Domino's wants to make pizza in 3 minutes and deliver in 10 minutes
Getting a pizza cooked in three minutes and delivered to a customer's door in 10 minutes is a wild fantasy, but for the Australian arm of pizza chain Domino's, it's a genuine goal.
The company has labelled it "Project 3:10," and it's a bit like an Olympic sprinter trying to beat their 100-metre time. Except that it's ham and pineapple pizza.
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"It's being rolled out as we speak," Don Meij, CEO of Domino's Australia, told Mashable Australia. "It was planned, thought through and tested until Christmas. We already have six stores enabled, and now we're full steam."
Meij said he believes it'll take around three years for the project to be rolled out across all stores in Australia and New Zealand. There are currently 700 stores open in this market, but Meij said by 2019 he hoped there would be 850 stores. The concept will then spread to locations in seven countries, with Japan likely the first non-Australian and New Zealand market location to try it out -- potentially in six months.
As to how it will actually work, Domino's has designed its own "smart" ovens to help crack its goal.
Meij wouldn't go into detail about the technology for proprietary reasons, but explains the thinking behind the new "smart" ovens is that it pushes convection and radiant heat onto the pizza at the "right point at the right time" as the pizza goes along the conveyor.
Without any modifications to current ingredients, Meij said the oven has currently been able to get it's cook time down to 4 minutes and 10 seconds. Not quite three minutes, unfortunately. Meij said there is an option to alter the ingredients to help with time, but the company isn't looking to do that just yet.
It's in comparison to an old "dumb" oven, with the same temperature throughout the cooking process, which has a total cooking time of 7 minutes and 15 seconds, Meij said. Merely speeding up the conveyor and increasing the heat on these ovens would result in a burnt, undercooked pizza.
"We work on the technology ourselves," Meij said. "When we were looking around the world, we were worried that because we are in seven countries, manufacturing and shipping our own oven was complex."
The company went to a U.S. manufacturer which specialised in pizza ovens, combining its learning with the manufacturers. "Most of the technology that's in this oven isn't ours, but a lot of the thinking behind it and how we got to it is ours," Meij said.
"Ultimately, it's still a fresh product. We're using older style technology, but with a modern twist."
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