Domino's Will Begin Using Robots to Deliver Pizzas in Europe

The future is here and who would have thought it would be in the form of pizza delivery. Domino's Pizza will use Starship's sidewalk droid in Holland, and Germany to deliver it's famous pizza. Starship Technologies, which is a London-based company that has created six-wheeled self-driving delivery robots, will soon begin taking customers Domino's pizzas in Germany and the Netherlands. Starship Technologies a company that launched in July of 2014 is run by two former Skype co-founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis. The robots will bring pizzas to customers' doors if they live within a one-mile radius of certain Dominos pizza places in select Dutch and German cities. Domino's Pizza Enterprises Limited is the world's largest franchise license owner of Domino's Pizza, with operations in markets all over Asia and Europe. The company has formed a group called Domino's Robotic Unit to oversee the exciting new project.

Domino's has tested the ground-based autonomous vehicles for pizza delivery in both Australia and New Zealand in 2016. In November the company also delivered a pizza peri-peri chicken by a drone in New Zealand. The company said that with their growth plans over the next five to 10 years, they simply wouldn't have enough delivery drivers if they do not look to add to their fleet through initiatives such as the robots and drones. Starship Technologies battery-powered robots are designed to operate autonomously on sidewalks, not on roads, and have a maximum speed of four miles per hour carrying loads up to 20 pounds. Its cargo hold, which customers unlock with a code sent to their mobile phones, is insulated and the pizzas will also be placed inside a special hot or cold bag similar to the ones used for motorcycle-based deliveries.

Dependent on the size of the robot, they can carry up to eight pizzas on delivery or a variety of combinations of pizzas, along with sides and cold drinks or dessert items. Starship Technologies is already delivering food orders for Just Eat Plc in London, in the upmarket neighborhood of Greenwich. Starship also has partnerships for food, parcel and grocery deliveries with Postmates, Swiss Post, DoorDash, Hermes Parcel Delivery Service, and Wolt in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Estonia, and Switzerland. Mercedes-Benz Vans, which is a unit of Daimler AG, invested $17.2 million in Starship Technologies in January. Mercedes-Benz has created prototype vans that may serve as a kind of mothership or logistics hub for a small fleet of autonomous sidewalk drones like those from Starship. These vans could one day be self-driving too. It's hard to imagine that there will be little robots driving around the cities sidewalks, but it looks like that is exactly what will be happening.

Domino's Pizza Incorporated is an American pizza chain. The corporation's main headquarters are at the Domino Farms Office Park Ann Arbor Charter Township, in the state of Michigan, in the United States, near Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company was founded in the United States in 1960. Domino's Pizza is in 82 countries, making it the second-largest franchised pizza chain just after Pizza Hut. On May 12, 1983, Dominos opened its first international store, in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Canada. That same year, Domino's Pizza opened its 1,000th store overall. In 1985, the chain opened their first store in the United Kingdom in Luton. Also, in 1985, Domino's Pizza opened their first store in Tokyo, Japan.

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