Another vending breakthrough: The three-minute pizza

Remember when getting hot coffee from a vending machine was considered a wild and crazy use of high technology? Now every interstate rest stop has one of those machines, and the quality of the coffee hasn’t changed much.

Nowadays, you can get just about anything from a vending machine, including made-to-order pizza. That’s exactly what U.K.-based company Let’s Pizza has done with a series of machines that are soon to arrive in the U.S. later this year.

Unlike the rest stop coffee machines, the quality of the product is surprisingly good according to those who’ve tried it. The machine takes about three minutes to create, cook and deliver a 10.5 inch pizza, which costs around six bucks. The company hopes to install the robotic pie-makers in malls, airports, hotels, supermarkets, colleges and gas stations.

A demo video of the machine (above) reinforces another key selling point: A guarantee of “total hygiene” with a product “untouched by human hands.” The video also refers to the machine as a “human-free environment,” which sounds a little strange, we’ll admit.

Feel free to watch the machine in action and chime in with a comment below. Here are a few questions to get the conversation started:

• Judging solely on appearances, how impressed were you with the finished product?
• Do you think pizza vending machines will catch on in the United States?
• As a marketer, how is your brand affected by advancements in vending technology?
• Don’t you just love listening to the ways British people pronounce different words?

Our answers: Eh, no, we asked you, yes!

MARKETING LESSON: If you can deliver your product in new, fun, fast, clean and convenient ways, you could be on the verge of a vending breakthrough.