<ul><li>Picnic, a pizza-making robot developer, has extended its partnership with contract food service management company Chartwells Higher Education to pilot its robots at more universities across the US—following a successful eight-week pilot at the Texas A&M University earlier this year.</ul>

• Initially, robots will be implemented at five locations; namely, Texas A&M University, University of Chicago, Missouri State University, Carroll University, and Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. The robots will be rolled out at these locations from the beginning of the upcoming school year.

• During the initial pilot at Texas A&M, Picnic reportedly made 4,500+ pizzas, saving time for the kitchen staff (approximately eight hours a day).

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Today’s news marks a significant milestone for Picnic, as this could open up opportunities for deployments at more Chartwells-serviced universities across the US (more than 300 locations in total) if the company concludes these initial pilots successfully. Today, universities in the US are increasingly adopting the latest robotic technologies for food service. Peers to have tapped the university clientele include pizza-making robot maker xRobotics, a smoothie-making robotic kiosk developer Blendid, and DoorDash-owned salad-making robot developer Chowbotics. This trend, not limited to food preparation, can also be seen in food delivery—the downstream supply chain. In fact, several universities have already automated on-campus food delivery by using robotic delivery droids developed by last-mile delivery automation companies such as Starship Technologies and Kiwibot. </ul>