As consumer demand for healthier, fresher and faster food rises, so does the desire to eat at home or order out from full-service restaurants conveniently. That’s why Wednesday Zume Pizza announced the expansion of its patented Baked On The Way technology. To do so, the company is introducing a new corporate structure via Zume Inc and is partnering with Welbilt Inc to launch the second-generation of its Food Delivery Vehicles equipped with hyper-efficient, customizable foodservice appliances. This partnership allows Zume to open up its platform to other third-party food companies that want a more flexible system to cook en route and meet customer demand. “Our mission is to feed the planet without ruining it, and we do that by providing healthier, more affordable food to every American. We recognize that we can’t do that by ourselves, which is why we are excited to partner with Welbilt and open up the platform to other food companies who share our vision,” says Alex Garden, CEO and co-founder of Zume. “In partnership with Welbilt, we’re poised to continue upending traditional notions about the way food is made and delivered.”

As part of Zume’s strategy to develop better tools and processes with the aim of delivering healthier, sustainably-grown food, the company gets rid of the need for chemically stabilized meals by using Baked On The Way technology (BOTW). It’s through BOTW that ‘dwell time,’ or the period of time cooked food sits while en route for delivery, is eliminated. Unlike traditional food trucks and delivery vehicles, which cannot cook while moving, Zume optimizes the baking and delivery process to ensure a customer’s meal is delivered at peak freshness. To make this happen, Zume predicts what customers will order and when, so that the Food Delivery Vehicles are optimized to cook and arrive at the delivery location without using chemical stabilizers to preserve food. In 2018, Zume plans to serve to 26 additional markets with its first expansion of the year to Sunnyvale and Cupertino, followed by Santa Clara, Campbell, Redwood City, San Carlos, and Belmont.

By partnering with a leading global supplier of commercial foodservice equipment, Zume and Welbilt are working to meet the needs of the $43B food delivery market in the US by making Zume’s platform accessible to more people and food companies. To do this, Zume is introducing a suite of Food Delivery Vehicles 2.0, each powered with six high-efficiency ovens. In the case of Zume Pizza, the company can bake 120 pizzas per hour. Looking ahead, Welbilt will work to create solutions that incorporate a significant portion of its portfolio of hyper-efficient, custom-built appliances into its Food Delivery Vehicles—including products like steamers, griddles, and broilers. “We are very pleased to be working with Zume on their next generation Food Delivery Vehicle,” said Hubertus Muehlhaeuser, Welbilt’s president and CEO. “Their vision for how automation, connectivity, and artificial intelligence in the kitchen enhance the food delivery experience is closely aligned with Welbilt’s FitKitchen. Our success with multiple accelerated cooking technology platforms demonstrates that we know how to identify industry-changing opportunities and seize them through agile technology discovery and rigorous product development.”

On a quest to be the most powerful source of health and well-being on the planet, Zume Pizza is introducing Zume Inc. This new structure allows Zume to continue to operate brands like Zume Pizza, and eventually cultivate a collection of companies and services alongside it. The company will be run by CEO and Chairman Alex Garden, alongside the executive team, which hails from Union Square Hospitality Group, Lyft, Nike, Starbucks and Johnson & Johnson, to name a few.