Big-brother pizza: Domino's to track customers on way to stores

[SYDNEY] Checking the progress online of your home-delivery pizza is so 2006. Now you're being tracked, too.

Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd, Australia's largest pizza company, will on Monday start using satellites to follow customers as they approach stores to pick up orders. By tracking pizza-lovers on the street, Domino's can wait until the last moment to start cooking and ensure orders stay fresh, the company said Thursday.

The fast-food surveillance measure comes a decade after Domino's started to let customers track their own orders. The stock has soared more than 17-fold in 10 years, giving Domino's a market value of A$6 billion (S$6.04 billion). The company is also testing delivery robots and high-speed ovens.

"Time is the enemy of food," chief executive officer Don Meij said Thursday at a news conference in Sydney to announce the company's latest technology projects.

"The longer it sits on the rack, the lower the quality of that pizza." Mr Meij started his three-decade career at Domino's as a delivery driver.

From next week, customers in Australia who use smartphones to order pick-up pizzas can choose to be followed by Domino's tracking system. They can also specify whether they're coming on foot, on bike or by car. Cooking starts when the map shows customers are within range, the company said.

Customers are only tracked for the period of the order and aren't followed for any other purpose, chief digital officer Michael Gillespie said.

Domino's Pizza Enterprises, which is based in Brisbane, is the biggest franchisee outside the US for the takeaway brand owned by Domino's Pizza Inc. In addition to outlets in Australia and New Zealand, it also operates chains in Japan and some European nations.

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