Basil Street Pizza, a startup which has built an automated pizza kiosk, is partnering with Celestica, an engineering company.
The companies will work together to meet what Basil Street says is “strong demand” for its automated pizza kiosks as well as “growing consumer interest for automated pizza kitchens”.
In anticipation of its nationwide rollout slated for Fall 2021, Basil Street says Celestica is a leader in design, manufacturing and supply chain solutions for the world’s most innovative companies.
Celestica will provide manufacturing solutions as part of a mass-market introduction and distribution of Basil Street’s innovative automated brick-oven style pizza kitchens (APKs) to locations across the country.
Deglin Kenealy, CEO of Basil Street, says: “With the adoption of retail automation growing steadily in the United States and the demand for our automated pizza kitchen units across the country surging, we needed to ensure our manufacturing processes are up to the scale of demand and our partnership with Celestica does just that.
“Taking into consideration the experience and expertise Celestica brings to the table, Basil Street is now in a prime position to fulfill our aggressive APK rollout and bring our restaurant-quality pizza to the masses with a simple touch of a button.”
In 2020, Basil Street executed a successful pilot program in multiple states using prototype kiosks developed and refined by the brand’s internal research and development team, led by Basil Street COO Jeff Klemp.
Klemp also serves as COO of Commercial Automation, a company who has played an instrumental role in the initial development of the Basil Street solution through the harnessing of 30+ years of experience in retail operations and running R&D divisions.
The engineering solutions team Basil Street has compiled is a best-in-class diverse group of subject matter experts that all have a long history in the building of successful consumer facing robotic kiosks.
Klemp says: “The process of migrating from a development concept to a volume retail solution can take years and be an exhaustive exercise.
“As interest in our automated pizza kitchens continues to grow and considering the maturity of our retail solution, the time is ripe to bring on a best-in-class manufacturing partner.
“Through an extensive selection process and conversations with company executives to ensure synergy and belief in the offering, it is clear that Celestica is the ideal match for Basil Street.
“As we advance into our next chapter, we are confident in our partner selection due to Celestica’s leadership in high-reliability design, manufacturing, and supply chain solutions.”
Through the partnership with Basil Street, Celestica will harness their expansive global reach to aid in optimizing the value of the pizza brand’s build by increasing consistency and quality of the APKs.
As all industries look to address shifting lead times and congestion in delivery of critical components that affect retail channels, Basil Street believes having a global supply chain presence reduces supply and manufacturing risks, a challenge that will be minimized due to Celestica’s global footprint.
Greg Marvell, vice president capital equipment, Celestica, says: “Our expertise in designing and building complex, large form factor electromechanical products enables us to accelerate the design, manufacture, and delivery of Basil Street’s innovative product in order to meet rapidly increasing customer demand.
“Our relationship with Basil Street is another example of our continued diversification into adjacent high-growth markets like automated food vending that allow us to leverage the expertise we have built up in the Capital Equipment sector.”
Keeping quality and convenience as forefront values, Basil Street’s kiosks feature three 10-inch Italian style, thin-crust pizza offerings: four-cheese, pepperoni, and a “Pizza of the Month”, selling between $6.95-$14.95.
All of Basil Street’s pizzas are made with the freshest ingredients and then flash-frozen, to preserve the flavor and freshness, before being cooked-to-order in about three minutes. The cooking process utilizes their patented three-element non-microwave speed oven.
The combination of the revolutionary oven technology and pizza quality creates a finished product that rivals an elevated pizzeria. Basil Street has figured out how to deliver a brick-oven pizza experience in a fraction of the time.
