32 min
Clayton Wood, CEO of Picnic Works: $30 Million Raised to Automate Pizza Making Category Visionaries
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- Entrepreneurship
In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Clayton Wood CEO of Picnic Works, a pizza tech company that’s raised over $30 Million in funding, about why, even in a hyper high-tech economy, consistently creating a pizza can be a real challenge, and how Picnic Works’s automated solution is improving the production system for their partners all across the industry. With an innovative, adaptable and expansive system able to handle a wide range of ingredients and produce consistently delicious pizzas at speed and scale, all while reducing food waste and cutting costs for their customers, Picnic Works is looking to global expansion in the very near future.
We also speak about why food automation has been such a challenge, both in terms of the technical constraints and diverse customer preferences, why any company planning to actually ‘touch’ your food has a whole host of issues to contend with first, the reputation issue that’s held back a fair few food tech companies, and why, no matter how many they produce, Clayton and his team never get bored of eating pizza.
Topics Discussed:
Clayton’s career in engineering, everything from aerospace to agriculture, and how it led him ultimately to join Picnic Works
Why the food service industry is an ideal candidate for automation, despite the inherent challenges of bringing technology into the space
The specific niche in which Picnic Works have found their product-market fit, and what really goes into producing consistent, commercially viable pizzas
Why a few failed offerings have given food-tech a bad reputation, and how Picnic Works is determined to rewrite the narrative
The challenges for any company planning to actually ‘touch’ the food their customers consume, and why it keeps so many away from the industry
Why, despite having produced over 120,000 pizzas, Picnic Works have never sold a single one, and why they want to leave that to their clients
Favorite book:
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Clayton Wood CEO of Picnic Works, a pizza tech company that’s raised over $30 Million in funding, about why, even in a hyper high-tech economy, consistently creating a pizza can be a real challenge, and how Picnic Works’s automated solution is improving the production system for their partners all across the industry. With an innovative, adaptable and expansive system able to handle a wide range of ingredients and produce consistently delicious pizzas at speed and scale, all while reducing food waste and cutting costs for their customers, Picnic Works is looking to global expansion in the very near future.
We also speak about why food automation has been such a challenge, both in terms of the technical constraints and diverse customer preferences, why any company planning to actually ‘touch’ your food has a whole host of issues to contend with first, the reputation issue that’s held back a fair few food tech companies, and why, no matter how many they produce, Clayton and his team never get bored of eating pizza.
Topics Discussed:
Clayton’s career in engineering, everything from aerospace to agriculture, and how it led him ultimately to join Picnic Works
Why the food service industry is an ideal candidate for automation, despite the inherent challenges of bringing technology into the space
The specific niche in which Picnic Works have found their product-market fit, and what really goes into producing consistent, commercially viable pizzas
Why a few failed offerings have given food-tech a bad reputation, and how Picnic Works is determined to rewrite the narrative
The challenges for any company planning to actually ‘touch’ the food their customers consume, and why it keeps so many away from the industry
Why, despite having produced over 120,000 pizzas, Picnic Works have never sold a single one, and why they want to leave that to their clients
Favorite book:
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
32 min