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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Coronavirus

The Spoon team is working hard to bring you the latest on the impact of COVID-19. Bookmark this page for our full archive on the pandemic and how the food industry is embracing innovation to fight back.

On April 6th, The Spoon had a full day virtual summit on COVID-19 strategies for food & restaurants. You can watch all the sessions from our virtual strategy summit here.

You can also check out this COVID-19 resource page for food and restaurant industry.

GROW Accelerator Unveils the 12 Companies Picked for Its Singapore Food Bowl Program

Singapore Food Bowl, a food-focused startup program backed by AgFunder’s GROW accelerator, today announced the 12 startups chosen for its first-ever cohort. While those companies vary in terms of what they do and offer, all of them are working towards the same underlying goal: to build a more sustainable food system that’s more decentralized and able to stand up to unexpected, unprecedented crises like COVID-19. 

That’s an especially urgent goal in Singapore, a country that relies on imports for about 90 percent of its food. To address this, the Singapore government recently created the 30 by 30 initiative, where the city-state aims to have 30 percent of its food grown locally by 2030. Reaching that goal will require a substantial amount of food tech and alternative farming methods, since Singapore has very little in the way of arable land. 

Hence, programs like Singapore Food Bowl which is tied to the 30 by 30 initiative and also supported by Enterprise Singapore and Dole Packaged Foods. 

John Friedman, director at GROW and AgFunder Asia, said in today’s announcement that the program is “providing a platform not only to accelerate innovation in the local agrifood tech ecosystem, but also to raise awareness across broader society of the need for transformation and greater sustainability throughout our food system.”

AgFunder unveiled the 12 chosen startups this morning: 

  • Augmentus: A code-free robotics automation platform built for use in settings like urban farming
  • CocoPallet: Makes shipping pallets from byproducts of coconut farming for use in the global logistics industry
  • Crust Group: Uses leftover bread from hotels, restaurants, and cafes to create craft beers and other beverages
  • DiMuto: Uses internet-of-things and blockchain to digitize the supply chain for better visibility for both suppliers and customers
  • Fortuna Cools: Uses coconut husks to make a cheaper and biodegradable alternative to traditional iceboxes
  • Invertigro: A modular indoor farming system with specialized crop recipes companies can integrate into their existing business models
  • ListenField: An IoT-enabled app that gives farmers actionable data on crop and climate analysis
  • Lleaf: Developing a polymer film that can be applied to greenhouse panels to increase crop yields
  • Mi Terro: Turns spoiled milk into an odorless, temperature-regulating fabric that can be used for clothes, bedding, and food packaging.
  • Organic Technology Holdings: Repurposes organic waste for pet foods, aquafeed, flavor additives, and health supplements
  • SingCell: Provides biotech development and manufacturing services to help cultured meat companies get to market faster.
  • Smoocht: A “r’ice cream” maker that uses organic brown rice milk to make plant-based desserts

Given the state of the pandemic, the 12-week program is completely virtual. It’s in session right now and will run through mid-September.

Euromonitor: Ghost Kitchens Poised to Become a $1T Market by 2030

Ghost kitchens could become a $1 trillion market by 2030, according to a Euromonitor webinar from this week (h/t Restaurant Dive). 

The webinar was led by Michael Schaefer, the Global Lead for Food & Beverage at Euromonitor International. During the webinar, he noted that “we’re going to see a lot of new operators looking to fill the void with cheaper concepts . . . more delivery-friendly concepts that require less capital up front.”

Via a series of slides and commentary, Schaefer notes that “global foodservice delivery sales more than doubled from 2014 to 2019” and that 52 percent of global consumers are “comfortable ordering from a delivery-only restaurant (no physical outlet).” The pandemic, too, has made the market for ghost kitchens even more lucrative than it was at the beginning of 2020. 

With most restaurants having now been more or less forced into building out off-premises strategies, ghost kitchens provide in many cases a faster, cheaper way to fulfill things like delivery orders. An accompanying slide the webinar breaks down just how much of the restaurant segment ghost kitchens could potentially capture:

  • 50 percent of drive-thru ($75 billion)
  • 50 percent of takeout ($250 billion)
  • 25 percent of dine-in ($450 billion)

That said, ghost kitchens are “one step” in an ongoing evolution, according to Schaefer. “As more and more of the foodservice environment becomes optimized for delivery, a generation of consumers growing up with smartphones becomes accustomed and habituated to being able to order literally anything from their smartphone. That is going to drive ever-more innovation,” he said.

