pizza vending machines (Thanks, Gimlet_eye!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: carbs • Food • Gadgets • hygiene • not food • pizza • videos • Weird • youtube

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kP

“boogers, stray public hairs and a thin film of DNA ” — That would be MY KEYBOARD!
- SoItBegins
  
  As long as it’s only public hair.
ChicagoD

There is a How It’s Made on this.
http://twitter.com/nagmay Gabriel Nagmay

“Leavening is instantaneous” – it’s a miracle!

Or, maybe they just use chemical vs biological means…
- Culturedropout
  
  Baking powder, anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

I wouldn’t be surprised if, like their human counterparts, when not being used to make pizza these machines go out back and get high.
crummett

Is “pizza” a verb now?
relawson

Public hairs :p

there is a self storage company here called “Public Storage”, we would always call it “Pubic Storage”

on-topic…. I saw these machines on How It’s Made and have wanted to try one ever since! I’m glad they are coming here soon!
kP

Ingredients are spontaneously harvested from the local population.
Mark Dow

Uncannied pizza advert would work better with a Stephen Hawking voice over — more sanitary too.

Why isn’t she wearing a hairnet?
- http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog
  
  It got tangled and pulled off with the top button of her blouse
James Churchill

So all that’s needed for “perfect hygiene” is to remove the humans? Hooray! I can stop worrying about cockroaches!
pupdog

I figured I’d check out
http://www.letspizza.co.uk for more of a look at the thing – Strangely for a marketing website, it doesn’t do a whole lot.
william mills

Pizza vending machines…I think this is my trigger for happiness.
- digi_owl
  
  Only if i can have it installed at home.
http://www.creaturesoflight.com dagfooyo

Looks like the device is made by actual Italians – which means the pizza has the potential to be very good, most likely far better than any pizza made by humans who aren’t Italian.
- ChicagoD
  
  Also, that the machine will break down every 100 miles and parts will be impossible to come by.
  - http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
    
    not to worry, it comes with a handy instruction manual that no one can decipher.
    - Gilbert Wham
      
      My friend works for an Italian CCTV/Alarms electronics firm. I can confirm the horrors of Said Manuals…
- waetherman
  
  Americans make much better pizza than Italians.
  - http://www.creaturesoflight.com dagfooyo
    
    Depends where in the US you go. And where in Italy.
    - malindrome
      
      Stop complicating my stereotypes with your “nuance”!
  - retchdog
    
    debatable, but we’ve definitely (over-)perfected espresso.
    - waetherman
      
      I cannot disagree with on that :)
- Gary61
  
  from ‘Future of Tech’ on MSNBC:
  “The price has gone up since they first made their debut; they were about $4.50 a year ago when Atomic Toasters encountered them, but the recommended price is now $5.95. Hopefully the quality has gone up, too — that site’s reporter described the pizza he got as having a dry, spongy crust and chemical taste to the cheese.”
  Also, it can only make about 200 pizzas before it’s gotta be reloaded.
  - retepslluerb
    
    Which would equal to about 16 hours of continuous usage.
    
    Seems pretty reasonable to me, on a first glance.
- Bob Webb
  
  Surely people of any race can make good pizza, so long as they know how to make it and have practiced enough?
  - retchdog
    
    yes, exactly. hint: “italian” isn’t a race.
    - Ashen Victor
      
      Italian is a state of mind.
- http://www.jeremiahblatz.com/ Jeremiah Blatz
  
  Given the baking soda leavening and too-cold oven, I wouldn’t bet on it….
Lexicat

“as though pizza from a mere human kitchen comes covered in boogers, stray public hairs and a thin film of DNA”

My nomination for best new concatenation of words not involving “Belgium.”
Guido

“stray public hairs”
In this brave mechanized new world, the hairs are privatized
- Bob Webb
  
  Hairy privates?
http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux

The water is not provided in special bags for hygiene, it is so the machine’s owner has to PAY for it.
- pupdog
  
