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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Interfaces

Toast and BevSpot Want to Improve the Way Restaurants Use Back-of-House Data

Yesterday, restaurant-management software maker Toast announced a partnership with BevSpot, whose own software simplifies the order tracking and inventory process for restaurants. The new solution claims to save businesses time and energy collecting and making sense of data from sales, ordering, and inventory.

Toast’s Android-powered platform already combines a POS system, front- and back-of-house operations, and customer-facing technology (e.g., tabletop order kiosks) into a single cloud-based platform. The BevSpot partnership is a boost because it addresses the often arduous process of gathering and analyzing data from activities that happen behind the scenes: taking accurate inventory, checking the status of an order, and calculating things like pour costs. For a restaurant — particularly a large operation — a combined service like the Toast-BevSpot one could speed up and/or automate a lot of these tasks, not to mention make the numbers more accurate.

Inventory tracking alone is tough; screwing it up, even with a tiny miscalculation, can drastically change the sales numbers. With the Toast-BevSpot integration, businesses will be able to see exact numbers on what goes into the kitchen, what goes out, spillage, customer complaints, theft, and a whole bunch of other factors that affect inventory.

And by harmonizing the POS data with inventory and order data (which is all digitized, thanks to BevSpot), businesses will in all likelihood have an easier time spotting trends, whether it’s about which time of day sells the most fries to what days of the week the kitchen goes through more eggs.

The BevSpot integration is part of Toast’s API Partner Program, where companies can partner with Toast to integrate its system into their own software. Among many others, Grubhub, LevelUp, and Hot Schedules all participate.

Toast raised a $115 million in Series D funding in July and is currently valued at $1.4 billion. But’s a crowded market out there. TouchBistro is a popular competitor and raised a $70 million Series D in June, and Square launched its own POS system in May. This partnership with BevSpot is no doubt a way for Toast to further differentiate itself by dabbling in the data issue — a topic that’s only going to get more important as high tech becomes commonplace in restaurants.

Shake Shack Gives Self-Service Kiosks a Second Chance

A little over a year ago, Shake Shack opened its first-ever location powered by self-service kiosks in the East Village. At the restaurant, all ordering and payments were made through digital kiosks — no human intervention necessary.

Except human intervention actually was totally necessary. In a matter of months, customers practically declared mutiny and Shake Shack abandoned the concept. “The kiosks are also supposed to make things go quicker, but the wait is even longer,” one commenter noted.

But it seems the Danny Meyer-backed chain is giving the concept another go. This week Shake Shack announced it will expand its kiosk locations; but with some differences from the pilot.

Most notably, the selected stores will feature a more hybrid concept, offering both cashiers and kiosks. This combo is a wise move on Shake Shack’s part, since kiosks still cause a fair share of confusion and there are many who would benefit more from interacting with an actual person. Guests will also be able to use cash if they prefer, as the card-only payments were a point of grief with the original kiosk-concept location. Right now, Shake Shack currently has five locations that offer this hybrid kiosk-human structure, and plans to open more in areas like San Francisco and Seattle, where labor costs run especially high.

And labor costs will continue to be an issue. On its second-quarter earnings call, Shake Shack reported that those increased year over year by 26.3 percent, partially driven by increases to minimum wage.

That’s where the kiosks come in: “We are learning how the kiosk experience changes the flow in the front-house, the extent to which we are back to speed at service, kitchen throughput, how it best enhances the guest experience, its ability to deliver labor leverage in the future and how ordering behavior may be impacted,” said CEO Randy Garutti.

Automation in quick-service restaurants is becoming more and more commonplace, to make an understatement — and it’s not hard to see why. Analysts say that kiosks could help McDonald’s recoup $2.7 billion in sales. The fast food leader said it plans to add kiosks to 1,000 stores every quarter for the next two years.

And kiosks were all the rage at this year’s National Restaurant Association show, which had products from 365 Retail Markets, Adusa Inc., and Apex. And those are just the first three on the alphabetized list.

Shake Shack stands a somewhat better chance of succeeding with kiosks this time around. That’s partly because they’re still accepting cash and party because people’s perception towards automation has shifted since the first iteration. Consumers in general are more comfortable with kiosk interfaces in 2018 than ever before, whether at the airport or eating lunch.

