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Hungry startup uses robots to grab slice of pizza

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Co-founder and CEO, Julia Collins, right, chats with employee Jose Lopez as he makes pizza dough at Zume Pizza in Mountain View, Calif.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. >> Did robots help make your pizza?

If you ordered it from Silicon Valley’s Zume Pizza, the answer is yes.

The startup, which began delivery in April, is using intelligent machines to grab a slice of the multi-billion-dollar pizza delivery market.

Zume is one of a growing number of food-tech firms seeking to disrupt the restaurant industry with software and robots that let them cut costs, speed production and improve worker safety.

Inside its commercial kitchen in Mountain View, pizza dough travels down a conveyer belt where machines add the sauce, spread the sauce and carefully slide them into an 800-degree oven.

Experts say more automation is coming to restaurant kitchens, but robots won’t be taking over any time soon because they still struggle with irregular tasks that require fine motor skills, judgment and taste.

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