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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Jennifer Marston

Food Tech News: Kroger Pilots Contactless Pay, How QSRs Could Change the Whole Food System

Had your fill of food tech news for the week? Of course you haven’t. With that in mind, here are a few more bits and bites to carry your appetite for food tech through the weekend.

Kroger Launches Contactless Payments

Kroger launched a pilot for contactless payments in Seattle, WA this week. The test will take place in the grocery retailer’s QFC division, and allow customers to use their mobile phones to pay for groceries. The system accepts a number of payment types: Apple, Google, Samsung, Fitbit, and mobile banking apps. 

Microsoft and Land O’Lakes Bringing More Tech to Rural Areas

Farming technology is all well and good, but farms first need to have access to broadband. As AgFunder points out, 18 to 40 million Americans do not have that connectivity, especially those in rural areas. To address that issue, Microsoft and Land O’Lakes said this week they are working together to bring more connectivity to farms and rural areas.

Hostess Opens Innovation Lab

Hostess Brands has opened a new innovation lab in Kansas that employs researchers, product testers, and bakers creating new kinds of snack cakes. The lab will test and develop new prototypes for food products, which means we could well have a new kind of Twinkie in our hands in the future.

How about now no cow?

If QSRs swapped beef with alternative proteins in their products, they could completely alter the food system. That’s the premises of an excellent new article from Wired, which outlines the problems with our over-reliance on beef and how fast-food chains can use their wide availability and low prices to change consumer attitudes about meat.

DouxMatok To Bring Its More-Efficient Sugar to North American Food Products

Israeli food tech company DouxMatok has entered into a deal with a North American sugar refiner to manufacture commercial quantities of its “more efficient” sugar, according to Food Navigator. The first products containing this sugar are expected to hit the market early in 2021. 

DouxMatok’s Sugar Reduction Solution uses the food additive silica to carry sugar molecules and make a food taste sweeter than it would using a comparable amount of plain sugar. Using this method, food companies could use less sugar in their products, since the sugar-infused silica diffuses the sweet taste more efficiently. DouxMatox says food companies can typically use about 40 percent less sugar in their products and still get the same sweet taste.

The company told Food Navigator this week that it is currently working on a second-generation version of its product that will use a more “clean label” fiber than silica (which passes through the body once the sugar is metabolized). While he couldn’t name specifics, DouxMatok founder Eran Baniel said this new carrier for the sugar molecules is definitely a fiber and that it is “slightly more effective than silica in certain applications.”

Nor did Baniel say which North American sugar refiner his company has teamed up with to get its first products in the market. The company struck a deal with Südzucker in Europe in 2018. The North American partner will be announced in October.

While it doesn’t exactly take science to understand the harmful effects of sugar on the human body, many companies are leveraging science to create alternatives. Joywell Foods uses protein found in the “miracle berry” to create an alternative sweetener. Alluose is another sugar alternative, and one Magic Spoon uses to sweeten its kids-cereal-for-adults product.

DouxMatok’s silica product currently works with baked goods, confections, chocolates, and a few other products. According to Food Navigator, the company hopes to find a similar sugar-reduction method and technology for “high-water activity products” like sodas and juices.

Catering Startup Platterz Raises $43.8M CAD, Rebrands as Thriver

Corporate catering startup Platterz announced today it has rebranded as Thriver and raised a $43.8 million CAD (~$33 million USD) Series B funding round. The round was led by Viola Growth, with participation from Vertex Ventures Israel, Union Tech Ventures, Journey Ventures, and FJ Labs, as well as existing investors Aleph and Altair Capital. This brings Thriver’s total funding to $54.7 million (USD).

Since its inception in 2015, Thriver has operated primarily as a corporate catering program offering both group and individual meals as well as perks like the Treat Card, which employers could use to subsidize employees meals. Over time, however, the platform has broadened into what Thriver calls a “food and culture platform.” That means offering not just meals and meal plans to companies, but also community-building activities meant to bring employees — especially remote ones — together.

Thriver has the pandemic to thank for some of its motivation to expand into corporate culture beyond food. Scores of employees that once trekked to the office each day are now working from home. That’s an obvious dent in any corporate catering business that relies on employees working in offices. 

Thriver is addressing this by offering remote “experiences” for workplace teams that are meant to be culture-building activities employees can do together from their own homes. Thriver lists cooking classes, cocktail making, yoga, language lessons, virtual escape rooms (?!!), and many other activities as part of its remote activities. 