However, it’s best not to paint too rosy a future at the moment. Shake Shack and others may be touting an ideal solution with these kiosk-cashier hybrid locations, but there are no significant numbers yet on how well the locations will perform. And with labor costs continuing to rise, the pressure to automate more and more restaurant operations will increase. Understanding when and where to do that — and when and where not to — will be key to any fast-casual chain’s success.

Interested in the future of restaurant tech? Come to the Smart Kitchen Summit! Use discount code SPOON for 25% off of tickets. 

Now That Delivery Is All the Rage, What Happens to the Drive-Thru?

Long John Silver’s, that bastion of quick-service seafood, made a bold claim today by announcing their intent to “install the most technologically advanced digital drive-thru platforms in the restaurant industry.”

Over the next two years, about 400 Long John Silver’s flagship units will be revamped to include three high-def screens, digital audio, and an automated ordering system powered by technology from Allure, who makes visual communication and retail transaction platforms. As of now, these revamped drive-thrus are in 86 of Long John Silver’s stores.

Digital menu boards may not be the most exciting news on the block, but Long John Silver’s also noted in the press release that they were merely “laying groundwork for a fully automated drive-thru in the future.” No mention of robots yet, but you never know.

More importantly, this recent move puts them a growing list of quick-service chains revamping their drive-thru strategies in a bid to compete both with each other and with the nation’s current craze for delivery services.

So are Long John Silver’s efforts to (sort of) reinvent its drive-thru a case of too little, too late?

The short answer is no. But the company will have to hit the figurative gas pedal if it wants to keep up; they’re hardly alone when it comes to adopting tech to improve wait times, order accuracy, and other factors of drive-thru service. In fact, QSR’s 2017 Drive-Thru Performance Study noted that survey participants cited “technology” as the most important factor for improving drive-thru service, as well as the “one innovation that is going to change the future of drive-thru.”

The study doesn’t mention what particular aspect of technology will be the gamechanger, everyone is trying out different tactics.

At Subway, you can order a meal at the drive-thru from a touchscreen kiosk; if a user scans their phone on the screen, the system can identify past orders and also accept payments. Right now there are only 200 Subway locations with these kiosks, though they’re reportedly very effective. Rob Woodward, who operates Subways in Loveland, CO and Cheyenne, WY, said the 15 percent jump in sales was thanks to the kiosks installed those locations.

Starbucks, meanwhile, announced earlier this year that 80 percent of all new cafes will have drive-thrus. They’ve added interesting elements in the past to drive-thru, like putting baristas’ faces on outside video screens, which the company did in 2015. But Starbucks currently lags behind Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, Panera, and others in terms of how long customers wait in the drive-thru lane. They’ll have to address this in order to stay competitive, which is part of the reason for the aggressive push to add more drive-thrus to stores.

Mobile-payment capabilities, a category in which Starbucks is a leader, could help. But others have mobile platforms as well, notably McDonald’s, who added mobile payment capabilities to drive-thru orders last year. Dunkin’ Donuts made a similar move earlier in 2018, and even gave customers at the Quincy, MA “store of the future” who used mobile payment their own drive-thru lane. Chick-fil-A has also invested in the multiple-lane concept to increase capacity and speed up order times.

Looked at collectively, all these developments seem to promise a brighter, faster future for drive-thrus. But can the category as a whole stand up to the delivery craze? After all, these same restaurants who are adjusting their drive-thrus are also partnering with third-party delivery services, and food delivery as a category is projected to grow 12 percent every year for the next five years.

I expect convenience will be the most important element at play here. Drive-thrus aren’t going to disappear on us, but restaurants need to ensure — through speed, ease of use, and accuracy — that the tech-centric solutions they’re offering make the experience as convenient for the customer as delivery does. Which means we’ll see more of things like touchscreen kiosks, mobile payments, and mobile ordering in the near future. And once we can add self-driving cars to that list, the drive-thru of the future will have truly arrived.

Richard Blais is a Big Believer in Voice Interfaces

The way we interact with our kitchens is in the midst of massive changes. Guided cooking apps are helping anyone become a better cook, screens are popping up on fridges (and elsewhere), and we can control more and more appliances in the kitchen just by talking to them.

