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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Jennifer Marston

Slice Launches Tiered Packaging for Its Pizza-Centric Tech Platform

Slice, a company fast becoming a go-to piece of restaurant tech for indie pizzerias, announced a new tiered packaging feature for its software offering. With it, pizzerias can choose which level of service they need from the software stack based on their individual business.  

The founders of Slice created the software platform as a way to give independent pizza restaurants some of the same digital tools and advantages the bigger chains — Domino’s, Papa John’s, etc. — can afford. The pandemic may have pushed the restaurant industry firmly over the threshold of the digital realm, but as was noted at The Spoon’s Restaurant Tech Summit this week, many mom-and-pop stores may not even have a POS system, let alone sophisticated online order and delivery tools.

Slice’s platform now offers such tools via three different levels of service. All levels give pizzerias a listing on the Slice app/marketplace as well as access to marketing tools. Slice Essentials adds access to a rewards program to that bundle.

Shop owners that need more digital capabilities can graduate to the Slice Premium level, which gives them access to online ordering, a customized website, and boosted search rankings on the marketplace. The top tier, Slice Complete, includes all of the above plus Slice’s POS system, which the company launched earlier this year. 

As Slice’s Chief Product Officer, Preethy Vaidyanathan, explained to The Spoon a while back, pizzerias have “specialized needs” when it comes to technology that might not exist elsewhere. Menus are one small example: pizza shops have to accommodate for things like different crust styles, and half-and-half toppings in their online ordering tools. Those capabilities are harder to develop in an interface that it might first seem.

Restaurants pay a fixed cost per order to use the Slice technology, as opposed to the percentage-per-transaction model used by most third-party delivery services. (Slice does not provide delivery drivers/couriers.) Consumers, meanwhile, use the app much as they wold any other restaurant-ordering interface. Slice is currently available in all 50 U.S. states at over 16,000 shops. 

The company raised $40 million in Series D funding this year, which it is using to expand its current line of products. 

Restaurants Are ‘Always Blamed’ When It Comes to Bad Delivery. Here’s How Tech Can Help

Who is responsible when something goes wrong with delivery?

A succinct-yet-apt answer to that question recently came from fast casual chain Wow Bao’s President and CEO Geoff Alexander, who spoke at The Spoon’s Restaurant Tech Summit this week: “As the restaurant brand, you are always blamed.”

If you’ve ordered via third-party delivery with any frequency, you’ve likely dealt with the following scenario: The order is late or does not arrive. The customer calls the delivery service and gets an automated response. The customer calls the restaurant itself, who may not know where the food is because it left the the building ages ago. If and when the meal finally arrives at the consumer’s door, it will be cold, soggy, dry, or all of the above. It’s usually not DoorDash, Uber Eats, or any other delivery service that gets blamed for these problems. 

By way of example during the event, Alexander brought up Fargo, North Dakota, where Wow Bao operates one of its dark kitchen locations. For these kitchens, other restaurants cook some of the Wow Bao brand’s signature items and sell them on the usual third-party delivery channels as a way to make incremental revenue. Wow Bao has about 350 dark kitchen locations around the country right now, with a “moonshot goal” of reaching 1,000 by the end of the year. 

Brand integrity is always something to watch for with these kitchens. “When an issue happens there, it’s not Wow Bao,” Alexander explained at the event. “It’s somebody running one of our dark kitchens. And [the food is] delivered via one of three or four delivery platforms. I get the phone call. Wow Bao corporate gets the phone call, we get hit on Instagram or social or Google Reviews. That whole brand transfer hast to be the most guarded and respected piece by the brand itself and by the operator to work together. At the end of the day, the way that guest is handled is what’s going to decide if the guest is going to come back and who they’re gonna tell.”

As to how tech can help restaurants guard this brand transfer, the other panelists pointed to tools that can optimize operations. Ava Ghaiumy, Delivery Hero’s regional director for global foodservice operations, pointed out that there is “almost no bigger KPI than speed.” Her company, which is investing heavily in various tech initiatives, is working on things like improved dispatching and rider-tracking features that can help with speed of service when it comes to delivery.  

Olo’s Marty Hahnfeld, who was also on the panel, said it’s all about “precision in operations.” That includes improving order accuracy, making sure menus are up to date across all ordering channels at all times, and that pricing is correct on those channels as well. Olo offers its Dispatch service that allows restaurants to order directly from a restaurant’s own website or mobile app. Though in most cases, there is still a reliance on third-party delivery to handle the last mile.

At the end of the day. the most important technology to keeping brand integrity intact may be one that’s been around for quite some time: the POS integration.

