Narrator: This used to be the only way
to make a Domino's pizza.
About a dozen workers
touched every ball of dough
rolling down the production line.
But now, in Domino's brand new
$50 million facility in Indiana,
machines measure, move,
and stack pizza dough.
And more and more, workers
touch buttons instead of flour.
Brian: You just have to kind of watch it,
make sure it's doing the right things.
Narrator: All this comes
after years of stiff competition
from other pizza chains
and a struggle to find enough workers,
even in the store.
Kate: Domino's in particular
was having a hard time
fulfilling these roles that are
not super high-paying
and are pretty strenuous to work.
Narrator: And as sales spike
for pizza's biggest holiday,
those machines will be put to the test.
Carol: It's all hands on deck.
Super Bowl is one of the, you know,
top three busiest days for Domino's Pizza.
Narrator: So how does
the world's biggest pizza chain
balance automation with a human touch?
And what does all this mean
for the future of fast food?
Each year, Domino's slings out
about a billion pizzas globally.
Kate: They have been
one of the most successful public companies
since around 2009, 2010.
Narrator: The company can keep pizza cheap
because it controls its entire supply chain,
from dough-making to delivery.
In the US, it all depends
on bustling production
and distribution centers.
Back in 2018,
we filmed at an older center in Connecticut
with a more manual dough process.
There, it took hours longer
to make and chill pizza dough
than at Domino's newest
and heavily automated Indiana center.
Noe: Now we have robots,
so it's more efficient,
it's more consistent.
Narrator: There's a 110,000-square-foot location
opened in October 2022
and reportedly cost the company $15 million.
Jacob: We're constantly moving.
From the second that we start,
we're go, go, go.
Narrator: While some centers
still measure ingredients by hand,
at the new ones,
mixing machines pump in flour, water,
oil, salt, and sugar
directly from storage.
Noe: And then we have a secret recipe,
prepackaged recipe.
I cannot tell you
what's in our top-secret ingredient
because we wouldn't be able
to let you go out of here.
Narrator: The new facility
can churn out 50 batches of dough a day.
Noe: That's 88,000 pizzas
for our customers daily.
Andy: Dough has a shelf life to it,
and we don't freeze it.
We constantly have to make it,
so it's nonstop.
Narrator: Workers in this new center
mostly control the computers,
pull samples for quality control,
and troubleshoot any issues with the machines.
Brian: We don't like to stop.
So basically,
if there's anything that goes on during the day,
we're meant to clean out the problems
fast, efficiently,
and get them going
so the line never stops.
Narrator: Workers can program the machine
to pop out different-sized dough balls
for small, medium or large pizzas.
Brian: And I just changed that tube out
to give us a little bit smaller dough ball.
Narrator: And then robots
place the dough balls onto trays.
That's another update,
as this used to be done by hand.
Noe: Nine years ago,
it was team members that were placing that.
So just imagine how hard
that was on our team members.
This has made it a lot less physical,
and we're able to attract a lot more talent.
Narrator: A set of cameras
makes sure the dough balls don't stick together.
Noe: It's literally taking micro-pictures of it.
If it catches any mistakes with our placing,
this right here will reject each tray.
Narrator: This machine
applies a label to each tray.
Noe: To identify
what kind of dough it was
and when it was made.
Narrator: Behold the spiral chiller.
About 3,000 feet of conveyor belts
can cool 40,000 trays of dough at once.
Noe: There isn't a cooler
bigger than the one that you see behind me.
We're able to hold two days' worth of production,
and that gives us the ability to have dough
in case we need to support
other supply-chain centers.
Narrator: They don't want to freeze it,
because then it would
stop the dough from proofing,
or the rising that happens
when yeast is activated.
So they chill it down to 38 degrees
to slow the proofing process.
Noe: It's very cold in here.
Our trays go up for 30 minutes
and then come down for 30 minutes.
Narrator: The dough
used to take four hours to cool.
Now, with the spiral chiller,
it takes just one.
The dough balls travel down
another conveyor belt.
Then, sensors tell these robots
to stack them 25 trays high,
a much faster process
than the original way of doing it.
The machine also slides a dolly cart
under each stack to easily move them.
Noe: This is the end of the line.