It’s this voice control that celebrity chef Richard Blais thinks will revolutionize the kitchen. In a Q&A with Uproxx, Blais said:

So, as a big tech guy and start-up enthusiast, I think we are right here — not that we have any of this technology right now, but voice activated everything I believe is — first of all, it’s already in some homes… But I think that where the commercial restaurant or kitchen very shortly will be able to see some really amazing things happen, from the business perspective as well as the cooking execution.

If I could walk into my kitchen right now, like I can in my home, and set an oven, and a fryer and a refrigerator temperature by just saying, “Hey oven, turn on to 500 degrees and set the fryer to this and turn the lights on to this.”

We often write about voice interfaces in the home kitchen. GE’s new microwave is Alexa-enabled so you can tell it to stop or add time to your cooking. You can control LG’s SmartThinq line of cooktops ovens and fridges with Alexa or Google Home. And Kohler and Delta both have voice controlled faucets that let you dispense precise amounts of water.

These are all applications for home kitchens, however, which usually are less loud and chaotic environments than a commercial kitchen. Chef Blais would know better than I, so I wonder what tweaks would need to be made in a restaurant kitchen to accommodate for noise levels, voice recognition and lag time reduction between when a command is given and when the appliance executes it.

Thankfully, we will have a chance to ask Chef Blais in person, as he will be a speaker at our upcoming Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle this October (get your tickets now!). He’s enthusiastic about technology so the discussion with him is sure to be insightful and entertaining.

Kiosks and Conveyor Belts: Hey Zeus Brings Its Auto-Restaurant Concept Stateside

The folks behind Hey Zeus debuted their kiosk-only, cashless restaurant concept about a year ago in New South Wales, Australia. Now, they’re bringing the concept to the U.S., with plans to open a location in Spokane, Washington by the end of this year (via Restaurant Hospitality).

Founder Jason Beye is actually a native of Spokane, having left in 2008 to pursue a marketing degree in Australia. To create the Hey Zeus concept (named after Beye’s dog), he merged his years of working tech-driven customer service at the Apple store with a love of fresh, fast food.

The Hey Zeus Spokane location will reportedly be identical to its Australian counterpart, where customers select food items and customize dishes using a digital kiosk. Healthy wraps and bowls are the main menu items—brown rice, quinoa, fresh veggies, and a variety of sauces and dressings. Food arrives in a plain brown bag on a conveyor belt, similar to restaurants like Yo! Sushi, with a unique I.D. for each customer. Since this is fast-casual, all food is for pickup; there are no servers or any other front-of-house staff.

This unmanned restaurant concept has proved remarkably popular for Beye at the Australian location—so much so that, after just a couple days, he axed the idea of having a concierge on hand to guide customers at the kiosks: “I thought I would have to spend more time teaching people how to work the ordering system, and I planned to have a concierge in store all the time but after about a day or so you could tell that they were just getting in the way and ruining the experience,” he noted recently.

The question is whether the exact same concept will work in the U.S. Here, there’s plenty of action around self-serve kiosks, but results vary. Wow Bao just opened a new Chicago location powered by Eatsa’s automated kiosk technology, and NYC’s Sous Vide Kitchen just opened as a kind of automated food hall. Shake Shack, on the other hand, shuttered its self-service concept after a barrage of customer complaints.

An automated restaurant’s success comes down to things like how easy it is to use the kiosk interface, how quickly the kitchen staff can make the food, and its overall quality. In Australia, at least, Beye’s particular take on the concept works. Hey Zeus reportedly plans to open five locations in five years, according to Restaurant Hospitality. How the Spokane location performs will tell us if that goal is likely to become a reality.

Is NYC’s Sous Vide Kitchen the Future of Food Halls?

Last week, Sous Vide Kitchen (SVK) joined NYC’s sprawling food hall scene, where associations with celebrity chefs are the norm and $300 caviar is a thing. Comparatively, SVK’s take on the food hall concept is far more down to earth, focused mostly around technology and how it can streamline and improve the process of ordering and eating in a food hall setting.

Billing itself a “virtual food hall,” SVK combines four trends currently popular in the restaurant industry: self-order kiosks, cashless payments, the sous vide cooking method, and, of course, food halls. And so far as I can tell from my visit earlier this week, the combination works when it comes to delivering a fast, easy dining experience with good food that’s affordable (for NYC).