It’s a unique approach in terms of catering companies addressing the sudden effect of the pandemic on their business. Others, like Ox Verte and Freshly, now focus on home delivery for employee meals. Uber for Business says it can feed anyone from an individual working from home to a 1,000-person virtual event.

For its part, Thriver said in today’s release it will continue to offer its food platform along with these new remote activities. New funds will go towards expanding into new markets, building more capabilities into its platform, and growing the Thriver team. 

Vertical Field to Launch a Geoponic Vertical Farm Inside New York’s Evergreen Market

More vertically grown greens are coming to the grocery store. The Evergreen Kosher Market, a well-known food retailer in Monsey, New York, announced this week it will soon debut a vertical farm from Israeli ag tech company Vertical Field. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the farm will use technology and geoponics to provide shoppers with onsite greens at the grocery store.

Vertical Field’s farming indoor solution consists of “living walls” where plants grow vertically inside controlled environments and sensors regulate temperature and humidity levels to create ideal grow conditions for each type of plant. Since the environment is sealed off from the outside world, it is free of the usual pests that can infiltrate crops and therefore free of pesticides. And Evergreen being a Kosher market, a partnership with Vertical Field makes sense, as the company’s greens are all Star-K Kosher Certified.

The company’s use of geoponics is unusual in today’s world of vertical farming, where the majority of companies use hydroponics or aeroponics to grow plants. Vertical Field’s system is proprietary, and the company claims on its website that its use of geoponics means lower initial and operating costs, better quality plants, and more crop variety than one would get using hydroponics.

All that said, Vertical Field is, like most others, still focused on leafy greens, which would likely be the only plant type to fit on the company’s wall-like garden structure (see image above). Still, leafy greens are delicate, and more likely to be damaged in shipping than, say, heartier fruit or root vegetable. Placing the farms inside grocery stores removes the distribution portion and therefore several steps from the process between harvesting greens and getting them to consumers. 

While the concept of in-store vertical farms is relatively new, Vertical Fields’ new installation at Evergreen isn’t alone. Berlin, Germany-based InFarm has its pod farms at grocery stores in Canada, Denmark, and at Kroger stores in the U.S. Orlando, Florida-based Kalera works with Publix in the Southeastern U.S. to place farms in stores.

For its part, Vertical Field serves a variety of organizations around the world, including the campuses of Big Tech companies like Apple, Intel, and Microsoft. 

TouchBistro Acquires Loyalty and CRM Company TableUp

Restaurant management platform TouchBistro today announced its acquisition of TableUp, a company that makes loyalty and marketing software for the restaurant biz. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

TouchBistro said in a press release sent to The Spoon that it will fully integrate TableUp’s CRM and loyalty capabilities into its existing platform. Dubbed TouchBistro Loyalty, the new product will be released in phases, with an introductory product hitting North American markets “in the coming weeks,.” Through it, TouchBistro’s restaurant customers will be able to use the software to power loyalty programs, create more personalized marketing campaigns for guests, and offer more promotions. 

Once a simple POS system, TouchBistro has been steadily adding features to its platform to transform it into the kind of all-in-one front-of-house management tool most restaurant tech companies are peddling these days. In 2019, TouchBistro launched its own reservations and guest-management features. Its system works for both in-house orders and those for off-premises.

That ability to serve to-go customers is a must nowadays for restaurant tech systems. With many dining rooms still shuttered because of the pandemic, restaurants have little choice but to focus on their off-premises strategies. Restaurant tech companies in turn must broaden their systems’ capabilities to meet those new requirements. We’ve seen the likes of Sevenrooms, Presto, Toast, and others do just that over the last few months in an attempt to stay relevant in world where the restaurant front of house is becoming alarmingly less relevant. 

At the moment, loyalty programs and personalized marketing don’t rank as high on the list of customer concerns as things like cleanliness or ease of use with new off-premises-focused tools. However, loyalty and marketing features themselves aren’t going by the wayside anytime soon, even if a lot of restaurant dining rooms are. That makes TouchBistro’s acquisition of TableUp a worthy long-term play as restaurant tech companies continue to redefine themselves.

The Real California Milk ‘Snackcelerator’ Opens Applications for Dairy Startups

You’ve heard about the uptick in snacking thanks to the pandemic. But perhaps no one is taking the rise of snacks more seriously than the California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB). Today, the organization announced the return of its product innovation competition dubbed the Real California Milk Snackcelerator. 