Such an integration connects, among other things a restaurant’s main POS system with the many different channels through which customers buy meals nowadays, including third-party delivery. Whereas in the old days (two years ago), delivery services provided an external tablet and restaurant staff manually key’d in orders to the main POS system, more restaurants are now directly connecting delivery to that main system. Panelists were unanimous in their belief that this is an extremely important technology when it comes to improving order accuracy, timing, and a generally smoother experience for everyone.  

Apeel Raises $250 Million to Accelerate Its Fight Against Food Waste

Apeel, best known for its shelf-life-extension technology for produce, has raised a $250 million Series E round of funding led by Temasek.

Additional participants include Mirae Asset Global Investments, GIC, Viking Global Investors, Disruptive, Andreessen Horowitz, Tenere Capital, Sweetwater Private Equity, Tao Capital Partners, K3 Ventures, David Barber of Almanac Insights, Michael Ovitz of Creative Artists Agency, Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe, Susan Wojcicki of YouTube, and Katy Perry. The round brings Apeel’s total funding to date to over $635 million, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. 

The company’s food-safe powder coating was developed to cover pieces of produce, such as avocados, and act as a barrier against water and oxygen, which are major contributors to rot. Apeel will use the new funding in part to expand the availability of its coating product to additional parts of the U.S., U.K., and Europe. The company currently works with 40 retailers and 30 suppliers throughout eight different countries.

Earlier this year, Apeel acquired hyperspectral imaging company ImpactVision to add another layer of information about plant ripeness to its process. The advanced imaging technology can essentially look inside each piece of fruit and gather information about maturity, freshness, and phytonutrient content. With this information, suppliers and distributors can decide where each piece of produce can then go. For example, a more mature piece can go to a retailer closer by, so it can reach the store shelf sooner.

Apeel said today it will also use the new funds to advance such data and imaging capabilities and integrate those capabilities deeper into its system. The company suggested there could be more acquisitions in this area in the future. 

In the U.S. alone, 35 percent of all food produced goes to waste, equalling about $408 billion annually and 4 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gases. At the same time, more than 40 million Americans are considered food insecure. Recent data from Project Drawdown found reducing food waste to be first of 76 solutions meant to reverse climate change, ahead of plant-based diets and utility-scale solar projects. 

Apeel’s edible coating is one method of fighting food waste. Others include Hazel Technology’s sachet that extends produce shelf life and Ryp Labs (née StixFresh), which makes a sticker that does much the same thing.

“Suppliers have a clock that’s ticking,” Apeel CEO James Rogers explained last year at a Spoon event. At the end of the day, he said, “we have to make the most environmentally beneficially solution the cheapest, easiest solution.”

Cox Enterprises Acquires High-Tech Greenhouse Grower BrightFarms

Cox Enterprises has acquired indoor farming company BrightFarms, the two companies announced today via press release. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The companies noted that the acquisition will be key to helping Cox Enterprises build out a “multibillion cleantech business” by 2030. 

Multi-industry conglomerate Cox is in the midst of expanding from its core lines of business (communications and automotive), hence its goals related to cleantech innovation. The company says it is currently investing in and/or acquiring “clean resource efficient businesses that provide sustainable energy, food, and water for the rapidly growing global population.”

Cox nabbed a majority stake in BrightFarms in 2020, though the two companies’ relationship goes back to 2018. Speaking in today’s press release, Steve Bradley, vice president of cleantech for Cox Enterprises, noted, “Over the years, our enthusiasm for BrightFarms and the opportunity to transform the industry has increased tremendously, which led us to want to play a larger role in what they’re doing.”  

BrightFarms operates a network of greenhouses that use hydroponics, natural sunlight, and a proprietary software system to grow leafy greens. The company announced its fifth greenhouse earlier this year and more recently said it would open an “innovation and research hub.” Ten percent of the company is now dedicated to developing “patented growing solutions to be used across BrightFarms entire network to improve crop yield, flavor, and other factors. The company says that by the end of the year, its leafy greens will be available at over 3,500 stores.

BrightFarms said joining Cox will allow it to scale more rapidly. As part of the acquisition, BrightFarms will grow its physical footprint from 15 acres of crop today to more than 140 by 2025. This growth will, the company says, let it reach roughly two-thirds of all U.S. consumers. Additionally, BrightFarms will build out multiple 30-acre greenhouses and increase the number of stores, restaurants, and food distributors it serves.

Q&A: The Future of Restaurant Delivery Bots, According to Serve Robotics’ Ali Kashani

If Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani has his way, more restaurants in the near-term future will offload the last mile of their deliveries not to human couriers but to wheeled rover bots that can autonomously traverse the streets en route to hand over your food.

Serve started life as a part of Postmates, eventually spinning out into its own company when the latter was bought by Uber. The wheeled Serve bots are all-electric, autonomous sidewalk rovers that require minimal human supervision to deliver burritos, sandwiches, and other food items to customers. They’re also, according to Kashani, way better for the planet and the restaurant industry.

