Just three years ago, Benson Tsai was a senior battery engineer at Elon Musk’s space exploration company, SpaceX. Now, he spends most of his time in a truck on the USC Greek Row handing out pizza to college students with what he likes to call the “drunchies,” (drunk munchies).
After working at SpaceX for five years, Tsai knew he needed a change. He quit his job and decided to build a company from the ground up along with some of his SpaceX co-workers. His startup, Stellar Pizza, uses robotics to make pizzas entirely from scratch. The company received 16.5 million dollars in funding from Jay-Z’s venture capital fund, Marcy Venture Partners, and is one of the many companies looking to further automate the restaurant industry.
“I actually got my chemical engineering degree in food science and food manufacturing, and I really wanted to work on making food at scale,” Tsai said. “I got distracted with a brief stint in electric vehicles and on spaceships, but now I’m here really following my passion.”
It took more than 30 SpaceX engineers to develop, but now Stellar’s technology can cook a pie from start to finish. First, the machine opens the dough ball and adds sauce, cheese and toppings.
Then, the pizza is placed into an oven where it cooks for two minutes. Once it’s done, the pizza travels down a conveyor belt and into the hands of a Stellar employee, who packs it in a box and serves it to the customer. The entire process of cooking a pizza can be tracked on a tablet, and Tsai says it takes 4 1/2 minutes start-to-finish.
While the cooking is left primarily to robots, there are still human chefs working in the trucks. Ted Cizma is the director of culinary operations at Stellar Pizza and was previously the executive chef at SpaceX. In his position at Stellar, he works in research and development to determine what types of ingredients are most compatible with the machines. He says he’s nailed down the marinara sauce recipe and is close to perfecting the dough.
And though machines have taken over most of his job as chef, he says the cooking process is not entirely automated … yet.
“It only really requires a human employee to measure the ingredients and add the dough into the mixing and producing equipment. From there, it’s mixed, it’s divided, it’s rounded and put into trays automatically,” Cizma said. “At the end of the process, the employees load the trays into the trucks. I could definitely see both of those tasks eventually being automated.”
However, he insists that human staff will always be a part of the business model.
“You’re not going to eliminate humans from the process because somebody’s got to taste it. Somebody’s got to teach the robots how to make the pizza. They don’t really know it on their own, right? So there’s always going to be a role for culinary ends in this process, regardless of how automated it becomes,” Cizma said.
He adds that automating parts of the cooking process can alleviate struggles the hospitality and restaurant industry are facing now with labor shortages. And Stellar isn’t the first company to realize this. Fast-food chains like White Castle and Jack in the Box have used robots as fry cooks in some locations. Additionally, more and more tech companies have arisen, like Miso Robotics, that design technology specifically for restaurants.
Despite these technological advances, according to a study done by Big Red Rooster, 30% of consumers are skeptical of robot chefs preparing their food. Not only do they lack a human touch, but they could also eliminate millions of back-of-the-house jobs in the restaurant industry. As of 2021, 11.2 million people work in the restaurant industry, and nearly 80% of these jobs could eventually get eliminated by automation, according to restaurant consulting firm Aaron Allen & Associates.
On the flip side, Cizma says that restaurants who don’t embrace automation will be left behind. Because of their automated technology, Stellar’s operation costs are significantly reduced - bringing the cost down for consumers. Plus, Stellar sources, cooks and delivers their products independently, which also contributes to low prices. Currently, a 12-inch cheese pizza from Stellar costs $7.95, compared to $11.99 at Domino’s and $14.49 at Papa John’s. Cizma adds that robotics can help restaurants price competitively, therefore attracting more customers. Additionally, he says that lower prices can help eradicate food deserts, which are prevalent in South Los Angeles, where USC is located.
“Where we are, it’s pretty much a food desert. So if you’re on a minimal food budget, you know your options are fast food, right? So, yes, we’re serving pizza, but it’s pizza made fresh with very wholesome ingredients and we’re serving it at a price that’s very competitive, if not cheaper than most fast food,” Cizma said.
Both Tsai and Cizma say that while the food is delicious, Stellar places a huge emphasis on making sure the ingredients are fresh and nutritious. Since the ingredients are made and cooked in-house, this is easier for them to achieve compared to other fast-food restaurants.
It was these fresh and tasty ingredients that won over USC Student and Stellar Pizza marketing team member Lexi Brandt as a customer. She says the robotics aspect of the business model concerned her at first, but after tasting the pizza and getting to know the company, she believes automation is the future of food service.
“We’ve always joked about robots taking over our jobs and now that’s actually happening, which is a little bit scary, but it’s also really cool. I think it’s more efficient for the companies working on it,” Brandt said.
Right now, the majority of the pizzas are served from tents at various USC parties or in trucks along the Greek Row or near the USC Village. In fact, Stellar has become well-known to students for serving free pizza at tailgates throughout the semester. It was through these pizza giveaways that Brandt first became acquainted with the company.
“I’m walking down the road and it’s after a party. I’m so hungry and everything’s closed and I’m about to [order delivery]. Then I see the Stellar Pizza truck and I’m like, ‘Okay, big red truck that’s not a fire truck, that’s interesting.’” Brandt said. “So I walk over and I see they’re handing out free pizza. But then I get up closer and see what Stellar Pizza is all about ... and basically it’s robots making the pizza.”
The free pizza giveaways were a large part of the marketing team’s strategy in the beginning of their launch at USC. However, if you want a pizza from Stellar now, you’ll have to pay. Tsai says he came up with this promotional strategy because college students love both late-night food and saving money.
“In doing my research on the pizza industry, I found that your average American eats pizza once a week at least,” Tsai said. “I think for a college student, it’s about two to three times that. They’re also fairly cost conscious consumers, and we have a product that’s very, very aggressively priced in the modern day environment … On top of that, we can operate later in the evening compared to some of our competitors because we require much less labor.”
Brandt, who was a Stellar regular before joining the marketing team, seconds this and adds that Stellar is perfect for “college students who want their food fast and on a budget.”
Pizzas can be ordered on Stellar’s mobile app or in-person at their trucks. Currently, they’re only doing pick-up, but Stellar’s team of engineers are working on self-driving delivery trucks that could bring students freshly-cooked pizza directly to their doorstep.
While Stellar Pizza is mainly focused on the USC area for now, they are hoping to expand to other L.A. universities, like UCLA and LMU, in the near future. Eventually, the company hopes to bring their pizzas nationwide.
“We want to have these trucks roaming the United States, hundreds of these trucks roaming neighborhoods and delivering pizza to people,” Tsai said. “Long term, we want to start looking at other opportunities, maybe in the fried foods categories or even sandwiches.”
Overall, Tsai is grateful to be able to combine his passion for food along with his engineering skills.
“I hope you give us a try. The pizzas are actually good, the robotics are cool, but it’s all in service of the product. We want our pizzas to be consistently good and consistently affordable,” Tsai added.
To find out when the next truck will be on USC’s campus, check Stellar Pizza’s Instagram here. To download Stellar’s mobile app, click here.