As a physical space, SVK looks much like any other food hall, with high ceilings and extremely minimal design. When I visited, I was struck by how calm the place felt and how friendly the staff was, even with a good number of customers inside seated at tables or in line waiting to order.

The place offers Latin and Mediterranean items, grain bowls, and banh mi sandwiches. All food is cooked in the same central kitchen at the back of the hall. And using the sous vide method exclusively means it’s easier to train employees on cooking consistently good food, since sous vide allows for more precise cooking temperatures and frees the cook from “the tyranny of the clock.”

Since I’m a cheapskate and quality varies greatly around the city, I’m always a little wary of paying over $14 for a bowl of meat and vegetables. I also have next to no appetite when it’s 90-plus degrees outside, so a dish’s potential to make good leftovers is also key. The Texas BBQ bowl I ordered passed on both counts. The beef was packed with flavor, the dish was wonderfully and ridiculously spicy, and what I didn’t finish at lunch made for a pretty decent quick meal later in the evening.

The big draw of SVK’s approach is that customers can order and pay for all food from the same self-serve kiosk, hence the “virtual” aspect of the business. So, for example, if I wanted a curry bowl, a Paleo bowl, and a Texas BBQ bowl from a traditional food hall, I would have to wait in three different lines to get each dish and make three separate payments. When I visited Sous Vide Kitchen with a couple buddies, we got that same combination of dishes with one quick order.

What struck me most about the kiosks was their simplicity. Touchscreens are becoming more ubiquitous every year, from airports to doctors’ offices, but they’re not always intuitive in terms of UI, and some are downright ugly. Sous Vide Kitchen’s kiosks score points for having an attractive interface that’s as minimal as the physical space’s design, making it easy to use. This will likely cut down on both customer frustration and long lines.

SVK does offsite catering and delivery, too, and there are grab-and-go items for sale at the physical location customers can scan themselves at the kiosks. A coffee and breakfast bar are reportedly in the works. The delivery option, in particular, is key right now, given its popularity not just in NYC but all over the country.

The only real drawback to my experience was the actual physical space which, although calm, was pretty loud and made it difficult to hear everything said at the table. Then again, that might just be Manhattan at lunchtime.

As Eater pointed out, SVK will probably not be a destination for “food-obsessed” customers, since none of the vendors are major names. And while it’s true the place isn’t offering “living walls” and celebrity chefs, that might be a plus. If the many-meals-one-kiosk order and payment concept proves successful, it could easily find a home in all manner of food courts, be they trendy Manhattan spots or suburban cafeterias. Already, some airport restaurants have embraced self-order kiosks, and earlier this year, Costco began testing them in its food court. Wow Bao, meanwhile, is rolling out Eatsa’s kiosk tech. We’ll have to wait and see where the technology fares best, though my guess is that SVK won’t be the only food hall in town offering this concept along with the food.

Smell-O-Vision Meets VR with Givaudan’s Technology

Sure, you may have walked, flown, or even blasted aliens on a virtual world — but did you ever stop to smell the virtual roses?

With Givaudan‘s technology you can smell not only the roses but a variety of other scents in a virtual kitchen.

Here at the Food IT conference presented by The Mixing Bowl in San Francisco, Givaudan had their virtual-smells-in-a-box on display. Being the intrepid reporters we are, we strapped on a VR headset, grabbed a hand controller and stuck our nose in a scent emitter to smell bananas and strawberries as we made virtual smoothies, as well as (very strong) garlic and onions for our virtual steaks.

This tech will be making its way to consumers at some point, so if you plan on gaming in the near future, you’ll be able to smell gunfire or smoke as you wander the apocalyptic wasteland, or, more appropriately, the enticing aromas of cooked steak in The Legend of Zelda.

Check out the sites of virtual smells in our video below:

Smell-O-Vision Meets Virtual Reality with Givaudan from The Spoon on Vimeo.

FoodTech Highlights From the 2018 National Restaurant Association Show

Besides axe throwing skills, which was apparently an activity on the exhibition floor, there’s plenty worth showing off at this year’s National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago, which kicked off Saturday and runs through tomorrow, May 22.

In particular, some key companies have been offering us a glimpse into the future of technology’s role in the restaurant and how it’s changing both the consumer experience and the way operators do business. As the show is huge (over 66,000 attendees) and attention spans are low, we’ve narrowed the coverage here down to a few hand-picked highlights presented in no particular order. We’ll keep updating this post, and if you’re at the show and see something especially exciting, feel free to mention it in the comments or tweet us @TheSpoonTech.