Ahead of our upcoming upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17 (that’s tomorrow!), we caught up briefly with Kashani to get his thoughts on how robots help the restaurant biz and what role they’ll play in the future. Read our full Q&A with her below, and if you haven’t already, grab a ticket to the virtual show here.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

The Spoon: What problem does Serve Robotics solve for restaurants/the restaurant industry?

Ali Kashani: Moving a two-pound burrito in a two-ton car doesn’t make a lot of sense. Yet it’s what we do 10 to 20 million times a day in the United States alone. It’s resulting in carbon emissions, traffic congestion, and accidents. Beyond that, it’s also expensive. Restaurants are paying 20-30% of their revenue to fulfill their customers’ delivery demands. 

Serve Robotics is creating a fleet of all-electric, autonomous sidewalk robots that require minimal human supervision. They don’t cause congested roads or emit CO2. They also don’t cause safety risks — it takes 3,000 sidewalk robots to have the same kinetic energy of a single street car. And finally, they make delivery affordable for restaurants and local businesses by significantly reducing the underlying costs. This is a win-win-win, for restaurants, for customers, and for cities. 

Starting with sidewalks, autonomous deliveries will reduce the cost burden that’s carried by restaurants today, while enabling more customers to shop locally — whether it’s from a nearby restaurant, a convenience store, or a local mall. And cities win too. If we take 5% of restaurant deliveries off the road in five years, which is our goal, we’d be removing 80,000 vehicles off the roads in the U.S., which translates to over 1 billion fewer miles traveled by cars.

By the way, robotic delivery will also be better for employment, as it helps local SMBs, the backbone of our economy, be better positioned to sell to local customers and compete effectively against larger e-commerce players. 

What is the biggest change in terms of the restaurant industry’s approach towards technology as a result of the pandemic?

Some impact was very visible to everyone, such as the adoption of digital menus almost overnight. Some other changes were uniquely visible to us. For example, robotic delivery as a whole was validated as a necessary tool, a part of city infrastructure, rather than a science project. Before the pandemic passersby would often wonder what a delivery robot was doing, but after the pandemic, everyone immediately recognized what they were seeing was a contactless delivery.

The impact of the pandemic has continued. Driver shortages have increased the importance of having several available delivery modes, creating significant inbound interest for us.

3. Where will we see the most deployments of delivery bots in the near-term future (e.g., major cities, campuses, etc.)?

We know from having access to food delivery data on major platforms that over half of all restaurant deliveries can be addressed on the sidewalk. Closed environments like campuses are a great place too. We decided to focus on cities instead because on campus basket sizes are smaller, so it’s a lower-margin space, and the demand is more peaky and seasonal. So all and all, the steady higher-value demand of cities made them a more interesting market.

Granted, cities are a harder problem to solve. We had to invest significantly in developing the right vehicle capable of navigating city sidewalks. But that’s a worthwhile investment that serves as a competitive barrier. With years and millions of dollars invested, we now have the most suitable robot for sidewalk delivery, with the largest cargo capacity, longest mileage range and battery life, and most capable drivetrain for handling the roughness of city sidewalks.

4. What are you most excited about when it comes to the impact of restaurant technology?

We’re excited by the experiences restaurants can potentially offer customers when delivery robots become a part of everyday life. There’s so much waste in how we deliver today — not just the car emissions mentioned earlier, but also in the packaging. Delivery is also not yet on-par with the experience of dining at the restaurant. 

Now imagine if the cost of last mile logistics was so low, that restaurants could send food in fine china and silverware. Similar to room service at a hotel, the robot would wait to return the dishes at the end of the meal. We could create new experiences that are similar or even better than dining in a restaurant, and do so at less cost and with less waste.

5. What do you think the restaurant industry will look like in five years?

Our goal is to take at least 5% of restaurant deliveries off the road, and bring down the cost of delivery overall. The impact this can have on our cities is enormous. From congestion and emissions, to the increase in customer adoption of local delivery, to the increase in employment and commerce opportunities.

Think about the kind of impact Ford had when they introduced the first car. Our cities look different today because of it. This would take longer than five years, but new forms of mobility offered by Serve and other companies in this space have similar potential to reshape our cities into more liveable and green places.

Red Sea Farms Raises an Additional $6M to Grow Crops With Saltwater

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Farms has raised an additional $6 million in pre-Series A funding, bringing the total round to $16 million (h/t Wamda). Those leading the round include Aramco’s venture arm Wa’ed, the Saudi government-owned Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute, KAUST, Global Ventures, AppHarvest, and Bonaventure. The $6 million announced over the weekend follows an initial $10 million investment the company unveiled in June of this year.