The competition looks for food producers that integrate the flavor and functionality of California dairy products into snacks. A blog post outlining the contest lists several products that “speak to the type of innovation” CMAB “is looking for.” Those products include a Keto- and diabetes-friendly ice cream treat, probiotic snack bars, Kombucha yogurt, and something called “cheese wraps.”

“The goal of this competition is to tap into our global obsession with snacking to inspire new ideas and help clear the hurdles to bringing these products to market,” CMAB CEO John Talbot said in today’s press release. 

As of the end of June, snack consumption was up 8 percent, according to NPD. And in today’s press release, CMAB cites Mondelez International, which recently found that 59 percent of adults worldwide prefer snacking to meals.

Companies interested in CMAB’s competition should have products that use cow’s milk as their first ingredient and making up 50 percent or more of their formula. Companies that win must commit to producing their products in California, using California dairy farms for milk. 

Up to eight companies will get “up to $10,000 of support” to develop a prototype as well as mentorship and guidance around packaging, distribution, marketing, and other areas of running a food business. They also receive an all-expenses-paid “business development trip” where they will tour dairy farms and meet individuals in that industry. The overall winner gets “up to $200,000 worth of support to get their new product to market.”

While the snacks market is thriving, the dairy industry has had a rougher time of it lately. U.S. milk sales have been declining for decades, especially with the rise of plant-based alternatives. Two major milk producers so far, Dean Foods and Borden Dairy, have filed for bankruptcy.

However, sales of dairy rose thanks to the pandemic: From January through July 18, U.S. milk retail sales were up 8.3% to $6.4 billion, according to Nielsen. And the sector definitely has its pockets of innovation, with a notable example being the Dairy Farmers of America’s startup accelerator, which has a similar mission statement to that of CMAB: to bring more agility and innovation into the dairy sector.

Still, dairy companies have a long haul ahead of them. Finding nimble, innovative startups with new approaches to dairy products could help the industry stay relevant at a time when alternative protein is steadily on the rise. Feeding into the highly popular market for snacks doesn’t hurt, either. 

Applications for the Snackcelerator are open until August 28, 2020.

UK Regulators Finally Approve Amazon’s 16% Stake in Deliveroo

The UK’s Competition Markets and Authority (CMA) has at last approved Amazon’s 16 percent minority stake in food delivery service Deliveroo. The CMA’s findings, released today, note that the proposed Amazon-Deliveroo deal “has not resulted, and may not be expected to result, in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) within a market or markets in the United Kingdom (UK) for goods and services.”

That concern — that Amazon’s investment in Deliveroo would lessen competition and consumer choices along with it — has hindered the investment since it was first announced back in May of 2019. For a quick recap, here’s how the saga has played out since then:

  • May 2019: Amazon announces its participation as the largest investor in Deliveroo’s $575 million Series G funding round.
  • July 2019: The CMA opens an investigation into Amazon’s investment, saying there were “reasonable grounds” that such a deal would mean the two companies would “cease to be distinct.”
  • October 2019: The CMA launches a formal probe into the deal.
  • April 2020: The deal gets initial approval, with the CMA citing “significant decline in revenues” for Deliveroo thanks to the pandemic.
  • June 2020: Regulators grant provisional clearance of the deal.

With this final approval, the CMA did warn Amazon that that increasing equity ownership of Deliveroo could result in further investigation, according to CNBC.

The approval comes at a time when consolidation is rampant among third-party food delivery services worldwide. The CMA finally approved the Takeaway.com’s acquisition of Just Eat, a deal that has created the largest food delivery service outside of China. The newly formed Just Eat Takeaway.com then swooped up Grubhub. Uber Eats, meanwhile, had been looking to buy Grubhub but backed away from such a deal in part because of the regulatory scrutiny the move would raise. Instead, it acquired Postmates in July.

With the pandemic still wrecking much havoc on the restaurant industry, we will probably see more of this consolidation — and probably a good deal of scrutiny, too — before the year is out.

Mission Barns to Run Curbside Taste Tests for Its Cell-Based Bacon

Bacon lovers, take note. Berkeley, CA-based Mission Barns plans to run curbside taste tests of its cell-based bacon product outside San Francisco and Oakland restaurants in August (h/t Food Navigator).

Mission Barns gets its product by combining cell-cultured pork fat grown in bioreactors with plant-based protein. To do that, the company isolates cells from the animal, in this case the pig, and puts them in a warm cultivator where they grow just as they would inside the animal. Cells are then fattened and the tissue is harvested to create the “meat” portion of Mission Barns products.

