Vending machine cooks up pizza

You already can grab electronics, beverages and cold food from vending machines. Soon, you’ll be able to get a hot, 10-1/2-inch pizza in less than 3 minutes.

Victor Mancebo of Smart4Retail says his company will begin to ship Let’s Pizza vending machines to 150 locations throughout the United States in November 2012. He says Smart4Retail
anticipates 8,000 Let’s Pizza machines throughout the country by 2015—predominantly in airports, hospitals and hotels, and on college campuses.

The machine makes the dough, shapes it into a crust, portions out tomato sauce and toppings, cooks the pizza and dispenses it in a cardboard box. You pay $5.95 in cash or with a credit card to buy a pizza, which comes with one of five preset topping options—cheese, ham, pepperoni, sausage or a combination of all three meats.

Let’s Pizza machines have been available in Europe since 2010. We didn’t find any negative reviews of the machines, but we asked Mancebo about the ingredients’ freshness and what happens when a systematic problem occurs. He tells us that ingredients typically are replenished every 2 days and that the machine shuts down automatically if a system error arises, so consumers aren’t served improperly prepared food.