Red Sea Farms, which is based out of King Abdullah University for Science & Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, is developing a grow system for crops that relies primarily on saltwater as the primary irrigation input. As company cofounder and CSO Prof. Mark Tester told The Spoon recently, the system works on both crops grown traditionally via land and those grown indoors using hydroponics. The idea is to provide more resource options for farmers in parts of the world where freshwater is less abundant. The company’s technology can use saltwater for evaporative cooling in greenhouses, which could potentially cut a facility’s carbon footprint.

Red Sea Farms currently has three grow sites, all in Saudi Arabia. The pre-Series A round of funding will help the company expand its operations in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Middle East, as well as explore opportunities in the U.S. “where growing conditions are harsh.”

A number of companies have announced crop innovations for the Middle East region this year, including iFarm’s partnership with Sadarah Partners in Qatar and AeroFarms’ developing a R&D hub in the UAE. Also in 2021, Estonian automated gardening company Natufia announced its relocation to Saudi Arabia. Most of these developments are in response to a rising urgency around global food security coupled with a need to reduce the planet’s over-reliance on traditional agriculture resources (e.g., freshwater, land).

Red Sea Farms says it can cut freshwater consumption of farming operations by by 85 to 90 percent through its grow system.

Meet The Spoon’s Restaurant Tech 10

The restaurant industry has changed drastically over the last 18 months when it comes to tech. What was once a sector slow to change and reticent to embrace digital is now practically at bursting point in terms of the many technological solutions available to restaurants. As food tech investor Brita Rosenheim recently wrote, “the past 18 months, technology solutions across the restaurant and hospitality industry evolved at such a fast pace that keeping up with changes proved challenging, even for those of us who work in the space. This rapid rate of adoption in the industry caused even the technophobes in hospitality to rapidly embrace tech solutions. “

Picking just 10 companies from the hundreds out there was a Herculean challenge when it came time to make this list. From virtual restaurants to maintenance management solutions to making better use of data, there’s no end of innovation in the restaurant tech sector these days. Our list is a tiny sliver of that innovation, showcasing what we believe are some of the most unique and intriguing companies shaking up and rethinking the restaurant business. Some of these companies will be at our upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit (make sure to get your ticket!), some we’ve written about recently, and some we are just getting to know.

It goes without saying, of course, that this isn’t an exhaustive list, and if you have a restaurant tech company you’d like to get on our radar, drop us a line anytime.

In no particular order, here are The Spoon’s Top 10 Restaurant Tech Companies:

Too Good to Go

When it comes to eliminating food waste, Too Good to Go was too good to not include on this list. The Denmark-based company partners with hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and other businesses that have surplus food items at the end of each day and sells that food at a discount to consumers, who pick up the food at a designated time. Too Good to Go started in Europe, but raised $31 million and expanded into the U.S. this year. Businesses win because it turns leftover foods into revenue. Consumers win because they get good food at a discount. And the world at large wins because there is less food waste going into landfills. 

86 Repairs

You can’t run a restaurant without a fridge (or stove, or electricity), which means maintenance and repair management will always be relevant in the biz, no matter how many pandemics you throw at it. Chicago, Illinois-based 86 Repairs is leading a new generation of companies helping to make the management of maintenance and repair tasks a little less burdensome on restaurants. The platform digitizes information about all a restaurant’s equipment and coordinates troubleshooting, warranty checks, booking technicians, and other tasks. The idea is to give restaurants one central location at which to view all data about all maintenance, even for large, multi-unit chains with thousands of units.

Bite Ninja

The restaurant labor shortage will go down as one of the major issues — probably the major issue — restaurants faced in 2021. One of the most intriguing solutions to the issue comes from a company called Bite Ninja. In essence, the Bite Ninja platform lets restaurants outsource their staffing needs for the drive-thru lane to gig workers that take orders remotely. Drive-thru customers see a face on a screen and order as they would normally. They may not even know the person taking the order is probably sitting at their kitchen table instead of standing inside the restaurant. Bite Ninja’s founders say the platform can increase order accuracy and upsell rates for restaurants, while workers don’t actually have to report to a physical location to clock in. In the future, the tech will be available for more uses than just the drive-thru, including front-of-house kiosks, curbside pickup, and phone orders.

ConverseNow

ConverseNow currently creates conversational AI assistants for restaurant drive-thrus. In use at 750 restaurant locations in the U.S, ConverseNow says its AI achieves 85 percent order accruacy and bumps check sizes up by 25 percent. But ConverseNow is about so much more than just helping automate the drive-thru. The company wants its software to be the virtual plumbing for all of a restaurant’s digital ordering, connecting the drive-thru, mobile ordering, phones, kiosks and more. If it can achieve this, ConverseNow will convert many restaurant operators over to AI. 

