Robotic pizza-making businesses have repeatedly struggled to become profitable, with failures including Picnic, Zume, Pazzi and Basil Street. The closure of Picnic left Moto Pizza in Seattle with two unsupported machines costing $160,000 (£118,000), illustrating the financial and operational risks for restaurants that adopt specialist automation.

Analysts say pizza preparation has proved harder to automate than expected because robots can mishandle ingredients while human workers remain highly efficient. Some operators remain optimistic: Moto Pizza’s founder is developing a new robot for 2027, while Appetronix aims for machines producing one pizza a minute; supporters argue automation can reassign staff to customer-facing roles rather than eliminate jobs.