We double-check that each tray has a label.
Then you push it.
Narrator: Here, six different kinds of dough —
handmade pan, hand-tossed extra large,
large, medium, small,
and wheat for school lunches —
await orders from franchises.
And they have to move fast
to prepare for the biggest pizza holiday,
the Super Bowl.
Noe: We normally see a 30% increase.
So normally we go from
producing half a million dough balls
to 750,000 dough balls a week.
Narrator: Noe says
with all this automation,
the center was able to cut
hours off its dough-making time.
And this production process
requires fewer employees,
an important feature of the new facility.
Because less than a year into the pandemic,
Domino's came face-to-face
with the labor crisis
gripping the entire food industry.
By early 2021,
the US restaurant industry
was down 1.2 million workers.
And there were lots of reasons why.
Some workers retired.
Some quit.
Some trained for jobs in other sectors.
And some relied on unemployment benefits.
Employees left warehouse and delivery jobs
at record rates.
Kate: Domino's in particular
was having a hard time
fulfilling these roles
that are not super high-paying
and are pretty strenuous to work.
Narrator: Warehouse conditions can be tough.
Andy: In the summertime,
this dry warehouse area,
it can get super hot.
We do have fans, and we have other things to keep people cool
and hydrated, but it can get super hot.
Narrator: That's where they keep
the pizza sauce, dipping cups,
barbecue sauce, pizza boxes,
and the world's most controversial topping.
Andy: Pineapple,
for all those pineapple pizza lovers.
The one area that we're looking into right here
is our freezer,
which is below zero in temperature.
Narrator: This freezer stores the cheese,
all the meat toppings, and chicken wings.
The veggie freezer holds just that:
mushrooms, onions, and peppers.
And a cooler stores the pepperoni.
Andy: Staffing has been a real challenge
across, again, the whole industry.
Kate: So it's this kind of vicious cycle.
When you can't hire enough people,
it creates a lot of different problems
throughout the business.
Narrator: So here in Indiana,
Domino's implemented new processes
to make warehouse and delivery jobs
easier on employees' bodies.
At older centers,
goods would be bulk-loaded onto trucks.
So when drivers got to franchises,
they had a mini grocery store
and would pick out ingredients from each shop.
But at the new centers,
Domino's has added a whole picking team.
They grab all the ingredients
and load them into cages.
Each store gets its own cage.
Andy: Which is just efficient
and faster and easier.
Jacob: The wheels on these carts
make it so smooth to go in and out.
Narrator: So when the drivers pull up,
the pre-picked loads are waiting for them.
Andy: This is where we do stage
all of our product for loading.
Narrator: Workers move all the rolling cages
and dough dollies
onto 48-foot refrigerated trucks.
Austin: We come in,
and we place the carts in
from left to right into the truck.
We'll strap it every five rows or so
to give it a support brace
to hold everything in tight.
We're heavily strapped in.
It goes a long way to get the pizza to you.
Narrator: On average,
13 stores' worth of goods
can fit in just one truck.
Andy: We do a lot of things
that are kind of like "Tetris" here.
Narrator: The center dispatches
about 28 trailers.
They supply over 300 stores
across five states.
Domino's wanted the new center
to take the load off
older supply-chain centers.
Austin: All those centers
were over capacity.
Narrator: Most drivers are dispatched overnight
to avoid traffic and crowded parking lots.
Carlos: We actually just left the center.
We're heading out to
one of the franchisee stores.
Going to make their delivery.
My wife laughs at me every time,
because when I go to parallel park my car,
she's like,
"Why you pulling up so much?"
I'm like, "Because I drive the truck
more than I drive my car."
And I got a little bitty car, too.
So you could just imagine
how many wide turns
I'm doing in my little bitty car.
Narrator: And he says a lot of drivers
quit or retired in the last few years.
Carlos: When the coronavirus hit,
a lot of people weren't coming out.
Narrator: It got so bad,
Domino's launched a program to send employees
from anywhere else in the company
to driving school.
Carlos: We're arriving now.
The store's right here on the left-hand side.
Carlos: It has a store number,
the stop number.
So it's very easy to know
what store is getting what.
So these are dough trays.
We take the old ones,
bring the new ones in.