Crave Collective

When The Spoon got a virtual tour last year of the Crave facility in Boise, Idaho that serves 16 virtual restaurant concepts, it felt like a look into the future of what restaurant/food delivery design could look in Metro areas. Not only were the physical attributes like a conveyor belt system that shuttled meals towards the front for delivery and a customer pick up area interesting, but Crave’s custom-built tech stack and in-house delivery drivers were indications that the company had built a facility and business model tailored towards the virtual brand era. The company wants to take it’s concept to four additional locations this year, and 10 by 2022.

Slice

While it’s easy to think most pizza restaurant shops are savvy at online ordering, the reality is that the typical independent sees only about one in five pizzas ordered online compared with three out of four for Dominos. Slice saw this as an opportunity and created a consumer app to help put independent pizza shops (16,000 of them so far) on solid digital footing to compete with the 800 pound gorillas in Dominos and Little Caesar’s. But what helped Slice make this list was their acquisition of POS startup InStore. Before Instore, Slice helped indies enter into the world of online ordering. Now, Slice Register (the POS based on Instore) enables the small guys to level up to the big guys and create a true multichannel pizza business with loyalty programs and integrated online/offline marketing programs.

Qu POS

The past decade saw restaurant point of sale move into the cloud and adapt features like pay-at-table and integrated online ordering, but the virtual brand explosion may be the biggest test yet for these systems. Qu POS is betting big on a virtual restaurant future with their KitchenUP platform, which acts as a lightweight operating system for ghost kitchen/virtual brands with unified management of multichannel order management, reporting, third-party delivery integration and other features built into an API-first architecture. FranklinJunction is utilizing KitchenUp across its network of 500 “host kitchens” to help power virtual concepts for such brands as Nathan’s and Frisch’s Big Boy.

Ordermark/NextBite

An arguably bigger trend than ghost kitchens this year has been restaurants finding and leveraging underutilized kitchen space in which to run delivery-only restaurant concepts. NextBite, a company created by restaurant tech company Ordermark, helps restaurants find that space and launch those concepts. The platform operates a number of virtual/delivery-only brands restaurants can add to their existing business and in the process make some incremental revenue. The company raised a whopping $120 million for this concept at the end of 2020, and has since launched more than 15 virtual brands in thousands of kitchens around the country. 

Manna

Look! Up in the sky! It’s your latte! Drone food delivery seems like sci-fi, but Manna is making it a reality right now. Earlier this year, the company was doing 50 to 100 drone deliveries a day and it’s prepping to launch service in a second Irish city. Though there are still regulatory hurdles to overcome, drone delivery could be a boon for restaurants because it delivers meals in minutes without needing to put a full-sized delivery car on the road. Drones are starting to take flight around the world, and Manna is helping the industry take flight. 

Delivery Hero

Delivery is table stakes at this point for the restaurant industry, but we pub Delivery Hero on this list because of all the big-name services out there today, it has one of the more noteworthy approaches to the concept. In addition to operating restaurant food delivery services around the world (via a bunch of different subsidiary brands), the Berlin, Germany-based company has also launched its own VC fund to foster food tech innovation, opened an education program to teach coding to underserved individuals, and, most recently, kicked off a new initiative to provide its restaurant partners with sustainable packaging. All these efforts point towards the possibility of a food delivery industry that’s not only faster and more efficient, but also more inclusive and sustainable.

Q&A: How BentoBox Helps Restaurants Take Back Their Customer Relationships Through Tech

Before the off-premises boom, there was no question of restaurants owning their relationships with customers. One pandemic and a whole lot of digital tools later, and that ownership is a little less certain, and restaurants often give up valuable customer data and feedback to bigger tech companies (e.g., third-party delivery services). Now, however, a number of tech companies are promising to change this by putting more digital interactions with customers back restaurants hands, so to speak.

A company called BentoBox does it by helping restaurants create and manage their own digital storefronts. The BentoBox platform facilitates a number different areas of running a restaurant in the digital age: online order management, website design, dine-in order and pay, digital gift cards, and event management, to name a few. These and other features promise to give restaurants a direct relationship to their customers, even when those interactions are entirely conducted through a website or mobile app.  

Ahead of The Spoon’s upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17, we caught up with Krystle Mobayeni, CEO and Founder of BentoBox, who will also be speaking at the event. Read our full Q&A with her below, and if you haven’t already, grab a ticket to the virtual show here.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

1. What problem does BentoBox solve for restaurants/the restaurant industry?

BentoBox helps translate restaurants’ on-premise experience to their digital storefront in a way that matches their standards of hospitality. We do this through a full-service website, commerce, and marketing platform that helps operators cultivate stronger guest relationships — and drive high-margin revenue through their websites.

