Industry 4.0 Meets Pizza: Fiero's AI-Driven Solution for Pizzerias

Food automation has been on the rise for restaurants and kitchens to improve productivity, efficiency, and quality control. For example, we've reported on the guacamole robot, beer bots, the robotic kitchen, and others. Now, pizza is getting the automation treatment. 

Fiero Group is a manufacturer of Italian-style, pizza-making equipment for pizzerias and bakeries that wish to create artisan pizza. It recently introduced Fiero AI, where AI stands for "artisinal intelligence", an automated pizza-making system that stretches the dough, makes the pizza, and bakes the pizza. 

First in the three-step system is Opera Prima's Dough Stretcher which can reportedly stretch up to 200 pizzas per hour, with each pizza taking 15 seconds. Using Opera Prima's patented CoolStretch technology, a cold processing method to stretch the dough without overworking it, it mimics human hand movements to create the perfect crust. It's also able to make varying thicknesses of crusts. If you've ever baked, you know how important it is to not over-work your dough as it can get too sticky, won't hold its shape, and overall just becomes frustrating to work with.

Out of curiosity, I decided to see how long it takes a pizzaiolo—the Italian term for pizza-maker—to stretch one pizza. It can range from 10 to 20 seconds depending on their skill and the size of the pizza. Even though it doesn't seem to be saving a huge amount of time compared to the manual way, the dough stretcher allows employees to step away and prep more dough for stretching while the robotic dough stretcher takes care of the rest.

Opera Prima uses Industry 4.0 technology to monitor the stretching process in real time, collecting data to improve efficiency. It can also be monitored remotely. An interesting fact, the Italian government has an Industry 4.0 incentive program that gives users of this stretcher a tax savings of 20%.

For step two, the Tempo Conveyor Make Table only needs a single operator to add toppings as the dough moves along the table into the baking section. It's as simple as that.

For step three, the Aria Stone Belt Conveyor Oven uses an organic refractory stone that provides even heat distribution, baking the perfect pizza every time. It's just like a traditional stone oven but without the need for constant human oversight. The design also allows three ovens to be stacked, giving businesses a scalable operation within the same footprint.

The pizza industry, much like manufacturing, faces ongoing labor, consistency, and efficiency challenges. Fiero AI addresses these issues by automating the process and reducing the need for skilled labor, reducing operational costs, and reducing production times while improving quality and consistency.