Category: Personalized Food
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Two phrases are getting a lot of airplay in the food industry nowadays: “artificial intelligence” and “personalized menus.” Put them together and you’re supposed to get a restaurant experience where customers see menu choices based on their specific needs and restaurants earns bigger tickets because they’re selling items people actually want to eat. Or can…
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One of my favorite things about tech is that it starts a lot of debate. Even within our small team here at The Spoon, we’re constantly on different pages about what’s groundbreaking and what’s just hype, whether something’s progressive or just invasive, how to spell the phrase “food tech.”
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Subscription-based meal kit company Sun Basket announced today it has raised $30 million in a Series E funding round. According to a press release sent via email, the round was led by PivotNorth Capital, with participation from Sapphire Ventures, August Capital, Founders Circle, Unilever Ventures, and others. This brings Sun Basket’s total funding to $125…
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Clinc, the Detroit, MI-based company known for its AI-powered voice control platform, announced today it has closed a $52 million Series B round. The investment includes cash from Insight Partners, DFJ Growth, Drive Capital, and Hyde Park Venture Partners, among others. This brings Clinc’s total funding to $57.8 million. Last July, my colleague Chris Albrect…
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If there’s one big takeaway to glean from Wendy’s first-quarter 2019 earnings call, which took place on Wednesday, it’s that the quick-service burger chain is ramping up its tech game in a big way. Not that the Dublin, OH-based company was slacking. Prior to Wednesday’s call, Wendy’s had already installed self-serve kiosks in about 75…
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Yesterday at its I/O conference, Google announced new features to Google Lens, its image-recognition app for Android, and they’re all about improving the restaurant experience for customers. Google Lens uses machine learning, computer vision, and a whole lot of data to interact with the world around you and answer your questions. For example, when Lens…
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McDonald’s has wasted no time in bringing personalization to its restaurants since the company’s acquisition of Dynamic Yield in March. On the company’s Q1 earnings call this week, CEO Steve Easterbrook said McDonald’s has already installed Dynamic Yield’s technology in 700 McDonald’s locations in the U.S. As of right now, the technology is being used…
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Speaking with Viome CEO, Naveen Jain, it’s not hard to understand how investors, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff and Khosla Ventures among them, handed Viome a fresh round of $25 million in funding last week. During our chat by phone, Jain was animated, proclaiming that it was a big week for him not because his company has…
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It’s no secret that drive-thrus have gotten slower in recent years. As the the QSR 2018 drive-thru study reports, major quick-service restaurants (QSRs) like McDonald’s and Wendy’s see about 70 percent of their sales come from the drive-thru window. But the same study also reported that the drive-thru experience for customers has gotten slower over…
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Corporate lunch-delivery service EAT Club announced today it has acquired Bay Area-based meal delivery service Taro. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. EAT Club, who currently serves San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles, bills itself as a “virtual cafeteria” that delivers meals to offices, among them Facebook and Postmates. Workers can log onto…
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Breaking news: In one of the craziest pivots of all time, Harley-Davidson announced today it would diversify from its core business of making iconic motorcycles to launch a product line of personalized beef and pork jerky products based on an individual’s microbiome. Just kidding. But I have to admit, when I read the headline that…
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The average consumer nowadays will probably use multiple different apps to figure out where to eat on any given night: discovery, recommendations, booking a reservation or ordering food for delivery. As the folks at Hypepotamus recently noted, a new company, MealMe, wants to simplify the food lover’s food journey by bringing its many pieces into…
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