2. What is the biggest change in terms of the restaurant industry’s approach towards technology as a result of the pandemic?

Before the pandemic, restaurants and technology co-existed. Restaurants focused on their dining rooms and adopted piecemeal technology tools along the way. Restaurants also viewed the guest experience in the brick and mortar as separate from the guest experience online. The pandemic has shown that restaurants need to think about these as one holistic experience and embrace the right technology to connect the on-premise and off-premise experiences. 

With that, the pandemic has rapidly accelerated the shift to a single, modern restaurant experience where restaurants can connect with their guests across all channels. With the support of the right technology, restaurants can build direct relationships and more personal ones to stay resilient and thrive going forward. 

3. What are the most important first steps a restaurant should take when going online?

The most important first step is aligning with the right technology partner. Restaurant operators didn’t get into this industry to be marketers or technologists; they sought to create meaningful experiences with food.

Understanding restaurant operators don’t have the time or expertise to be restaurant website designers, my best advice is to seek out a technology partner who understands what the restaurant needs. While local designers or design agencies can be an effective means to get online, these solutions are often expensive and time-consuming. It is important for restaurants to find a partner that makes their website a reflection of their brand with elevated design, built-in marketing tools and the opportunity to drive revenue the same way they do in their brick and mortar. 

4. What is the biggest challenge for restaurants right now when it comes to digitization? 

As the world has evolved over the last year and a half, restaurants’ core purpose of providing a hospitable and memorable experience has remained constant. However, the technology that has been introduced to help them enter the digital world and make things easier, has in many cases proved far more complex and fragmented than it should be. 

Not surprisingly, this fragmentation and complexity has led to frustration and takes away from the restaurants ability to provide a seamless experience for their diners. It’s crucial for technology providers to be aware of this and work to provide end to end solutions to eliminate these breakage points. 

5. What are you most excited about when it comes to the impact of restaurant technology?

Restaurant technology has the power to help restaurant owners with their business and give diners an enhanced dining experience. When restaurants have the right technology partner, it changes the way diners interact with restaurants. They have more ways to experience a restaurant outside of the brick and mortar location. For restaurant owners, they have the opportunity to focus on better serving their communities and expanding their reach both locally and abroad. It also gives restaurants a more diversified stream of revenue, which helps them become stronger businesses.

6. What do you think the restaurant industry will look like in five years?

The pandemic catapulted the digital transformation of the restaurant industry and in five years, I see restaurants having a direct-to-diner experience with their customers, much like the transformation of retail going direct-to-consumers. Through restaurant technology innovation, restaurants will have the tools and data to build strong brand affinity among diners and tailor their customers’ experiences to make every diner feel like a regular. 

Q&A: RoboEatz on the Importance of Robotics in Restaurants of the Future

Thanks in part to the pandemic and the changing restaurant experience, there is more interest in food robots these days. While we’re not yet at the point where counters, kitchens, and drive-thrus are fully manned by these bots, there is a steadily growing number of choices when it comes to machines that can speed up and/or smooth out operations, save on costs, and provide a truly contactless meal creation and pickup experience.

One such offering is the RoboEatz Ark 03. it is a standalone kiosk that contains an articulating arm, fresh ingredients (including soups and salad dressings), an induction cooker and cubbies to hold pickup orders. When a customer places an order (via phone or tablet), the robot arm grabs ingredients, places them in the rotating induction cooker, and puts the finished meal container in a cubby.

RoboEatz’ CEO Alex Barseghian will share more on this exciting new world of restaurant tech at The Spoon’s upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17. As a teaser, we recently got some thoughts from him about restaurant robotics, which you can read below. And if you haven’t already, grab a ticket to the virtual show here.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

1. What problem does Roboeatz solve for restaurants/the restaurant industry?

The robot solves multiple things in one system. The ARK 03 can hold 80 ingredients allowing for 1,000 menu items to be made. Anyone from a salad concept to a pasta bar QSR or an Asian restaurant chain can leverage it. It self cleans the entire system and utensils, can dish out meals every 20 seconds and can serve 1,000 meals before it needs replenishment. It reduces waste, makes more consistent and great tasting food and labour shortages are resolved.

2. What is the biggest change in terms of the restaurant industry’s approach towards technology as a result of the pandemic?

There are a number. Touchless interaction is becoming more vital. Everything from digital menu boards, touchless payments and curbside pick have increased in demand during the pandemic. Chains are going to look to automate key areas of the kitchen or replace the whole kitchen to reduce mundane tasks. There is global labour shortage for the restaurant industry and technology is going to be a vital way to solve for that problem. 

3. Where do robotics and automation make the most sense in the restaurant industry (e.g., back of house, standalone machines, etc.)?