Age of the Auto-Cocktail

Bartending and automation have been bedfellows for some time, but technology-meets-mixology pioneer Barsys has made the concept more accessible with its smart cocktail maker.

A basic model of the Barsys machine — which would work in a small establishment or your own kitchen — holds up to five base spirits and three mixers, and takes roughly 25 to 45 seconds to create a cocktail, according to the company’s website. Users can control the system and program drink recipes — up to 2,000 — via a corresponding app. The system will also make recommendations based on user preferences and history. An elite version that’s faster and has a carbonated bottle station, which would let you serve up fizzy cocktails on demand. At the show, Barsys said the machine is more about capturing inventory data and drink trends than it is about replacing human workers.

The show also featured a more streamlined auto-cocktail machine from Somabar. Their Wi-Fi connected robotic bartender holds spirits and mixers and can make up to 300 recipes. Somabar uses “proprietary static mixing technology” to ensure each drink is properly and proportionally mixed, and, like Barsys, also makes recommendations based on a user’s previously programmed drink recipes.

Delivery: Profitable or Painful?

It seems like there’s a new development in restaurant delivery services every day. However, that doesn’t mean we’re headed towards an on-demand utopia where restaurants and third-party services help one another raise profit margins and top-quality food always arrives on your doorstep in a speedy, efficient way.

In fact, Halal Guys COO Mike Speck spoke at length about the challenges a lot of restaurants face as services like Grubhub and UberEats grow in popularity. These companies, he noted during a session, typically charge restaurants between 15 and 40 percent on delivery orders (according to him, anything over 20 percent is ridiculous). He didn’t mince words when addressing the questions of whether these services are actually helpful, at least to smaller restaurants: “Unless you can prove it is making you money, I don’t know why you would do it.”

That said, Speck wasn’t advocating that restaurants ditch delivery altogether. Rather, he detailed how his own company rose to the challenge by analyzing which services are best for businesses (it varies by locale but generally speaking, DoorDash and Postmates won) and by redoing the layout of its stores to accommodate more delivery.

Also at the show was workforce-management platform ShiftPixy, who matches businesses in need of part-time staff, including delivery services, with qualified workers. In lessening reliance on third-party delivery services, ShiftPixy claims to lower delivery costs for restaurants and allow them to keep their branding intact, something that’s often lost during third-party delivery transactions.

Automated Ordering and Food Lockers

Shake Shack may have shelved its self-order-only concept (for now), but the trend is by no means dead in the water. At the National Restaurant Association show, Apex showed off its self-serve, automated pick-up station for food. The Apex Hot-Holding Device is basically a double-sided food locker that lets operators load hot food at one end then alert the customer, who gets a unique pickup code so they won’t accidentally swipe someone else’s order. That means you could order, pay for, and pick up an order without ever interacting with another human being.

Apex’s other version of the station allows for even greater order accuracy: it’s a shelf system which uses beacon technology to detect customers’ mobile devices. Once that particular customer walks into the restaurant and is detected, the cubby containing their order lights up. There’s no code to punch in. If you should happen to touch the wrong order, a red light signals you’ve got your hands on the wrong meal.

These developments won’t end all technical difficulties when it comes to automated pickup, and there are many who balk at the complete lack of interaction with other humans. But if you don’t mind completely automated service or happen to be in a really big hurry most of the time, this is definitely a trend to watch. That and axe throwing.

Square Launches a Well-Rounded POS System for Restaurants

Square has long been the favorite of small businesses like hair salons and independent artisans. Now, the merchant-services company is hoping to make an impact in restaurants with its newly announced point-of-sale system (POS).

The software, which works for both sit-down and quick-service restaurants, is reportedly Square’s “most sophisticated software yet.” The system centralizes all a restaurant’s operations in a single place, from booking a table to placing orders and managing the check after the meal. Restaurant owners and operators can also do maintenance tasks, like changing table maps and updating menus on the fly, without the need of a service person.

Most important, Square’s new system promises to also solve an issue puzzling more and more restaurants nowadays: how to manage orders coming in from multiple different channels, both online and off.

