Picnic's intelligent food assembly platform. The Picnic system enables high-volume, consistent, customizable pizzas. (Handout)
NEW YORK - A robot will be serving food to thousands of guests at next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
Seattle-based Picnic says its automated food assembly system will produce up to 300 12-inch customized pizzas an hour on the CES show floor.
CES 2020 takes place January 7-10, 2020. The event is used by many companies as a platform to release new technology and products.
"Picnic’s distinct culmination of food production customization and throughput, smart data and cloud analytics is quickly resonating with foodservice operators," said Clayton Wood, CEO of Picnic.
The company ran a test pilot with the robot at Seattle's T-Mobile Park baseball stadium in October.
The robot is initially focused on the production of high-volume, customizable pizzas. But the company says it could be used for many types of food, whether it uses a bun, bowl, tortilla or plate.
The machine uses deep learning AI technology to continually learn as it functions.
"Picnic continues to experience increasing interest in our technology and solutions from large chains to ‘mom and pop’ storefronts, and emerging foodservice venues, such as virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens," said Wood.
The company says the machine is safe to work around and only minimal training is required.
Robots have been moving into the restaurant industry for some time.
One Boston restaurant opened last year using seven autonomous cooking pots in a "robotic kitchen" that churns out $7.50 meals.
A one-armed burger-flipping robot has been producing about 300 burgers a day for a California restaurant.
Executive Chef Taylor Park stands in front of the Picnic intelligent food assembly platform.