Picnic, a Seattle-based automation startup, is partnering with Domino’s to test its pizza-assembly machine in a functioning Domino’s store in Berlin, Germany.
The two companies have been working together since 2021 to research and product test in preparation for the launch. The collaboration coincides with a shortage in food service labor and Domino’s rapid expansion into new market geographies.
Domino’s says it aims to more than double the amount of restaurants it currently has over the next decade, adding about 100,000 employees to its global workforce. The pizza giant already has 3,400 stores in 10 markets.
Since the start of the collaboration, Domino’s leaders from Europe, Asia and Australia have visited Picnic headquarters in Seattle to explore the implementation of the food tech into their stores. A team of experts decided Berlin marked the best place to launch the pilot project.
Picnic deployed its Picnic Pizza Station in Domino’s Tiergarten store in Berlin, and will monitor its performance over the remainder of the trial period.
Founded in 2016, Picnic has raised more than $20 million to sell food assembly robots to restaurants and hospitality companies. The company also announced recently that it partnered with Seattle-based Moto to automate production of its pizzas.