Its POS system does so by integrating online and offline sales and centralizing them into one software system. In other words, sales from in-house diners as well as those ordering via Postmates, UberEats, and the growing number of other online services can all be viewed in the same place, giving restaurant owners and operators a better understanding of how each channel contributes to the overall sales picture.

As others have said, the acquisition of Caviar from four years ago makes more sense in light of this news. Add to that Square’s recent acquisition of “certain assets” of corporate catering service Zesty, which would help Square to further expand Caviar’s capabilities. Meanwhile, Caviar serves 18 different metro areas and counts Eataly, and Momofuku among its restaurant partners, presumably giving Square access to a whole new set of potential clients for this new POS platform.

Square isn’t alone in rethinking restaurant operations. Actually, that’s an understatement, because there are plenty of folks trying to centralize restaurant tasks, orders, and data into one place and also address the growing number of channels by which consumers order food. “Every restaurant is becoming an omnichannel business,” Gokul Rajaram, Caviar lead at Square, told Fast Company.

Toast is another big player in the space, offering similar features to Square, including the promise of integrating online orders with the rest of the operations. TouchBistro and Clover both offer “all-in-one” systems, and there are tons more options on the market, too.

Square puts a lot of emphasis on the online orders and delivery aspect of its system, even saying “delivery is in our DNA.” That’s a wise proclamation to make in this day and age, but it’s also only a matter of time before most restaurants will add the same thing to their DNA. Which means we can expect the battle for the omnichannel restaurant to get much bigger, sooner rather than later.

Coolhobo Brings Augmented Reality to Chinese Millennial Shoppers

While the name “Coolhobo” might conjure up an image of an old-timey drifter with a bindle and a sweet leather jacket, it’s actually a slight mispronunciation of the Chinese word for “carrot” (胡萝卜).

Based in Shenzen, China, Coolhobo is an early-stage startup that does augmented reality shopping and is aimed at Chinese Millennials. Though it could be used for any type of shopping, the company is starting with groceries. Coolhobo is creating a mobile app that allows shoppers to find desired products in a store, discover more information about them and share their experiences in a social setting to make shopping more fun.

As Coolhobo Co-Founder and CEO Loïc Kobes explained it to me, when the app is launched, users will be able to choose a product they are looking for (for example, a particular bread), and the app will tell them what store close by carries it. Once in the store, a cute Coolhobo virtual assistant pops up in the app to direct the user to the product’s location. Customers point their camera at the item and an array of floating information flitters about on-screen about the product, including nutrition and preparation information, as well as reviews from other customers.

Show is better than tell, so here’s a Coolhobo demo video that walks you through the experience:

AR Shopping by Coolhobo, Adding features and testing new UI

Kobes said that Chinese consumers really like imported products, but there isn’t a lot of information about them. Coolhobo provides that information, and can help customers choose between two similar imported items. But even once they choose something, “People need help to understand how to prepare it, how to cook it,” said Kobes.

Kobes described Coolhobo as a B2B and B2C company, and said he’s in partnership talks with a number of Chinese and international retailers. He said the app is scheduled to launch in June or July. Kobes took an earlier version of Coolhobo through the SOSV accelerator program, and is currently raising a seed round of funding.

According to Kobes, China is far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to shopping experiences, and, in particular, integrating mobile technology into them. This summer, we’ll see if Coolhobo’s augmented reality will be enough of a carrot for stores and consumers to sign up for the experience.

Finedine Menu Joins 500 Startups’ to Accelerate Its Restaurant Tech Platform

VC firm and seed accelerator 500 Startups just announced the list of companies that made the cut for its 23rd accelerator class. Among them is Finedine Menu, a company which is reinventing the concept of the restaurant menu.

Finedine Menu bills itself as “a digital menu management platform.” Restauranteurs can use it to create digital menus and display them on iOS and Android tablets via the Finedine Menu app. Customers interact with the menu, clicking on items to browse available dishes and order their favorites. The app tracks this sort of behavior, so businesses can view the data and make changes to the menu based on what customers prefer.

The system has two parts: a web-based control panel and a tablet-compatible app. (The app doesn’t work with phones right now.) Once a restaurant signs up for the service, they are directed to the control panel and prompted to design their menu.