  Nooo, it’s so we can control the water quality and mineral content! Yeah, that’s it!
- http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
  
  That made me wonder too. Maybe public water supplies are frightful in Italy?
  - Daniel Cosby
    
    Not as bad as the pubic water.
    - http://billso.com/ Bill Sodeman
      
      What have the Romans given us? Besides the aquaduct, roads, schools…
      - MonkeyBoy
        
        Cloaca Maxima? A new source of water.
- retchdog
  
  water does make a difference in pizza, but since the crust is chemically leavened; made with hydrogenated oils; and kneaded in two minutes and pressed into shape, maybe it won’t make much of a difference in this pizza.
http://profile.yahoo.com/QCGOSVXBEAG7HHTZ5MNMYTZ2HM Cleo

Is the pizza always served by a hot nurse?
TooGoodToCheck

Wow, the phrase “untouched by human hands” is so retro. I remember as a child, my grandfather describing homemade food as “untouched by human feet”.
- TooGoodToCheck
  
  A bit of googling later, I’ve discovered that “untouched by human hands” was a slogan for “Chock full o’Nuts”, but it’s unclear when they started using it. Seems like it was in the 50s or 60s though.
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs cleek

call me skeptical.

based on my experience, we haven’t even figured out how to build a machine that can reliably pour a glass of wine (ex http://www.enomaticusa.com/
Guido

“made in a human-free environment”

The Pizza Choice for embodied AIs

The official pizza of the American Germphobic Association
- PhosPhorious
  
  One step closer to my dream of eating a slice of pepperoni on a planet that has been scoured clean of human beings.
  - http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke
    
    If you want to be the last person on earth, it might be a good idea to learn to cook.
    - PhosPhorious
      
      Now I don’t have to!!!
    - malindrome
      
      “To Serve Man”?
http://libraries.unl.edu dross1260

Got a soylent green vibe from that.
- http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
  
  That would explain why the taste varies from person to person.
Nash Rambler

*munches slice*

It’s good but, I dunno, tastes like there is something missing.

*reaches for shaker can marked “Boogers, Stray public hairs, DNA”*

Thaaaaaat’s better.
Mike Guerrero

Domo Oregano, Mr. Pizza Roboto.
WhyBother

Now if we can just get tacoCopter off the ground*, and hook the machines up to a web interface, we can have food which is completely ordered, prepared, and delivered without involving another human! Even better if it can be made to support the World of Warcraft /pizza command.

*Pun related to start up tacoCopter.com is unintended, but delicious.**
**Pun about the deliciousness of a pun in a food article is intended, but strangely less delicious.
*** Yes, tacoCopter and /pizza are, sadly, both real.
yadayada

” . . . without being touched by human hands, in a human free environment . . . ”

to be eaten by human free people.

(sorry.)
timquinn

Wow, what a mess. If the marketing shows such a lack of attention to detail the product is suspect. Given that, the claim for hygiene is completely empty. I would try it,but would not expect it to be any better than 7-11 pizza. OK, you first!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  If the marketing shows such a lack of attention to detail the product is suspect.
  
  Why would the skills of the marketers have any bearing on the skills of the designers?
  - timquinn
    
    Yes, I am not talking about my opinion. Marketing creates an impression, that is the point, no? If they chose these clowns to do their marketing then who did they choose to design their human-less hygiene system? Reality and its description often do not coincide, that is a major clue.
robdobbs

How was this missed by the vending-machine-happy Japanese?
http://twitter.com/TerryBorder Terry Border

So the main selling point seems to be that it’s hygienic. Sounds delicious. Perfect for a boy, or girl, in a plastic bubble.

At least it’s an Italian robot! Of all the robots, they are the best at making 3 minute pizzas.
msbpodcast

OMG… This has to be totally filled with the British equivalent of the USDA and FDA and stuffed so full of preservatives that I get hives just thinking about it.