They can be either back of house or full standalone systems. The application will depend on the environment. For example, business canteens, student campuses, mining camps, airports and transit hubs can drop in a standalone machine like the ARK03. But if you have a casual fine dining chain with a massive infrastructure, you will take much more of an iterative approach to technology. Test and learn which pain points need to be fixed and automated. Only after can you scale — which takes time and extensive resources.

4. What is the biggest challenge for restaurants right now when it comes to digitization? 

The whole continuum of the journey is a challenge because there are so many aspects to digitization. From the ease of consumer ordering and personalization on the mobile phone to the end point of picking something in store, systems interacting with each other is a very large pain point.  

5. What are you most excited about when it comes to the impact of restaurant technology?

That we, as a society, can rely on is great quality food that is produced safely and without much food waste. We have a profitable model that is scalable for multiple restaurant verticals, from QSRs to managed food service companies with the aforementioned goal in mind.

6. What do you think the restaurant industry will look like in five years?

The fine dining restaurants will deploy automation that is not visible to customers.  Managed food service companies will deploy full systems in multiple verticals they service, especially where grab and go or 24/7 food is needed. QSR chains will have either a full system or have hybrid back of house functions. It is a very exciting time.  

Wendy’s to Launch 700 Ghost Kitchens Via Reef Partnership

Wendy’s announced this week it will expand its number of delivery-only kitchens via a partnership with ghost/mobile kitchen provider Reef. With the deal, Wendy’s plans to open 700 more of these kitchens over the next five years in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Wendy’s and Reef first announced their partnership in 2020, when the two started testing delivery-only kitchens in Canada. The partnership is part of Wendy’s ongoing strategy to be operating 7,000 units globally by the end of the year, according to the company’s earnings call this past week. The QSR chain plans to have 30 percent of all its new units come from nontraditional locations.  

Reef’s mobile kitchens certainly count as “nontraditional” when it comes to QSR formats. The company, which raised $700 million last year, houses ghost kitchens in mobile trailers that can be parked more or less anywhere there is underutilized real estate and demand for restaurant food. Right now, the company partners with existing restaurant chains that want to boost the number of delivery-only orders they fulfill. Saladworks, Wow Bao, and BurgerFi are just a few names using Reef’s mobile kitchen infrastructure. 

“We are still very early in our nontraditional development journey, but we are encouraged by the results that we’ve seen with Reef, and we’ll continue learning alongside them throughout this partnership as we grow our brand,” Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor said on the earnings call.

Partnering with Reef on mobile kitchens allows Wendy’s to expand its new build-outs faster, since there’s less development time needed compared to a traditional QSR location with a dining room attached. Wendy’s decision to go the mobile kitchen route differs from other QSRs like Burger King, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell, all of whom have recently announced new store prototypes that emphasize digital ordering and delivery. In those cases, however, the units are stationary and have yet to be built out en masse.

Revenue in the online food delivery segment in the U.S. is expected to reach $32 billion in 2021, which is about 15 percent of the total U.S. fast food market today. That suggests a long-term trend towards non-dine-in formats for QSRs and more focus on the “hub-and-spoke” model where the kitchen is the central piece of the restaurant serving multiple different sales channels. QSRs, in particular, are well suited to the non-dine-in format because customers aren’t typically going to these establishments for the ambiance or experience one expects in a dining room setting.

For their part, Wendy’s and REEF expect to open approximately 50 delivery kitchens in 2021, with the remainder launched by 2025. 

5 Ways the Restaurant Biz Will Change In the Next 5 Years

If the last year and a half was about how restaurants could survive, this next stretch will be all about how they are and will continue to adapt to all the changes they’ve absorbed in the recent past. 

A lot of those changes have been around tech. In fact many would argue the restaurant biz made 10 years’ worth of technological evolution in the span of a few months because of the havoc the COVID-19 pandemic brought. Over the last year, online ordering has become table stakes, restaurants of all sizes have opened virtual, delivery-only concepts, and customer data has grown even more important for businesses to keep tabs on.

What do changes like these mean for the restaurant over the next five years? We’ll discuss that next week at The Spoon’s upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit. The virtual event takes place August 17, and you can still nab a ticket to it.

In preparation for the event, we’ve been publishing Q&As with restaurants, tech companies, analysts, and others who will be participating in the Summit. Below are some highlights from these individuals on where they see the restaurant biz headed over the next five years. 

Michael Schaefer, Head of Beverages and Foodservice Research, Euromonitor

“In the next five years, restaurants will become less synonymous with prepared food. Prepared meals will remain the primary business for restaurants, of course, and dining in restaurants will not be going away. However, the range of operators, concepts and venues for obtaining prepared meals and solving for daily meal occasions will continue to expand. Rather than a strict separation of restaurants and prepared meals on one end and grocers and packaged food and drinks on the other, we’ll see more of a spectrum, with a range of different approaches to prepared food and drinks, generally ordered via an app and often fulfilled by third-party delivery.”

