( Vice-President Of Sales And Business Development For the x Pizza Cube)
It’s a revolutionary new pizza product that promises to change the way kitchens operate.
It’s called the x Pizza Cube.
And who better to explain how that will happen is the Vice-President of Sales and Business Development for the x Pizza Cube – Mr. Igor Buchatskiy.

Q- How is this product being received by the people you talk to about it? Are they enthusiastic about it?
A- That’s a very good question. There is no clear answer to that. I would say at the moment it’s 50/50. Fifty per cent are saying absolutely no way. It’s always been done by hand, the personal touch etc. etc. There is no way I’m putting this machine in my pizzeria. And then we have the other half that is saying – Holy Smokes! Where have you guys been all this time? We’re having a difficult time finding, training and keeping people and making sure they do what we tell them to do. We love it! Where can we try it? When can we see it? At the moment I would say it’s 50/50. I wish it was more but, it is not.

Q- What would be the main selling point of the x Pizza Cube? That it saves time or money?
A- Well, we have two major clusters of customers: The first one is saying we have high volumes if pizza and we cannot produce pizza fast enough and we cannot guarantee the consistency of the quality especially during the rush hour because we need to bring extra help and these guys work a few hours a day. They’re not as reliable as our main crew. So, when the rubber hits the road people start cutting corners. With the Cube we can make sure that every pizza is the same because the machine is portioning and we have a scale so we know exactly how much sauce, cheese and pepperoni goes in each pizza. Once you set it up to your own recipe it’s the same pizza every single time. That first group of customers want to make sure the quality is there and can produce no matter what the pressure is. The second group is saying , listen we actually can do without it. The problem is we cannot find people . We are in a place where we don’t have enough people who would be willing to come and work for us for whatever they’re paying there. With the Cube we can pretty much have the pizzeria owner run the pizzeria by himself or by herself and still make 200, 250, 300 pizzas per day. Most of them are actually not that keen on saying we’re going to cut people. They’re saying with this machine we can produce more, we can make sure that the quality is consistent and we are saving money because the portions are the same all the time. Cheese is very expensive. So, if you put a little bit more on each pizza it ends up hurting up you at the end of the day. Pepperoni is also not cheap. So, if you put a little bit more you’re going to hurt your bottom line. You put less, you’re going to hurt the client. They’re not getting what they paid for. So, the main concern is we want to make sure the pizza is of consistent quality and that we can produce a lot of them during the Rush Hour and not jeopardize the quality of our product.

Q- It almost seems like the x Pizza Cube would be a good fit for a baseball or football stadium.
A- It’s funny you brought that up. A couple of customers we are discussing a pilot with they actually also have those stands in football stadiums , hockey stadiums and that’s exactly what they’re looking to try that in. It makes let’s say a 14 inch pizza, a cheese pizza in under 25 seconds. If you add the pepperoni it’s going to be another 20 seconds. So, in 50 seconds you make a pizza and it’s the same every time. The same amount of cheese, the same amount of sauce, and the same amount of pepperoni. So, it’s exactly the same pizza as advertised. Every single time. So, yes, we are looking at a couple of pilots with those guys. One of those places is actually run by a large franchise or food service operator. It’s not an individual pizzeria.

Q- Would a Pizza Hut or a Little Caesar’s Pizza be interested in your product?
A- It’s interesting that you brought it up, because most of our customers today are actually independent pizzerias. We are working with a couple of Big franchises at the moment conducting pilots with them and obviously those guys have hundreds of locations. The thing there is because it’s a large corporation there is more bureaucracy , there are more people involved and time in making a decision. They have to make sure if they commit to the technology it is the right technology for them and the best technology available in the market. They’re obviously a little bit more cautious taking their time to decide. We have quite a few machines in the U.S. now. We have one in Canada. We have one being shipped to Mexico and all those guys are independent pizzerias. Because they’re individual owners they just make a decision very quickly. There is not a lot of bureaucracy we have to go through in order to put the machine in their pizzeria. But, you’re correct, the Big Guys are looking at it very seriously because obviously given their scale it’s going to be a huge impact in terms of efficiency , in terms of cost.

Q- I just read that Domino’s is closing 200 of their restaurants, the majority being in Japan. If they found a way to make them profitable they might just re-open them.
A- Yeah. I think it could be a case of very aggressive expansion plans. If they find a way to make it more efficient and cost effective they might re-open some of them. I’m not sure if they will re-open all of them, but they will look into it. I imagine the cost in Japan is super-high in terms of labor.

Q- Not to mention the cost of importing all the ingredients it takes to make a Domino’s pizza.
A- Yeah.

Q- Is the x Pizza Cube expensive?
A- I think it’s in line with the capital expense that the pizza owners are going to go through to equip their pizzeria. It’s like a nice little oven will cost you between $30,000 to $70,000 depending on how big it is, what the production is, etc. Some fancy dough presses can run up to 25 Grand. So, we are in that range. It’s not something that you can buy for let’s say $5,000 because it is quite a sophisticated piece of equipment. It has Artificial Intelligence. It can adjust itself based on sauce and cheese. The technology that goes into that thing is like I said quite sophisticated. But what we see from our customers is the savings that they manage to get from the machine is 10 to 12 months. It’s not something outrageous. The machine pays back for itself in under a year.

Q- I heard about a vending machine a few years back that could make a pizza on the spot. The makers thought it was ideally suited for college dorms. Then I never heard anything more about it. Did you?
A- There was a couple of vending machines but most of them just sell frozen pizza. So, it doesn’t make it on the spot. They basically are stocked everyday or a couple of times a day with a bunch of frozen pizzas. They’re heated when you buy it. They probably have 3 or 4 pizzas on the menu if they have it in stock. They might run out of one of them. In a matter of minutes it’s baked at a high temperature oven and you get a piping hot pizza – but, it’s a frozen pizza.

Q- Now, who created this Pizza Cube? Did you have a hand in it?
A- Unfortunately not. The co. was founded by two gentlemen who had previous ventures in engineering and software development. They were looking for something to start a new venture and they came across the restaurant industry and they thought that industry is ripe for some robotic help and some automation. I think the person who was in Development before me had a pizza background and she was the one who said ‘O.K. guys let’s think how pizzas are being made. They may be something we can automate.’ She ran a few pizza restaurants. She knew first hand how difficult it is to find staff, to train staff, and to retain staff. Once they become experienced their value in the market goes up and then they say ‘O.K. I’m going to go to another restaurant where they’re paying me more. ‘That issue of not being able to provide consistency because they constantly have people going in and out, and sometimes they don’t show up , you’re struggling to run your operation. With the Cube we have people who are making 300-400 pizzas per day with one employee. So, if push comes to shove and that employee doesn’t show up the pizza restaurant owner can do it by himself for a few days before he finds somebody to replace the person. And, by the way when he finds that person , all the training he has to do is 15 minutes of how to operate the machine. You don’t need to teach him or her how to stretch the dough, how to sauce it, how to cheese it, or how many pepperonis’ to put because it’s already programmed. So all the person needs to do is punch some buttons on the screen and the pizza is made. You just have to refill the same ingredients every couple hours, put the door in the Cube and take it out and put it in the wall and that’s it. That’s all you need to do.

Q- You’re in one of the fastest growing businesses. And who doesn’t love pizza!
A- Well, everybody loves pizza. We are hoping that this year ( 2025) will be our breakthrough year!

©Gary James
Official Website: www.xrobotics.io