You just know that it will taste like shit…
- http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke
  
  Preservatives I get, but what’s with the USDA/FDA slam? Those agencies would be the ones to make sure the meat isn’t rancid before delivery or treated with…oh…arsenic or something. Might as well include the FTC who would make sure the pepperoni isn’t actually carefully sliced out pieces of color-printed cardboard.
  - GrumpySteen
    
    There’s a certain subset of the population that really, truly believes that everything bad that happens is caused by the government and that a corporate controlled world would be utopia.
    
    Just back away slowly. There’s no point in trying to engage them in rational discussion.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZH5LQHHJPERMWNVHCR2Y5GRHHE Jose
  
  “You just know that it will taste like shit…”
  That would explain her wincing when she took a bite at the end. Or maybe it was the shoes after all.
Grahamers2002

I liked the part where the porn star talked about hygienic pizza-making machines.
mbsmbs

singularity achieved?…
- malindrome
  
  Yesterday’s pizza robots took up an entire room. Today’s pizza robots fit in the palm of your hand. And tomorrow, we will have pizza robots embedded in your blood stream!
http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood

I only have an overall autonomy of 64 pizzas. This is a not insignificant improvement. I will have one of these machines.
Rich Keller

If I’m going to have pizza from the future, I want it delivered by some master swordsman in a car with contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs.
bo1n6bo1n6

I for one welcome our new pizza robot overlords.
- http://billso.com/ Bill Sodeman
  
  They can put us to work in their flour mines.
Editz

I’d really like to see how they keep that dough mixing chamber from getting all gunked up after repeated use.
- sam1148
  
  If they’re starting in Atlanta they’re going to have problems with humidity.
  - malindrome
    
    And traffic!
sam1148

I’m more interested about the pizza cutter that is provided. Also, at 2:30 it looks like she deposits another coin to get the cutter, napkin, and oregano.
Eddie Perkins

Or ea gone oh? Is that really how oregano is pronounced in other parts of the world? Learn something new every day, I guess.
- http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
  
  Elton, could you please fetch the container of oreGAno? I left in the GARage by the motorway.
G Cardenas

Pretty cool!
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

I’m no connoisseur, but I always thought Domino’s and the take-out joints were screwing up when huge bubbles formed in the dough. Are dough bubbles more authentically Italian?
- snowmentality
  
  I have no idea about Italian-ness. But when I make my own pizza dough and bake it in as hot an oven as I can get at home, I usually end up with a bubble or two. I think it happens when the crust is pre-baked without toppings to weigh it down.
  - DewiMorgan
    
    Blackened bubbles are artisanal, and should make up at least 25% of the surface area. Also, the remainder of your base must be crunchy: merely crispy is not truly Italian. Any kind of leavening or softness is a sin: the base should be no fluffier than a hard taco. The cheese must be non-existent, the tomato sauce too thick, and if you don’t have leathery, dessicated slices of tomato congealed to the top, then you’re doing it wrong. Remember that toppings should not cover the whole of the surface, and should certainly not come anywhere near the edge: the inch and a half crust you see in the video is the absolute minimum.
    
    Looks to me like this ghastly machine is doing a pretty good job of reproducing everything that is unpleasant about pizza in Italy.
    
    Why pizzas in posh Italian restaurants are so diabolically unpleasant is a mystery to me, but I suspect it’s the same deal as all other national dishes: British roast beef is as big an international joke as Italian pizza, for example, and the farther upmarket you roam, the thinner and more tasteless the wafers of sliced beef get, the waterier the gravy, and the crunchier the Yorkshire puddings. Same deal with fish and chips, too, thinking about it. Posh restaurants serve burned/soggy chips and chewy, crunchy, bony fish.
    
    From what I’ve found, restaurants run by working-class ex-pats are the ones to serve the best version of the food of their home country. My theory is that if they’re willing to cross an ocean to found a new life, they’re willing to take risks with their food too, and so they discover ways to get the absolute best out of the food of their fathers.
    
