Kim Dong-sun, vice president of Hanwha Galleria, the third son of Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-yeon, has acquired the U.S. robot pizza brand Stellar Pizza. Since changing the name of The Table, a subsidiary of Hanwha Hotel & Resort’s food service division, to Hanwha Food Tech last month, it has entered the food technology market in earnest by buying a company that is considered to have the best technology in the pizza robot market. Vice President Kim is in charge of new businesses in the distribution and robot sectors within Hanwha Group. Hanwha Food Tech announced on the 4th that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in January to transfer assets of “Serve Automation,” which operates Stella Pizza, and completed all contract procedures on the 29th of last month. The acquisition was carried out by Hanwha Food Tech Global, the U.S. subsidiary of Hanwha Food Tech. Rumor has it that the acquisition was made after Vice President Kim, who is focusing on preempting the global food technology market, traveled to and from the U.S. several times. Sub Automation was founded in 2019 by engineers from SpaceX, an aerospace company founded by Elon Musk. The founder is Benson Cha, who researched and developed battery systems for rockets and satellites at SpaceX.
The robot was developed after more than three years of research and attracted more than 30 billion won in investment during the process. In 2022, it received attention as it was invested by a venture company of JAY-Z, a world-renowned rapper and Beyoncé’s husband. The two companies decided to keep the size of the contract private. Benson Chai, the founder of Stella Pizza, expressed high expectations, calling it a “monumental event.” “Cooperation with Hanwha will enable us to take Stella Pizza one step further,” he said. “With Hanwha’s know-how in the food industry and food technology, we will be able to provide high-quality pizza to customers at an affordable price.” Stella Pizza receives 48-hour low-temperature aging pizza dough from its suppliers according to its own recipes, unfolds the dough, and the robot automatically cooks the process from topping and sauce to baking. Stella Pizza is the only pizza brand that has completely automated the pizza making process. “Since it takes about five minutes to make a 12-inch pizza, multiple orders can be placed in a row, so when cooking begins, the pizza will be completed as one pizza per minute,” a source from Hanwha Food Tech said.As it operates on an automated system that significantly reduces incidental costs such as labor costs, a pizza can be sold as cheap as $8 to $9 (in Los Angeles). This is about 60 percent of the price of major pizza brands in the U.S. Hanwha Food Tech is also considering operating a food truck-type business in the form of a store. It will also take over the employment of some of its executives and key technicians, including CEO Benson Chai. “We will introduce our brand to the Korean and U.S. markets as soon as we finish reorganizing our system, including technology advancement,” a company source said. “We will focus on food technology that incorporates cutting-edge technology into food and beverage services,” Kim said when he changed the name of The Table, a subsidiary of Hanwha Hotel & Resort, to Hanwha Food Tech last month. To that end, the company plans to actively collaborate with Hanwha Robotics. Last year, the company was evaluated as having successfully introduced Five Guys, one of the top three burger brands in the U.S.
JULIE KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
