Texas A&M University is to become the first college campus dining facility to install a fully automated pizza assembly station.
The move, which is facilitated by a partnership between Chartwells Higher Education and robotic food equipment company Picnic, is expected to reduce food waste while using cost-effective technology to create pizzas on campus.
Through Picnic, Chartwells is able to not only provide more efficient and timely service to guests, but also reduce potential food and product waste by 80%.
In addition, Chartwells gets to bring Texas A&M students a truly unique dining experience and one that’s never been seen before on a college campus.
“Picnic is incredibly happy to be partnering with Texas A&M as the first university to deploy the Picnic Pizza Station,” said Clayton Wood, CEO of Picnic.
“Bringing the Picnic Pizza Station to Texas A&M is the first step of many innovations to come.”
The Picnic Pizza Station is autonomous and completely customizable for each order – after loading the dough, the Picnic station takes care of applying the sauce, cheese, fresh-cut pepperoni, and additional toppings.
The finished pizzas are then loaded into the kitchen’s ovens for cooking. Each hour, the Picnic station can assemble up to 100 pizzas that serve 400 people.
The Picnic Pizza Station is a labor-saving kitchen essential that increases productivity, decreases food waste, and improves food handling and safety.
Marc Cruz, district executive chef at Chartwells Higher Education, said: “We’ve seen a significant increase in efficiency with the Picnic Pizza Station. What used to take three people now only requires one which allows us to free people up to do other critical duties in the kitchen.”
