News

&pizza set to 'Zume' into new markets with mobile kitchens

Photo: Isolated from &pizza video

September 19, 2019

D.C.-based brand 36-unit, &pizza, has paired up with Zume, Inc., to deploy Zume Forward Mobile Kitchens to expand in new markets, as well as to test products before adding them to fixed-location store menus, which a news release said will create a uniform brand experience regardless of store format. This video tells how and why &pizza plans to use the food trucks systemwide. 

"Zume's Forward Mobile Kitchens give us the flexibility to capitalize on non-tradition allocations and extend the brand experience to more customers," &pizza President and COO Andy Hooper, said in the release. "The process of creating a technologically integrated experience in our pizza shops has a considerable lead time, so we're leveraging mobile units to share our product and story before we open a physical space."

Zume Chairman and CEO Alex Garden said the company's product gives brands a fast, cost-effective way to expand, something a growing number of limited-service brands have been doing through the use of some form of food truck. 

The company's mobile kitchens like those &pizza is using are designed to get brands in-market in what the company said is a "pre-configurable lease-able" format in weeks, as opposed to the average of about two years it takes to open a brick-and-mortar location at a considerably larger cost. Similarly, the kitchens come equipped with an intelligent software platform designed to ease workflow, appliance use and integration into last-mile delivery providers.