Automated pizza assembly system including measuring device

An apparatus for applying cheese to a pizza dough, comprising:

• a hopper;
• a feed screw disposed in a bottom of said hopper for feeding cheese to an aperture in the bottom of the hopper;
• a measuring device including a vessel that receives cheese from the aperture in the hopper;
• and
• a dispersing mechanism that distributes the cheese onto the pizza dough, said dispersing mechanism including a conical body that causes the cheese to disperse radially over the conical body and onto the pizza dough through openings formed in the conical body and radially spaced from one another, and the dispersing mechanism including an outer guide cylinder that is disposed adjacent to the pizza dough so as to prevent the cheese from being dispersed beyond the outer guide cylinder, an outer edge of the conical body intersecting an inner cylindrical wall of the outer guide cylinder, and the cheese provided to the dispersing mechanism from the vessel of the measuring device in response to at least one selected from the group consisting of (i) a predetermined volume of cheese is received in the vessel and (ii) a predetermined weight of cheese is received in the vessel.