So it's just a cycle.
Narrator: The new picking and caging systems
have taken some of the physical stress
off truckers.
Carlos: Now, everything's pre-picked.
So they've really made our job 100% easier
and better and safer as well.
Our on-time status has improved a lot,
as far as the delays.
We're only in-store 15 minutes
versus an hour.
Narrator: So was all of Domino's investment
in new tech worth it?
Fast food correspondent Kate Taylor says yes.
Kate: It is working.
Kind of all of these solutions they've found
are working pretty well.
And at this point,
the labor shortage is kind of
abating a little bit.
Narrator: And Domino's has held on
to its title of
the biggest pizza chain in the world.
It's nearly doubled
its global store count in the last decade
and passed Pizza Hut in sales in 2018.
Kate: Domino's was basically able
to steal a bunch of Pizza Hut customers.
Narrator: But what does all this automation
mean for the future of human jobs in fast food?
Kate: Automation is no longer an if,
it's a when for fast food.
There's definitely money to be made
in using robots instead of humans.
Narrator: And Domino's is not alone.
White Castle already uses robots
on some fry stations.
And Jack in the Box is soon to follow.
Robots are popping up in some KFCs
and are set to start cooking chicken.
And McDonald's is testing AI
to take drive-thru orders.
Domino's itself has trialed self-driving cars
to deliver pizza.
Kate: If there is a robot that can do something
for a lower price point
than hiring people to do it,
companies are going to jump on that.
Narrator: Which leads to the age-old concern:
Could robots take people's jobs?
Kate: I personally don't think
automating is an evil move.
I think it's a bit more nuanced than that.
Narrator: Kate says some of the lost jobs
are actually OK to lose.
Kate: Stacking boxes again and again and again.
It can lead to injuries.
Automating jobs that are repetitive,
that are dangerous for workers,
that are even just straight boring.
That allows people to have the opportunity
to have better jobs at a company.
And I think that that's also something
that shouldn't be villainized.
Narrator: What hasn't become robotic
is Domino's in-store experience.
Kate: You can't automate everything.
Making the pizza will stay human.
Narrator: The company does have
that "hand-tossed" slogan to live up to.
Pizza chefs pull the proofed dough
out of the fridge
and still make every pie by hand.
We're going to start with some fresh dough.
Pull it out there,
stick it in the cornmeal.
You want to make sure you make a pencil rim.
It reduces the air in the dough.
Narrator: Jessica ladles on
a thin layer of tomato sauce.
Next, you move on to the cheesing phase.
You want to make sure
you stay away from the middle.
In all even amounts.
Narrator: She drops on
about 40 slices of pepperoni
for a large pizza.
Jessica: It goes through the oven,
takes about six and a half minutes,
and then it'll come out on the other side.
Narrator: A squeeze of garlic oil
on the crust finishes off the pie.
Jessica: And then you close the box,
and it's all complete.
Narrator: But just because
there aren't any robots tossing pizza,
doesn't mean there isn't a hustle.
Ready, set, go.
Jessica: Done.
Carol: Nice job, Jessica.
Jessica: It's important to go fast, I think,
for the customer aspect.
Because when they're placing an order,
they're hungry.
Every pizza is a rush.
The fastest pizza I've ever made
is a large pepperoni in 25 seconds.
Carol: It's all hands on deck.
Super Bowl is one of the, you know,
top three busiest days for Domino's Pizza.
And before you ask,
59% of customers
are going to order pepperoni.
Narrator: And stores like this one
haven't been spared
from the worst of the labor crunch.
Carol: Now there are challenges
with staffing retention.
There is the competition of,
you know, all those other
delivery businesses that wanna take our drivers.
Narrator: At the very end of the process,
the hot pies finally head out for delivery.
Today, still by humans
and fleets of electric cars.
But maybe tomorrow, in driverless ones.
Andy: We're going to keep trucking the product
to our customers and get it done.
My favorite pizza happens to be
the chicken alfredo right now,
but next week it might change.
It's anything that has jalapenos.
Plain Jane. I like pepperoni, sausage.
Yes, I would put triple pineapple on my pizza.
Carlos: I love it. Hey, look, I mean,
you could just tell I'm not lying.