On its website, Mission Barns says its process for creating “meat” is more sustainable than conventional livestock farming in terms of land and water use as well as greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also more humane, since the animal doesn’t actually have to be slaughtered to get the cells. 

As with all meat alternatives, though, taste is what will ultimately convert many consumers. To that end, Mission Barns is looking for “bacon lovers, experts, and aficionados” for this upcoming taste test, which is the first ever from the company. Potential “tasting consultants” must fill out an application. Once accepted, participants can sample the bacon in exchange for providing feedback to Mission Barns.

The company also told Food Navigator that it is testing new products with other food companies, including “one of the largest pork producers in the world.” 

Mission Barns has competition in the bacon realm from Higher Steaks, a UK-based startup that recently announced its lab-grown prototypes for bacon and pork belly. 

Overall, cell-based meat companies have received quite a bit of funding since the pandemic started surfacing some of the uglier realities of the conventional meat industry. New Age Meats recently raised an additional $2 million for its plant-based pork, while Integriculture nabbed $7.4 million in May and BlueNalu garnered $20 million in February.

This investment activity isn’t likely to slow. For the entire alternative protein category, investment has already surpassed the $1 billion mark, with more than $290 million of that going towards cell-based meat, according to a recent report from FAIRR.

Price parity still being an issue, it will be a while yet before consumers start actually bringing home the cell-based bacon. Mission Barns upcoming taste test should tell us more about how devoted bacon fans will react to cell-based versions of their favorite meat. 

Survey: Safety Is Now a Top Concern for Restaurant Customers Ordering Off-Premises

A quality off-premises restaurant experience is no longer just about food arriving on time and fries not being soggy. According to restaurant tech company Toast’s latest report, attention to cleanliness and safety is one of the top three concerns for restaurant guests for both delivery and takeout orders.

The Toast report, which The Spoon received a copy of, surveyed over 700 restaurant guests around how their expectations have changed as a result of the pandemic and what they consider to be an ideal restaurant experience today.

Almost half, or 48 percent, of guests surveyed placed cleanliness/safety as the top third concern for delivery orders, behind quality of food and ease of ordering. Another 40 percent placed it as the second main concern for takeout orders.

Seeing as we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, it makes sense that safety has wound its way to the top of the list for restaurant consumers. (As a category, cleanliness and safety were much lower on the list of concerns when Toast published a similar guest survey in January.) But Toast’s report also found that guests are ordering takeout more frequently than delivery.

From the report:

“7% of guests reported ordering takeout through a third- party app multiple times a day. 9% of guests reported ordering takeout through a restaurant’s app or website once a day. 16% of guests reported ordering takeout through a restaurant’s app or website multiple times a week. And 20% of guests reported ordering takeout through a restaurant’s app or website once a week.”

Cost, of course, remains a big issue with third-party delivery apps. That’s especially true now, with many restaurants trying to offset the high commission fees these services charge by raising delivery prices. But given the pandemic we are in, safety is obviously a growing concern.

One reason takeout might be more popular right now than delivery is that food goes through more touchpoints when someone drops it at your house, since the meal has to be collected by a driver. Issues around delivery drivers tampering with food abounded even before the pandemic. In response, some chains now offer tamper-free packaging. But even setting that aside for a minute, customers still have to worry about the cleanliness of the driver’s vehicle, whether or not that person is sick, and if they are wearing protective gear. Toast noted in its report that, at least for now, customers “might prefer the level of control over cleanliness and safety they get when picking food orders up themselves.”

Toast recommends that restaurants communicate frequently and clearly with customers about steps they are taking to keep their businesses safe. However, it can be tough to guarantee safety if the food is leaving their hands and going to the customer via a third-party delivery service. There’s no quick fix for that, unfortunately, since most restaurants can’t afford to keep their own delivery fleet. For now, restaurants should continue prioritizing cleanliness on takeout orders and hope their third-party delivery counterparts are doing the same.

Connected Compost: Vitamix Launches an At-Home Device to Turn Food Scraps Into Soil Nutrients

Vitamix is the latest appliance-maker to address the issue of food waste in the consumer kitchen. The company today announced the launch of its Vitamix FoodCycler FC-50, a device that turns food scraps into additives for soil consumers can then use in their gardens. 

The device itself is compact enough to fit on a kitchen countertop. As the explainer video below shows, food scraps go into a portable bucket, which, when full, goes into the FoodCycler device. The user then simply attached the lid and hits the power button, and the device agitates the scraps into a compound that can be used as soil additive:  

Introducing the Vitamix Foodcycler FC-50!