That innovation will in all likelihood touch every aspect of the restaurant experience, from how food gets from kitchen to customer to the types of foods prepared to the underlying technology powering operations. Ghost kitchens are getting a ton of press right now because of the role they could play in helping restaurants keep the lights on as the pandemic wreaks havoc on traditional dining rooms. But, as this week’s webinar suggests, it’s important to remember that things are just getting started as far as ghost kitchens are concerned. 

Updated: DoorDash Did Not Violate the SF Commission Fee Cap for Restaurants

UPDATE 07/09 at 6:03 EST:

A representative from DoorDash sent the following statement to The Spoon: “We have corrected a separate error affecting fewer than 10 out of over a thousand of our SF restaurant partners and will be issuing reimbursements to these restaurants.”

UPDATE 07/09 at 5:37 EST:

San Francisco chef Christian Ciscle, who originally surfaced news suggesting DoorDash had violated San Francisco’s 15 percent cap on restaurant commission fees, sent an update this afternoon via Twitter: 

“UPDATE: Doordash called around 5:30- I fucked up. While the Merchant Info STILL said 30%, they were actually only taking 15% when I looked at the invoice. They never responded to my emails about it from weeks ago. But, hopefully those “10” Restaurants will get reimbursed.”

The Spoon has reached out to DoorDash for clarification and will post another update in the event of new information on this story.

PREVIOUSLY:

DoorDash looks to have violated the 15 percent cap the city of San Francisco put in place in April for the commission fees delivery services charge restaurants. Some businesses have reported getting charged unexpected 30 percent commission fees from the third-party delivery service after the caps went in place, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. 

DoorDash told the Chronicle that the charges were a mistake and that it will reimburse restaurants affected by said mistake. According to the delivery service, fewer than 10 restaurants were impacted, and those restaurants will be reimbursed.

However, Christian Ciscle, a San Francisco chef, said he had not been notified of any reimbursements “despite multiple calls to DoorDash.” 

Ciscle was the one to shed light on the issue via a screenshot posted to Twitter:

Normally (read: no pandemic), the commission fees services like DoorDash charge restaurants can reach as high as 30 percent per transaction, a point that’s been an ongoing problem in the world of restaurant delivery. When the pandemic shuttered dining rooms around the country this spring, the problem became a major focal point in the debate over the ethics of third-party delivery. 

San Francisco isn’t the only city to have introduced mandatory fee caps for delivery services. New York, Seattle, Chicago, and several others made similar moves in the recent past. Most of these fee caps are set to last so long as cities remain under emergency states due to COVID-19. That could be a while longer, given the record-setting number of cases the U.S. is now seeing.

DoorDash should absolutely pay back restaurants involved. However, let’s hold off a bit before we herald fee caps as the thing that will keep third-party delivery practices in check. They won’t. They’re necessary to some degree while restaurants are forced to do delivery and off-premises orders. But they’re still just a bandage on a much larger ailment, which is the convenience-driven, gig-economy-reliant model on which third-party delivery is built. Until some of delivery’s more fundamental issues, including the glaringly unprofitable nature of the model, are addressed, fee caps are just one in the crowd when it comes to problems for restaurants.

Shake Shack Will Teach You How to Run a Lemonade Stand This Summer

Shake Shack, the same chain that recently brought us DIY meal kits and to-go-only stores, this week introduced what’s maybe it’s weirdest pandemic offering yet: summer camp in a box.

Dubbed the Shack Camp Box, the kit contains a bunch of supplies with which to do craft-y activities, including food-related ones. The brand will run a virtual camp via its Instagram channel where folks can follow along through the summer. Build your own lemonade stand (complete with prompts on how to run a business), create ice cream sundaes, and other activities are on the agenda. The “camp” website also notes $75 worth of exclusive offers as a perk, so there’s doubtless some Shake Shack grub thrown into the mix, too.

