Former SpaceX Engineer Launches Automated Mobile Kitchen to Solve Food Delivery Problems

When Benson Tsai's parents moved to Los Angeles from Taiwan, the first thing they did was open a fish restaurant, a tribute to their food-centric culture. It is a strong childhood memory that most recently brought Tsai into the restaurant industry after an extensive engineering career  at SpaceX. 
 

Tsai left the company in 2019  to find a solution to a well-documented foodservice delivery problem, such as high  fees and unaffordable returns. This was before the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated just how important catering service delivery is to operators and consumers alike. Triple-digit shipment growth over the past year and a half  only reinforced his drive to find the best models. 
 

So he hired 23 fellow SpaceX engineers and a handful of food service specialists (including SpaceX chief chef Ted Tsismu and pizza consultant Noel Broner) to create Stellar Pizza, run by parent company Serve Automation. The next-generation pizza concept includes an automated, mobile kitchen capable of preparing more than 100 pizzas per hour. The process starts with balls of raw pizza dough pressed  into a round pizza crust. Then add the homemade sauce and fresh toppings  and place the raw pizza in one of four custom-made high-temperature ovens. 
 

“We are basically a team of rocket scientists trying to solve the food delivery problem. The current system is broken. Restaurants don't make enough money, consumers pay too much, and third-party delivery companies don't really make a profit," Tsai said in a recent interview. “We wanted to apply our experience and our solution was to build an automated mobile ghost kitchen or a robotic mobile ghost kitchen.”  Stellar Pizza has raised $9 million from investors so far, and more rounds are expected soon. The company plans to use these funds to grow the team and create a mobile ghost kitchen. The first portable kitchens are expected to hit  Los Angeles this spring. 
 

Tsai says now is the perfect time to increase the capacity of such a model. Employee issues have become a top concern for restaurant operators. The industry employs about 1 million fewer people than in 2019, and turnover is increasing. This scenario led to widespread price increases. “With automation, we can keep costs low and provide affordable, high-quality food,” said Tsai. “Moreover, the labor shortage highlights some of the challenges in the catering industry as there are many jobs that make people feel undervalued. With automation, we keep teaching our employees  more than just the same moves. And we pay them well to provide a better experience for them and  our customers. What we create doesn't lead to  loss of service and allows us to focus on the communities we live in and the pizza we sell." Automation is certainly nothing new and Stellar Pizza isn't the only company paving a new path in this space. However, Tsai points out that his company is looking at it from a different angle, “moving and preparing.” 
 

“This is the  evolution of the food truck market. "If you can take automation and make it into a mobile form factor and load it into a truck, this is  the next evolution of food trucks." Tsai says he is particularly confident in this business model thanks to the team he has brought  and his expertise in automotive engineering, which allows him to create inexpensive and lightweight automatic kitchens. 
 

“There have been a lot of attempts at food automation and I think we're doing something a little different and hopefully a little more exciting,” he said. 4,444 Stella's Pizza products are available in the company's special mobile application. The company hopes to have "a few cars on the road" by 2022, targeting markets like San Diego, Orange County, California and Texas. Stella Pizza plans to use a local marketing strategy to deliver both its products and technologies. 
 

"Given the nature of automated equipment, you can see them attending school to do STEM demonstrations, for example," Tsai said. “We  want to get people interested in automation and science.” As technology costs fall and comfort rises, there is no doubt that the era of automation is everywhere. In fact, about 50% of U.S. restaurant operators say they plan to use automation technology over the next few years to address workforce shortages. Tsai said, “Automation is an interesting field to work in right now. “We are all working on the same problem, and there is room for all of us.”