Nestlé Testing Pizza Vending Machines as Food Service Automates

As automation is increasingly taking over quick-service restaurant (QSR) occasions, it is not only restaurants looking to capitalize on the shift — Nestle’s frozen pizza brand DiGiorno is looking to get in on the action.

The food giant is testing a pizza-making vending machine, selling ready-to-eat thin crust DiGiorno pies, as Nestlé announced in a LinkedIn post Tuesday (Aug. 15).

“Ready for a slice of the future? Our brand-new DiGiorno kiosk can bake up and dispense a pizza in just about three minutes,” the company stated. “Our teams are always thinking of new ways to bring consumers the fresh-baked taste they know and love.”

According to Food Dive, one such kiosk is being tested at a Walmart in Colorado and another in a Nestlé-owned frozen food facility in Ohio, and the pizzas are being sold for $9.

The pizza sector has been a popular site of innovation for restaurant industry players, though this move is somewhat unique in that it marks a food and beverage manufacturer entering the category, presenting an opportunity for grocery brands to gain share from QSRs.

Pizzerias ranging from Pizza Hut to much smaller restaurants have been testing out these kinds of automated technologies. A report in June showed Mamma Ramona’s, a pizzeria and Italian food restaurant in Ramona, Calif., boosting its pizza-making efficiency by combining a Picnic pizza preparation robot with a Cuppone dough press that automates dough-stretching and a TurboChef rapid-cook oven, working toward making more than 100 pizzas an hour.

Consumers are wary of these efforts. Research from the most recent edition of PYMNTS’ Connected Dining study, “Connected Dining: The Robot Will Take Your Order Now,” for which we surveyed a census-balanced panel of nearly 2,000 U.S. consumers in June, revealed that about two-thirds of diners are not interested in robotics or automated systems preparing or cooking food.

Eighty-three percent of these automation-averse diners stated that they were concerned that these technologies would result in lower quality and less personalized food. Seventy-four percent reported being worried about job displacement for human workers. Fifty-eight percent felt that automation would result in decreased order accuracy.

Notably, only a small share of consumers (10% of women and 21% of men) reported that they had visited restaurants that use robotics for cooking, and only 17% of women and 33% of men reported being interested in doing so.

Yet it seems that, for all consumers’ stated disinterest, many are willing to give automated food service kiosks a try, and even to keep coming back. In a conversation with PYMNTS earlier this year, Geoff Henry, president of Jamba at the time, spoke to the brand’s partnership with robotic food service kiosk maker Blendid to introduce automated smoothie shops. He noted positive responses from consumers who have tried it, especially among younger consumers who are more open to testing new technologies.

“The repeat rate has been very high,” Henry said at the time. “We’re obviously tracking those who purchase and then come back and purchase again [and] benchmarking that relative to what we would expect versus industry standards, and we’ve been pleased.”