    So in the US, you get great pizza, Mexican food, fish&chips, roast beef… in the UK, you get great curry and donners.
KimJong_un

Cory sez: “made extra weird by dubbing from some unknown language”

The original, Italian (natch), video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ptMOH9pbBQQ

However, this is the best product promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FntD3KgIaY
jwkrk

At the place we’d get pizza in college…guy would toss pizzas while half an inch of ash hung onto the tip of the cigarette in his hand. He’d go to the bathroom with flour all over his hands, and come out with flour still all over his hands. But it was great pizza!
teufelsdrochk

At last! A bb reference (however passing) to Adam Curtis’ marvelous documentary “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”–or the Richard Brautigan poem that inspired it.

This documentary should be right up mutant’s alley–I wish it had made bigger news here!
- william mills
  
  This could have made my day if I wanted my horizons broadened, but instead you ruined it because I wanted the reference to be about my favorite laughable/loveable industrial band “Machines of Loving Grace.”
  
  Boo! Hiss!
  - retchdog
    
    haha, i remember i tried really hard to like them in high school just on the name alone. of course, my friends who did like them didn’t understand the reference. so there was symmetry.
Gilbert Wham

“as though pizza from a mere human kitchen comes covered in boogers, stray pubic hairs and a thin film of DNA”
You’ve been in my kitchen?
Mike Guerrero

The pizzas are about 4 bucks. If you want grated parmesean or crushed red peppers, those are considered premium DLC [Down Loadable Condiments] and will require an additional charge.
http://twitter.com/qazwart David Weintraub

From their website:

Margherita Pizza

Dough: Soft grain flour of ‘00’ type, water, hydrogenated vegetable fat, sugar, salt, raising agents (E450 sodium pyrophosphate, E500 sodium bicarbonate), natural aromas
Sauce: Tomatoes, salt
Pasta filata cheese: Milk, salt, rennet, lactic ferments, preservative (E202 sorbic acid)
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Compare to a fairly simple recipe for Pizza Margherita:
  
  2 packages active dry yeast
  2 teaspoons sugar
  2 cups warm water (100 to 110 degrees F.)
  2 tablespoons kosher salt
  6 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
  2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for bowl
  2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra to grease pan
  4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
  1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
  1 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, drained and hand crushed (recommended: San Marzano)
  Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  1 recipe fresh pizza dough, recipe follows
  1 (8-ounce) ball fresh buffalo mozzarella, water drained
  1/2 bunch fresh basil leaves
  
  Practically identical!!!
  - Mark Dow
    
    Includes extra-extra-virgin olive oil. I’ll try that.
http://billso.com/ Bill Sodeman

Taco Bell experimented with a vending machine back in the early ’90s.
bolamig

The American version will be less hygenic but more street-wise:

http://www.teamtigerawesome.com/pizza-robot/ep1.html
Felton / Moderator

Extra boogers and pubic hairs is two dollars.
turophile

I wonder if it is programmed with the 3 laws – and thus doesn’t actually give you the pizza?
- malindrome
  
  The first rule of robot pizza machine is that you do not talk about robot pizza machine.
Mark_Frauenfelder

The narrator couldn’t seem to make up her mind whether this machine makes “pizzas” or “pizzers” so she alternated the words as she spoke.
aliosha

I tried it a couple of years ago when I saw it in Milan’s airport.
“Wow, pizza making robot! I have to try it”.
It is neat. And it is one of the most horriblest unedibliest terribliest pizzas I ever had in my life, and since I once was a starving student, I know what I am talking about.

I, for one, do NOT welcome our new pizza making robot overlords.
- http://lnote.myopenid.com/ lnote
  
  Yeah I have also tried it in Milan airport – it wasn’t actually as bad as I was expecting (but I was expecting it to be inedible). However of the many times I have been through that airport it has only been working once – I think the number of moving parts means there is a lot of stuff to go wrong.