Considering the various and strange ways restaurants are currently employing to connect with customers they can’t serve in dining rooms, a box of glorified swag doesn’t actually seem that outlandish. For those with kids, it might actually prove useful, since many summer camps have been cancelled and more kids are staying at home this year. 

There’s also a philanthropic angle to it, which means it’s hard to get too cynical here. The campaign supports The Fresh Air Fund’s virtual summer program that brings virtual camp activities to underserved children in NYC.

The Shack Camp Box is available as of today. Each box includes six activities and goes for $79 via the Shack Camp’s site. Corresponding Instagram videos start on July 13.

Shake Shack needs as much customer connection as it can get right now. Despite its efforts around improving its off-premises strategy during lockdown, the chain reported this week that second-quarter sales were down 49 percent as a result of both the pandemic and nationwide protests. In a business report released Tuesday, the company noted that “Shack sales were estimated to be negatively impacted by approximately $3.2 million in the fiscal period June due to nationwide protest activity and resulting curfews causing temporary Shack closures and reduced operating hours.”

The company has also had to re-close some stores because of the rise in coronavirus cases of late.

Virtual summer camp won’t be able to fix all the brand’s problems, but it is another example of a restaurant trying to redefine what the restaurant experience means, both right now and for the future. 

Week in Restaurants: A Classic SoCal Diner Goes Off-Premises, Dom’s Still Checking Pizzas

Why are you reading this and not grilling up a delicious Beyond Burger this holiday weekend?

As long as you’re here, let’s take a quick look at the week in restaurants. And what a week it was. With states halting the reopening of dining rooms, it’s clear the effects of the pandemic are far from over in the restaurant industry. Yet business keeps on, and there were a number of noteworthy developments from this week around ghost kitchens, AI pizza checkers, and the greatest diner of all time.

New NORMS

NORMS, a much-loved diner chain in Southern California, this week debuted NORMS Junior, a new store prototype geared towards to-go orders. The company says NORMS Junior will be the model for future NORMS locations — no surprise, given the pandemic’s effect on dining rooms (see above). NRN has some great slides of what this new NORMS will look like.

Next Stop for Wingstop: Ghost Kitchens

Also riding the off-premises wave strong is fast-casual chain Wingstop, who this week opened its first ghost kitchen in its hometown of Dallas, TX. The new facility is less than 400 square feet and is for delivery-only orders. Wingstop says one of its goals is to digitize 100 percent of its transactions. A delivery-only ghost kitchen will aid in that.

Taco Bell Redoes Digital Rewards

Simply dubbed Taco Bell Rewards, the new app-based loyalty program comes five years after the band’s original rewards program. Apparently the idea of a new loyalty app was so popular it sent Taco Bell traffic through the roof and temporarily crashed the site. To access the new rewards program, customers can download the latest version of the Taco Bell app, which includes a beta version of Taco Bell Rewards.

AI Will Continue Checking Your Pizzas

Domino’s and Dragontail Systems said this week they will continue their partnership, which puts Dragontail’s AI tech in Domino’s restaurants to ensure quality. The smart scanner uses advanced machine learning, artificial intelligence, and sensor technology to check the quality of pies before the go out for delivery. (Dragontail’s tech can also be used to ensure proper sanitization in restaurants.) The continuation of the partnership means more of these pizza scanners across more Domino’s locations. So far, the partnership between the two companies has been limited to Domino’s locations Australia. They have not yet said if this extended partnership will bring the technology to stores elsewhere in the world.

McDonald’s Halts Reopening Plans. Here’s What That Could Mean for Restaurants and Restaurant Tech

McDonald’s is pausing its reopening plans for dining rooms for three weeks following a rise in coronavirus cases around the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal.

To be clear, the mega-chain isn’t (yet) re-closing dining rooms that are already opened. The WSJ reports that McDonald’s restaurants that have already reopened may continue offering dine-in service “if their jurisdiction allows it.” Right now, roughly 2,200 of the 14,000 U.S. locations are open for dine-in service. 

But it could well mean that all newly reopened McDonald’s dining rooms will have to shutter again in the near future. The McDonald’s news comes as some U.S. states are seeing new surges in coronavirus outbreaks. Texas, Florida, Arizona, and California lead in terms of the number of new cases. 