Restaurants can choose from three different Finedine Menu plans, which are based on the number of tablets the business plans to use: small is for five tablets; medium for 25; and large for 50.

Since everything is digital, there’s a huge range of info the restauranteurs can put on their menus. They can upload videos and images, change the currency, display the menu in different languages, and add deals and pairing recommendations. The system even has built-in allergen warnings they can select and display. And the beauty of digital menus is that they can be updated in real time, so anything that’s changed on the control panel will immediately change on the app, too. The platform is compatible with most POS systems.

Behind the scenes, the Finedine Menu system gathers and displays data the restaurant can use to improve both the menu itself and the food offered. That includes things like most viewed items, average ticket size, daily sales, and which items sell the most. All of this info can be viewed by restauranteurs on a dashboard in their control panel.

Finedine Menu is hardly alone here. Uncorkd‘s platform is a good example; it’s similar to Finedine Menu, only specifically for wine, beer, and other drink menus. Using the system’s analytics, a business could see things like which red wines are most popular, and how that popularity changes from night to night — and change their menus accordingly. Uncorkd’s system has over 200,000 descriptions for various beverages, which streamlines the order process, and, like Finedine Menu, Uncorkd menus can be updated in real time.

Apito is an iOS-compatible app where guests can view, order, and pay for a meal from an iPad, and even do things like request a server’s attention. The company claims it can help restaurants increase the average ticket size by 15 to 20 percent. A company called eTouch Menu also promises increased profits through upsell opportunities, and is used by the likes of Dunkin’ Donuts, Hard Rock Cafe, and various casinos and airports.

What all these companies have in common is that they’re not so much menus as they are full-on foodtech platforms. So there’s a good reason Finedine Menu also bills itself as “a technology company that serves the hospitality industry.” Digital menus are increasingly becoming sophisticated technology platforms, and it will be interesting to see how the company can further evolve this concept during its time in the 500 Startups program.

Electrolux & Innit Partner to Help Consumers Navigate the Cooking Journey

Today at the EuroCucina trade show in Milan, Italy, Electrolux announced a strategic partnership with smart kitchen platform provider Innit in which the two companies will work together to integrate Innit’s software with the Electrolux’s connected appliances to “help consumers throughout the cooking journey.”

The first Electrolux appliance to integrate with the Innit platform will be the camera-enabled steam oven introduced by the Swedish appliance giant last month. Starting in the first quarter of 2019, consumers will be able to use the Innit app to find recipes, plan their meal and send cooking instructions to the Combisteam Pro Smart oven from Electrolux. Over time, the two companies envision that users of Electrolux appliances will be able to use the Innit app as the main app to power the entire cooking process, from meal discovery to shopping to cooking.

For Innit, its partnership with the region’s biggest appliance maker marks a significant entry into a market that requires substantial understanding of country-by-country differences. Unlike the more homogeneous US market, products for the Europe market need to account for differences in consumer cooking preferences across different countries. While some countries tend to embrace surface cooking (induction, etc), others may be more inclined to cook the nightly meal in an oven. By partnering with Electrolux, Innit can tap into the appliance maker’s localization expertise and create an app tailored towards specific user requirements in each locale.

For Electrolux, its partnership with Innit is the first time the company will work with a third party application partner for its connected appliances. The company sees the partnership as a strategic move towards a common software and user experience across appliances. The two companies plan to expand to more cooking devices as well as other appliances such as refrigerators.

One benefit Electrolux sees in tapping into a software-powered cooking experience is the ability to help consumers unlock capabilities that for the most part go unused.

“Our appliances are extremely advanced and often the consumer only uses a small fragment of their capabilities,” Patrick Le Corre, Sr. VP of kitchen products at Electrolux EMEA, told me in a phone interview. “Steam cooking is the best way to cook, but their knowledge of steam cooking is limited. If you bridge the potential of our appliances with an app, we unlock the power for consumers and secure an enjoyable cooking experience.”

The deal comes at an important time as more appliance makers are honing in on strategic partners as the industry continues to transition towards software-enabled cooking. At CES, Whirlpool showed off its Yummly integration while LG announced partnerships with Innit and SideChef, and last month Kenwood launched a new multicooker powered by Drop as part of a longer-team development deal. And now with Electrolux, Innit has locked up Europe’s biggest appliance maker in what looks to be a significant potential long-term partnership.