Read Full Q&A

Allison Page, Founder, Sevenrooms

“We’re at the early innings of a data revolution for the hospitality industry. Over the next five years, hospitality experiences are only going to become more personalized and tailored to the wants and needs of guests – to the levels we see on an everyday basis from the likes of Amazon and Spotify today. The restaurant industry has been through a lot over the past year, but it’s one of the most inspiring industries to work in and be a part of every day and I’m excited to see what the next five years hold.” 

Read Full Q&A

Trish Paterson, CEO, Copper Branch

“There will be a surge in closings once the subsidies end — restauranteurs are focused on considering drive through and mobile pick up spaces for guests. There will be a stronger focus on touch-free technology (menus etc.). Due to labour shortages, there will be more focus on technology (robotics) for back of house and front of house, including self-serve kiosks, order from QR code at the table, etc.”

Read Full Q&A

Adam Brotman, CEO, Brightloom

“I predict we’ll see a couple of notable shifts. 

First, digital is here to stay and will only increase. Customers crave frictionless experiences. The accelerated shift to digital menus and mobile ordering and payment during the pandemic illuminated a new standard of customer convenience. If I can order ahead and arrange for curbside delivery with a few clicks on my phone, why would I ever return to waiting in line to order and pick up my food?

Second, we’ll see a rebalanced focus on customer retention relative to customer acquisition. It’s commonplace that loyal customers are almost always more profitable. Instead of over indexing on customer acquisition, restaurants will recalibrate their focus on driving sustainable revenue with existing customers based on historical transaction data.”

Read Full Q&A

Andy Wiederhorn, CEO, Fat Brands

“Five years from now, I think restaurants will be built upon the internet of things. Your POS talks to your grill, who talks to your fryer, who talks to your walk-in fridge, who makes an order to your potato supplier without a manager or cook having to lift a finger.” 

Read Full Q&A

You can hear all of these leaders at next week’s Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17th. Get your ticket today.

More Headlines

Ono Food Rebrands as Hyphen, Launches Makeline Food Assembly Robot to Work in Tandem with Humans – Hyphen just launched its Makeline assembly robot, which is meant to help fast casual restaurants quickly and accurately make meals for pick-up and delivery without taking up any additional space. 

Bite Ninja Raises $675,000 in Pre-Seed Funding to Virtually Staff Restaurants – The service allows restaurant workers to take drive-thru and counter orders remotely without interrupting the order process for consumers.

Kiwibot and Sodexo Bringing Delivery Robots to Three Colleges – Kiwibots will be rolling out to New Mexico State University, Loyola Marymount University in California, and Gonzaga University in Washington state.

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Taco Bell to Launch New Drive-Thru-Centric Store Prototype

Via a partnership with longtime franchisee Border Foods, Taco Bell is set to launch a new store design the QSR chain says will “simplify drive-thru time significantly,” according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Dubbed Taco Bell Defy, the initiative was first announced at the beginning of 2021, when the store prototype surfaced.

Border Foods enlisted Minneapolis-based design firm Vertical Works to assist with conceptualizing the new building, which will be restaurant number 230 for Taco Bell and Border Foods, and the pair’s 82nd new build.

Speed of service via digital means is the emphasis here. The Defy location will include four drive-thru lanes, three of which will be dedicated to mobile orders and pickups for delivery. (One lane will function like a traditional drive-thru lane.) For these mobile-order lanes, customers will check in and order via QR code, then retrieve their food from a lift system that eradicates the human-to-human touchpoint during a traditional food handoff. The kitchen itself, meanwhile, will be elevated above the drive-thru lanes and staff able to communicate with customers via audio and video features.  

Aspects of the Defy location are reminiscent of store design plans from another major QSR, Burger King. The Home of the Whopper unveiled a store prototype last year that also featured suspended kitchens, multiple drive-thru lanes, and a conveyor belt system that would deliver food to customers without an actual human-to-human interaction. 

Other chains, including McDonald’s, have announced various initiatives over the last several months aimed at digitizing more of the drive-thru operation and in the process speeding up service times. Wait times at the drive-thru have progressively increased over the last several years, and the latest data shows that total wait time in 2020 was about 30 seconds longer than 2019 across the QSR sector. 

So far, only the designs themselves have surfaced for these various store concepts. We have yet to see how these ideas function in real time, in real life, and just how widespread they wind up being in terms of the population’s QSR experience.

Taco Bell breaks ground this month in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, with plans to open by summer 2022.