In response, restaurants that had already reopened or were planning to are instead having to grapple with another shutdown. California governor Gavin Newsom ordered the closures of all reopened bars and restaurants (among other businesses) in 19 counties. New York City halted its plans to reopen indoor dining on July 6, and Texas put the brakes on its own plans about a week ago. 

McDonald’s pausing its reopening plans nationwide in response to all this will undoubtedly influence other national restaurant brands that have already reopened some stores. 

But like everything else about this virus, when it comes to these re-closures, confusion reigns supreme. In some states, only bars are closed. In others, like California, stops to reopening plans only apply to certain counties. And some businesses are voluntarily closing their doors.

All of this makes for yet-more uncertainty for restaurants, particularly independent businesses that have been struggling to keep the lights on for the last couple months. The hope is that more restaurants are better equipped to deal with dining room closures, now that they’ve been through the process once and have (hopefully) implemented to-go strategies to offset some of the lost revenue. But that feels overly optimistic, given how badly the pandemic has already decimated the restaurant industry.

It also calls into question the long-term viability of some front-of-house-focused restaurant tech solutions that rushed to unveil “contactless dining room” packages. If more states hit the pause button on reopening plans, companies like Presto, Paytronix, and Sevenrooms may again have to pivot in order to remain relevant.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Deliveroo’s New Table Service Feature

U.K.-based food delivery service Deliveroo launched a new feature this week that sounds convenient on the surface but could cause some problems for more than one party in the restaurant biz. This “Table Service” feature, as it’s dubbed, is meant “to help restaurants reopen safely to dine-in customers and help the recovery of the sector,” according to a company blog post. The feature is available on July 15.

In terms of how it works, the feature is simple: Customers sit down at the cafe, restaurant, or bar, pull up the existing Deliveroo app, and order their food with the Table Service feature, rather than directly interfacing with a server. Payment also happens in the app, so that all the restaurant staff (theoretically) have to do is cook the food and bring it out to the table.

Here’s the good of this new way of operating dining rooms:

If you’re an existing Deliveroo user, it’s convenient. You don’t have to download yet-another mobile ordering app, and since this is table service, not delivery, the extra fees third-party services tack onto orders should be minimal. Deliveroo also said in its blog post it will charge zero commission fee to the restaurant on these orders.

Without a doubt, there is also a level of social distancing built into this concept that will be safer for both restaurants and customers. Being able to sit down and order a meal from your phone gets rid of long lines and crowding near a cash register, and it does, to a degree, minimize customer-to-server interactions.

But on that note, here’s what’s less awesome about Deliveroo’s new feature:

It’s not as socially distanced as the hype would have you believe. Someone has to run the food and be available to refill drinks or assist if there is a problem with the meal. (“I said fries, not salad!”)

This isn’t a Deliveroo-specific problem. All restaurants and restaurant tech solutions have to account for the fact that in any sit-down dining experience, you can’t get away from at least some customer-to-staff interactions. I don’t think Deliveroo, or any company, is promising to completely eradicate those interactions. The company blog post specifically says “minimising in-person contact.” Even so, it’s something to keep in mind as more companies come to market with these contactless solutions for dining rooms. 

More worrying is what a feature like Deliveroo’s Table Service means for restaurant tech companies. Like I said, tech companies, and even non-tech companies, offering contactless dining room solutions have multiplied in the last several weeks. Sevenrooms, Presto, Zuppler, this signage company, and many others offer restaurants the technical means to let guests order and pay from their phones in the dining room. Paytronix has a system that even lets you keep your virtual “tab” — that is, ticket — open so you can order another round of drinks or dessert without making multiple transactions.

If third-party delivery starts offering order and pay features for the dining room en masse, it could be a serious competitive threat for these companies. 

Most alarming about this new feature is what it means for customer data. Ownership of customer data is already seen as a huge issue with third-party delivery services. If restaurants can’t see data about what their customers are ordering, when they’re doing it, etc., they’re less able to cater to exactly what those customers want when it comes to food. 

