How Costco Pizza Is Made (Hint: There Are Robots Involved)

Everyone knows that Costco is abastion of sweeping saving , but those that have n’t drop much time inside its cavernous 150,000sqft storage warehouse might not know that the savings are n’t the only thing that ’s sovereign . That ’s correct , we ’re making pizza pie puns .

That ’s because Costco has also dominate pizza pie . The megastore ’s pepperoni , Malva sylvestris , and supremely loaded combo slices have earned a furor survey for character , mad calorie - to - cost proportion , and a magnetize mechanical saucing process . The folk at Costco give us a rare behind - the - view tour of their kitchen to show how the blimp ( pizza ) is made . We memorise that each slicing is well deserving the $ 2.15 ( after tax ! ) , especially when you consider the chemistry , robotics , and economic planning involved .

Quality control and playing the cheese market

Meet Mary Coy . Mary ’s responsible for helming the kitchen at Costco # 681 settle in Austin , TX . She broil anywhere from 150 - 200 freshly made PIE for customers every day , sold at prices that line up with Costco ’s philosophy of lowly markups ( 14 % compared to most retail ’s 30 - 40 ) and emphasis on quality products . One way Costco keeps those prices so dispirited is by locking in its cheese prices several years in betterment in ordering to avoid market variation . Costco knows the cheese market place , probably better than your broker knows the NASDAQ .

It really is (kind of) New York-style

New York pizza fiend will claim that the city ’s signature water is a crucial ingredient in the dough . Costco agrees . It purchases its dough from a Brooklyn - based distributer who deliver it day by day , then it rests and proofs before being layered in olive vegetable oil ( power fact : Costco is the world ’s largest retailer ofolive oil color ) and loaded into a drop machine that press it with 130 level of heat for seven second gear to assure a consistent thickness .

The robot sauce machine is magic

There ’s a windowpane into every Costco kitchen so that shopper can see not only the happy , hairnet - hold out employees , but also the stateliness of the proprietary sauce political machine . Another part of Costco ’s pricing ethos is to meticulously appraise each ingredient , and the machine ensures that each pie receives the unadulterated amount of Lycopersicon esculentum sauce , which is cover all the mode to the crust in a mozz / prov portmanteau ( 24 oz for a high mallow pie , 12 oz for pepp / combo ) so the sugars in the sauce do n’t burn .

The pepperoni application is also meticulous

Sure , it ’s not rocket science to position down the right-hand number of pepperoni , but Costco duck the pit of haphazard toppings by using precisely 60 per pie , order in a four - three - two - one formation with lanes between each of the six pieces to ensure no pepperonis are harmed in the slice process .

Three ovens, three timers

Another element of the Costco philosophy is that offering fewer items allows for more efficient supply chain and higher savings . Each of the three type of pizza has its own conveyor oven timed specifically to produce pure Proto-Indo European every time .

Savings in every slice

The result is a thickset - and - hearty piece that time in at just over 700 calories . Of course this is n’t a wood - fired Neapolitan pizza pie paw - tossed by an Italian native with extra - virgin olive oil in his profligate , but for two bucks it ’s a damn o.k. piece of pizza pie , and an even in effect one at $ 9.99 for an 18 - incher . And gratefully , unlike most other things in the store , you do n’t have to purchase a dozen of them at once .

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costco pizza