Vitamix says the entire process can be done in four to eight hours, and works on not just produce but also meat and dairy items. A carbon filter built into the device gets rid of methane gases and odors.

The device is available now for $399.95, including a three-year warranty. 

Vitamix is positioning the device as an alternative to composting, which remains challenging to a lot of consumers. At-home compost piles require quite a bit of time and maintenance. They can also attract rodents, and most guides tell you to avoid putting meat and fatty foods in your pile (see: rodents). Some cities provide bins for compost scraps that are picked up on a weekly basis just like trash or recycling, but that’s not yet a widespread practice outside major cities.

U.S. households waste roughly 76 billion pounds of food per year. And with more people now staying home to cook and eat, it wouldn’t be surprising if that number went up in the future.

The key is to help consumer break longstanding behaviors and habits around simply throwing scraps in the garbage bin or down the drain, and the painstaking nature of traditional composting is not likely to do that on a widespread basis. The seeming ease-of-use of Vitamix’s latest device could be instrumental in helping consumers change some of those behaviors.

Vertical Farming Could Help Us Build a More Equitable Food System

One of the recurring questions vertical farming companies face is how they are going to get their locally grown, supposedly healthier wares to more than just those with disposable income. So far, the answers have been few and far between, but that could be changing. Towards the end of last week, ABC7 reported that New Jersey-based AeroFarms and World Economic Forum have partnered with the City of Jersey City to distribute greens free of charge to communities in need.

While AeroFarms actually hinted at the news back in June, it’s worth reiterating here because it underscores the point that vertical farming can — and should — play a much bigger role than simply providing greens to high-end groceries and restaurants. 

This is the first partnership between a city municipality and a vertical farming company in the U.S. Through it, AeroFarms will build 10 vertical farms in senior centers, schools, public housing, and municipal buildings around Jersey City. Collectively, the farms are expected to produce 19,000 pounds of vegetables annually, according to AeroFarms. Greens will be free of charge to residents, and the initiative also includes healthy eating workshops and quarterly health screenings.

The idea, of course, is to get healthier foods and food habits to those in food-insecure communities.

Speaking to ABC7, Jersey City Director of Health and Human Service Stacey Flanagan said that while food security has always been an issue, “with COVID it’s just exacerbated that.”

Her point is an important one. We talk about the ways in which the pandemic has forced us to rethink our eating choices and habits. Thanks in no small part to the pandemic, plant-based foods are on the rise, consumers are vying for space on CSA waitlists, and vertical farming companies are now releasing models of their high-tech systems for individual homes. But it’s a small number of consumers that have the time or money to explore those options.

For many, a $10 pack of alt-meat or a $500 at-home farm remain out of reach in terms of accessibility and affordability. As JourneyFoods’ CEO Riana Lynn reminded us recently, our eating is not equal, and lack of access to food is less the issue as lack of access to nutritious food: “Even when we are braced with an overwhelming lot of food options, they almost always lack the nutrient-density need to curb away from negative outcomes.” 

As it is right now, vertical farming, because of its focus on leafy greens, can’t adequately feed a community in the sense of it providing a healthy balance of proteins, vitamins, and calories. But it can play a role in bringing more nutritious elements to that community, which is what AeroFarms’ new partnership seems to be about. And we’ve seen promising news in the recent past that shows these farms will grow more than arugula one day: strawberries and even wheat, for example. 

AeroFarms isn’t alone in trying to bring more food equity to the vertical farming sector. Boston-based Freight Farms works with Miami’s Lotus House, a facility and resource center for women and children experiencing homelessness. The farm works in tandem with Lotus House’s Culinary Center, supplying both food and education to residents.

Over in Chicago, Wilder Fields has taken an abandoned Target store located in a food desert and turned it into a massive vertical farming facility to supply 25 million heads of lettuce to local grocery stores. The facility will also house an educational and retail component, and sell greens for cheaper than you would find at, say Whole Foods.

North of the border, Elevate Farms and North Star Agriculture Corp. are building out farms in isolated parts of Northern Canada, where food insecurity is rampant. 

All of these efforts (and quite a few more) suggests vertical farming has a dual role to play in future. If it can prove itself scalable, which it seems to be doing so far, it can provide a healthier alternative to traditional farming. And it can help lead the charge for food and food tech companies when it comes to creating more equality in our food system.