Deliveroo owning the customer data in the dining room could potentially mean restaurants wouldn’t get the feedback they need to deliver good service that’s enjoyable and simultaneously safe in this pandemic-stricken era. 

A while back, one restaurant tech CEO told me that the COVID-19 pandemic should be treated as “a wakeup call” for restaurants when it comes to their data. In his view, these restaurants need to “to rethink how they’re connecting digitally with their customers.” This is likely to become even more important going forward as governments encourage contactless technologies in restaurants and more customers gravitate towards using their phones for browsing and buying from restaurant menus.

So before you restaurants go signing up for Deliveroo’s new model for the dining room, consider first your digital relationship to your customers, how you treat your customer data, and, most important, how willing you are to part with it when it comes to the newly reopened dining room. 

NPD: Consumers Sought Solace in Snacks During COVID Quartantine

When the pandemic hit the U.S. in full force, the grocery shopping habits in our house immediately changed. Our online grocery carts were suddenly filled with salty, sugary, pre-packaged snacks: bite-sized Snickers, Mac-n-cheese in cups, Wheat Thins for days. All of these “treats” had long shelf-lives, and were easy to grab as we gobbled up our anxieties.

We were definitely not alone with our snacking. According to new data from the NPD Group’s Snack Food Behaviors in Challenging Times study, snack food consumption is up 8 percent during the pandemic. For comparison, during The Great Recession between 2008 and 2010, snack food saw a 1 percent increase.

From the NPD press announcement:

In April, during the height of the shelter-at-home orders, 37% of consumers told NPD they wanted to make sure they had sufficient snack foods on hand. They were well-stocked on salty snacks and frozen sweets more than other items. Also, in many cases, the more snack food packages in the home, the more frequently the item is consumed, which tends to be especially true of certain types of snack foods. For example, consumers who have five or more packages of crackers or salty snacks consume those foods at higher rates than consumers with fewer packages in their home.

Of course, the fact that people are buying tons of cookies and crackers isn’t necessarily a good thing. Chips and cookies can be cheaper than fruits and vegetables and last a lot longer, making them a much more attractive option for a nation experiencing record job losses. So the more affordable option is not the healthier one, reinforcing certain equity divides.

With the pandemic showing no signs of slowing down, and states halting re-opening plans, we’ll have to see if our snacking stays the same.

Some States Halt Re-Opening, Bars Ordered to Shut Down

Twelve states have stopped their former plans to re-open businesses amid continued growth and record setting numbers for coronavirus infections. Florida and Texas have shut down bars, and Texas also reduced capacity at restaurants from 75 percent to 50 percent. California ordered bars to shut down in seven of its counties, including Los Angeles county.

As CNN reported over the weekend, states halting their re-opening plans include Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico and North Carolina. Washington state also announced over the weekend that it is not moving into phase four of its re-opening.

Coronavirus cases continue pretty much unabated across the U.S., with a record 44,726 new cases reported last Friday.

The restaurant industry has been decimated by the pandemic As my colleague, Jenn Marston wrote last week:

As of June 15, roughly 140,000 businesses were listed on Yelp as closed. While retail got hit the hardest, restaurants came in at a close second, with 23,981 businesses closed. And here’s the kicker: more than half — 53 percent — of those restaurants currently closed won’t reopen, according to Yelp.

For most restaurants across the country, re-opening dining rooms meant fewer tables spaced further apart, as well as a host of other guidelines such as disposable menus and servers wearing face masks, all meant to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

And there’s some indication those measures were working in bringing people back. While restaurant sales were down year-over-year, NPD data showed that they sales were growing, even as cases of COVID spiked. From a recent NPD press release announcing the firm’s latest findings:

For the week ending June 14 total major restaurant chain transactions are down -12% versus the same week a year ago, which is -1% below the previous week but the ninth consecutive improvement year-over-year, reports NPD. Quick service restaurants still managed to improve slightly to -11% versus year ago compared to -13% the previous week. As dining rooms reopen, full service restaurant chains continue to have the strongest improvement in customer transaction declines, having a week-over-week gain of 12% in week ending June 14, moving up +6 points on a year-over-year basis to -26% versus year ago.

It’s too soon to say how high the number of COVID-19 cases will reach over the next few weeks or how many more restaurants and bars will have to close again as a response. Offering takeout, drive-thru, curbside pickup, and other off-premises channels was a small lifeline to businesses during nationwide shelter-in-place mandates. Restaurants large and small are being encouraged to continue keeping their focus on these areas, in the hopes that off-premises will help them keep the lights on if dining rooms are once more forced to close. 

My Other Phone Is a Restaurant

The surprise hit story on The Spoon this week has been our recent post on Mexico City-based remotekitchen, a startup that’s building a mobile-first restaurant-tech platform that, theoretically at least, only needs a smart phone to operate. 

I highlight this story not because I think every restaurant needs to pare down their tech stack to a smartphone, but because now more than ever, restaurant tech companies need to ensure their products are offering real value to restaurants. In other words, they need to solve problems restaurants are having right now while also helping to prepare for the ones waiting for us in the future.

Remotekitchen’s platform solves some obvious problems for its core audience. Its founders explained to me that 96 percent of independent restaurants in Latin America are not online, that restaurant tech solutions are underdeveloped in the region, and that a vast majority of restaurant owners have to take orders via their own smartphones. The mobile-first approach also better equips operators to run virtual restaurants, which may be necessary depending on how high the coronavirus wave spikes.

The U.S. is not like Latin America when it comes to restaurant tech. We have choice and then some. Prior the pandemic, restaurant tech solutions included not just point of sale systems and self-serve kiosks, but also reservations management, wearable computing, virtual reality on boarding . . . the list goes on and on and on.

I don’t think restaurant tech companies should necessarily stop work on any of the above solutions, so long as they’re somehow helping restaurants solve the industry’s most urgent problems. Such as:

Improving restaurant pickup orders. For restaurants new to the off-premises world, juggling takeout and/or curbside pickup orders has proven challenging — to put it politely. Restaurants need more streamlined ways to both receive and deliver pickup orders to customers. (Geofencing, perhaps?)

Making restaurants more socially distant. I don’t refer to space between tables here. That is not a problem tech needs to solve. Menus, on the other hand, are. The number of simple digital menu solutions out there right now is encouraging, and many of them rely on simple signage or QR codes. And unlike chalkboards or disposable paper menus, digital menus could eventually become interactive tools for guests to learn more about the food they’re eating.

Enabling better communications with customers. This one is huge. Back when the pandemic first hit. I remember one restaurant telling me their customers didn’t even know they were open for takeout. Part of this is due to the rise of third-party delivery, which owns a lot of customer relationships. Delivery integrators are one way around this, as they allow restaurants to offer off-premises while still keeping their customer data.

These are just a few of the hot-button issues in the restaurant biz right now. I’m sure you have others, so drop us a line (tips@thespoon.tech) to let us know where you think restaurant tech will be the most valuable right now.

Restaurant Closures Underscore the Need for Off-Premises

The week, Yelp released new data about COVID-19’s continued impact on businesses, the restaurant industry included. The takeaway? A bunch of restaurants that have temporarily closed may never reopen.

Quite a lot of them, actually. 

As of June 15, roughly 140,000 businesses were listed on Yelp as closed. While retail got hit the hardest, restaurants came in at a close second, with 23,981 businesses closed. And here’s the kicker: more than half — 53 percent — of those restaurants currently closed won’t reopen, according to Yelp. 

“Restaurants run on thin margins and can sometimes take months or even years to break even, resulting in this higher rate of permanent closures,” Yelp explained in its update. 

This is aggravated by the rising number of COVID-19 cases across many states, which is causing governments to either delay reopening or order closures again. Some restaurants that had already reopened have to close once more because of employees becoming infected. 

Right now it’s incredibly hard to predict the total number of restaurants that will close permanently. Yelp’s numbers are actually smaller than a report by Independent Restaurant Coalition that said 85 percent of indie restaurants could close by the end of the year. Still, tens of thousands of restaurants is a lot of restaurants.

The lesson? First, that we’re going to be riding this will they-won’t they wave in terms of restaurant closures for a long time. Second, those that can, must continue finding ways to serve their customers with off-premises orders, even if their dining rooms have partially reopened. 