Winter Is Coming for Outdoor Dining, So Get Going With Off-Premises

In further proof that you can’t solve the current restaurant industry crisis by flipping a switch, Upserve released new data this week that shows many restaurants are still struggling with off-premises formats.

Upserve’s survey polled 421 players across different types of restaurants, including full-service/dine-in, fast casual, QSRs, and fine dining, among others. The big takeaway? More than half (64 percent) of restaurants feel “optimistic” about the future, but nearly half (47 percent) struggle with shifting their business models to online ordering and the formats that come with it.

We’ve seen this play out in real time for better and for worse throughout the last several months. Restaurants historically focused on dine-in service have had to pivot to delivery and curbside pickup, not to mention find affordable tech solutions that could enable online ordering. Businesses have struggled to master off-premises operations. They’ve gotten really creative with ad hoc tech stacks and worked much harder to communicate with their customers. And most all of them have seen a rise in off-premises orders. Upserve’s report said that as of July, its restaurant customers “have seen a 782.7% increase in Online Order sales volume growth.”

But Upserve also points out that autumn is practically upon us, and once colder weather comes, the option for outdoor seating will go away, not just for its own customers but for everyone. “It’s key that restaurants find an online ordering solution that works for their customers by the fall,” the report said.

The call to action for all restaurants right now is to get their off-premises strategies fine-tuned, streamlined, and operationally efficient, regardless of the trajectory of the pandemic or the future of indoor dining. Even if indoor dining returns in some form close to what we used to know, its chances of unseating off-premises at this point are slim to none.

Here’s Why Delivery Price Hikes By QSRs Could Spike Demand for Drive Thru

Admittedly, I brushed over news from earlier this week that some QSRs are raising their delivery prices more than 15 percent. But the more I’ve thought about it over the last few days, the more I wonder at two things: the chains’ motivations behind the price hikes and whether they’ll prompt more customers to order drive-thru and pickup to save a few bucks. 

Business Insider first wrote about the price hikes, noting that Chick-fil-A’s prices are 30 percent higher for delivery, while Starbucks and McDonald’s prices are about 20 percent higher. My own unscientific analysis compared the costs of McDonald’s double quarter pounder with cheese meal and found it to be $9.19 on Uber Eats versus $7.99 via McDonald’s own app. (Both prices are before taxes, delivery fees, and tip.)

That example is arguably not going to break the bank. But consider that since more people are staying home and ordering for the whole household, delivery orders are likely much bigger than a single meal, which could significantly raise the cost of dinner. 

Of course, part of the reason for these price hikes is that large chains, just like small restaurants, have to pay the third-party delivery piper when it comes to commission fees, which can go as high as 30 percent. Passing some of that burden on to the customer makes sense from a business perspective.

Question is, will customers want to shoulder that delivery burden when they could hop in the car, drive a couple miles, and collect their food via curbside pickup for cheaper? In many cases, probably not. For one thing, a lot of food from QSRs just doesn’t travel well and you typically wind up with soggy fries, watery soda, and lukewarm burgers. For another, we’re in economically uncertain times, y’all. 

Given all that, more customers will be motivated to order their fast food via pickup and drive thru, which may be part of these chains’ longer-term strategies in terms of price hikes. Restaurants make more money off pickup orders (no commission fees), and when orders are funneled through the business’s own digital properties, the customer data remains in-house. Over the last year we’ve seen an uptick in brands encouraging customers to order via in-house apps, while others are even launching their own full-stack delivery services. 

Price hike’s won’t take third-party delivery down, but if customers respond by choosing pickup, curbside, and drive-thru, the loss of business will be another swing of the hammer currently trying to crumble third-party delivery’s chances of profitability. 

Elsewhere in Restaurant Tech . . .

  • Iconic hot dog chain Nathan’s Famous has partnered with REEF to use the latter’s ghost kitchen network to fulfill more off-premises orders. The partnership is now in Manhattan, and Nathan’s has cities like LA, Portland, and Minneapolis on the horizon. 
  • Yum Brands’ digital sales hit an all time high of $3.5 billion in Q2 of 2020. The parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut notably said on the call that opening dining rooms was important but not “critical” to the company’s success. 
  • Sonic unveiled a new drive-thru design that’s further proof the drive-thru experience is also being reinvented. Contactless order and payment capabilities, expanded patio areas, and “lawn games” (?!) are all part of the new design.
  • Oakland this week became the latest city to approve a cap on commission fees third-party delivery services charge restaurants. The 15-percent cap is effective immediately and last until 90 days after the COVID-19 health emergency is over. Whenever that is.