I’m All-In on Smart Vending Machines for Restaurants

On the note of restaurant tech that’s useful, The Spoon’s Editor recently did a report on the promise of automated vending machines in the foodservice world. I give it a shout out here because these next-generation machines, which serve up actual meals created by real chefs, could be the answer to getting good food in a socially distanced manner in many settings.

Consider the old mall food court, where you could mill between different restaurants and build your own smorgasbord of mediocre mall food. Digitizing as much of these very public spaces as possible will be necessary for sanitization and social distancing in the future. Since next-gen automated vending machines are basically their own little restaurant in a box, it’s possible we’ll one day head to food courts not manned by people but equipped with multiple machines from different brands offering increased choice without so much human interaction.

Given the way this pandemic is heading, smart vending machines could be a really smart idea.

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Can Food Tech Save the School Cafeteria?

I’ve been getting emails from my son’s elementary school saying that they plan on having some form of in-school instruction come September (knocks on wood). Some of the new regulations to ensure that happens are things like requiring masks, limiting the number of kids who can interact with each other, and social distancing.

There is obviously no perfect solution, and there are still a ton of unknowns, but my son is excited at the prospect of going back to school and hanging out with his friends. (Plus, teacher dad is not his favorite.)

My big question is around how schools will handle activities outside of the sit-down classroom. Specifically for the purposes of The Spoon, how will the school handle the cafeteria and lunch? Facemasks can’t be worn by kiddos while they are eating. Talking (read: yelling) will be tough six feet apart. And kids, well, will be kids.

Do they need plexiglass shields in between each kid? Individually packaged meals? Should they eat outside? (Though here in the Pacific Northwest, that’s only possible until October.)

I write about companies doing innovative things to battle this pandemic every day. Robots delivering meals. Vending machines replacing the salad bar. Mannequins to enforce social distancing in restaurants.

But none of these solutions seem to be up to the task of managing the unique chaos of a school cafeteria packed (or at reduced capacity) with a bunch of 5 – 10 year olds. Is there any way to innovate school lunch in the time of COVID-19?

The question is so broad and complex that I feel like I’m asking it into the wind because it seems like there is no answer. Maybe a Spoon reader has a better answer or at least an idea. So what do you think? What can food tech do to keep the cafeteria as safe as possible?

Squadle Launches a Thermal Scanner for Restaurants to Better Monitor Employee Health

With restaurant dining rooms now open under new restrictions and precautions, we’re seeing quite a few devices emerge that aim to better monitor the health of workers and customers. The latest of these is from tech company Squadle, which today launched its Sqaudle Sense Thermal Scanner that lets restaurants and other foodservice businesses quickly perform automated health checks on guests and employees, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Cambridge, MA-based Squadle is already known among QSRs for its hardware-software system that automates operational tasks in the restaurant. McDonald’s and Dunkin’ are among the chains that already use the company’s technology.

Squadle Sense is a 6”x6” device that mounts to the wall and uses Squadle’s patented ZeroTouch sensor technology. That tech has until now been used by restaurants to monitor equipment like coolers or refrigerators. As part of Squadle Sense, it can now be used to monitor humans’ temperature. 

Employees “sign in” with an app or keycard, then simply stand in front of the device while it performs a quick scan. When the system detects an above-normal temperature, it automatically alerts a manager via the accompanying app. The system can also be used in the front of house for restaurants that want to check guest health before customers enter the premises. Restaurant owners and managers can configure settings (e.g., define “above normal” temperatures) remotely via the app.

According to today’s press release, the device is available for pre-order and will ship in Fall 2020. A monthly fee (determined according to the restaurant’s needs) covers both the hardware and software.

Squadle joins the likes of PathSpot, Fujitsu, POPid, and ResQ in releasing devices and software that monitors employee and guest health and provides better tracking of restaurants’ efforts around sanitization.

One of the challenges restaurants have encountered during this reopening phase is that there is no one single set of standards when it comes to sanitization practices and employee health and safety. That gets especially tricky as regulations vary from state to state. While Squadle isn’t claiming to set any kind of industry standard with its new device, the remote monitoring aspect of the system at least allows multi-unit chains to adhere to the same standards across borders and locations.