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BurgerFi

July 15, 2022

BurgerFi Begins Rollout of the Samsung Kiosks powered by GRUBBRR (Sponsored Post)

In December 2021, BurgerFi launched a pilot program with GRUBBRR to test the effectiveness of self-ordering technology to decrease operating costs, minimize the dependency on labor, increase revenue, and provide customers with a better overall experience.

Together, the GRUBBRR and BurgerFi teams worked to develop a project plan, including a curated customer journey and operational process, to optimize efficiency and automate BurgerFi’s front of house. The teams met weekly to monitor successes and challenges and ensure BurgerFi had a phenomenal experience implementing the kiosks. GRUBBRR created an optimized solution designed to create operational efficiency, drive incremental revenue and give customers a better experience.

Throughout the pilot, the Samsung Kiosk powered by GRUBBRR showed a significant lift in sales, with average ticket sizes increasing by 18.5% and 52% of customers opting into upsells. The Kiosk also absorbed up to 133 orders per day on average, accounting for 75% of total orders placed in the store and 78% of net sales.

Following the successful pilot, BurgerFi selected GRUBBRR as its exclusive self-ordering technology provider. The kiosks are currently being deployed across all of BurgerFi’s corporate locations, while franchisees will have the opportunity to opt-in, as well.

GRUBBRR’s self-ordering solutions are in high-demand and have demonstrated an immediate impact on businesses in three material ways: GRUBBRR increases revenue through algorithmically programmed upselling technology, decreases operating costs by streamlining efficiency and reducing the dependency on labor, and improves the customer experience by expediting average transaction time, eliminating order inaccuracies, and implementing loyalty integrations.

According to BurgerFi’s CTO Karl Goodhew, “From an operator perspective, we like the upsell features of the kiosk. From a technology perspective, we like the ability to offer our entire menu, have real-time 86’ing tied into the POS, and enterprise control of multiple units.”

“Samsung’s Kiosk powered by GRUBBRR’s software solution with Samsung’s MagicInfo Cloud, provided an all-in-one solution for BurgerFi that delivered stronger business results and signaled a best practice when it comes to the future of QSR dining trends,” said Harry Patz Jr., Senior Vice President and General Manager, Display Division, Samsung Electronics America. “The pilot program was pivotal to BurgerFi’s decision to standardize Samsung’s kiosk solution so that they could deliver a seamless customer experience, eliminate ordering errors, and allow for easy integration of loyalty programs and discount codes.”

The one-time cost of a kiosk is significantly lower than the price of carrying an employee. On average, a cashier at a quick-service restaurant open 15 hours per day will cost more than $6,000 per month (with all associated carrying costs). In contrast, the Samsung Kiosk powered by GRUBBRR performs all of the functions of the cashier at a fraction of the price. In addition, kiosks always show up, don’t call in sick, and are ready to work 24/7. Replacing cashiers with the Samsung Kiosk powered by GRUBBRR can move that staffer to the production line or other areas, increasing throughput and driving more revenue.

This post is sponsored by GRUBBRR. To learn more about Samsung’s self-ordering kiosks powered by GRUBBRR, click here.

July 14, 2017

Building Wine and Meat Molecule by Molecule

“Engineering wines to perfection molecule by molecule.” That’s the tagline of Ava Winery, which is creating synthetic wines without grapes, yeast, or even fermentation.

Mardonn Chua and Alec Lee are the entrepreneurs behind Ava Winery. They create compounds with ethanol that mimic the chemical composition of wines, but that will sell for much less money. The full process involves experimenting with mixes of amino acids, sugars, and ethanol, and they have also tried mimicking the taste of 1992 Dom Perignon.

If you’re interested in the detail-by-detail mechanics involved in mimicking wines, read Mardonn Chua’s Medium post here, where he lays out recipes tried during experiments.

Ava Winery has shown tenacity in the face of critics, too. The editors at New Scientist grabbed headlines when they compared Ava Winery’s Moscato to a plastic “pool shark,” with “essence of plastic bag,” which prompted the winery to respond: “Nothing resembling plastic is an ingredient in the wine, taste is deeply subjective.”

Ava Winery sees the promise of its form of “hacking” extending beyond just wine, and its founders note: “This is what the future of foods looks like: food will be scanned and printed as easily as photographs today. These digital recreations will be identical chemical copies of the originals, capturing the same nutritional values, flavors, and textures of their ‘natural’ counterparts. Part scientists and part artists, our canvas will be macronutrients like starches and proteins; our pixels will be flavor molecules.”

Indeed, Ava Winery’s vision of creating synthetic wine is hardly the only game in town on the synthetic food and wine scene. Memphis Meats, impossible Foods and other companies are focused on synthetic meat and food, and Beyond Meat has gotten rave reviews for its synthetic burgers and also gained interest from both Bill Gates and his former Microsoft buddy Nathan Myhrvold.

In fact, Gates has penned a very interesting post titled “Future of Food,” where he notes the following: “The chicken taco I ate was made using Beyond Meat’s chicken alternative. I wasn’t the only one fooled by how real it tasted. New York Times food writer Mark Bittman couldn’t tell the difference between Beyond Meat and real chicken either. You can read his review here.” Gates has put his money where his mouth is and invested in Beyond Meat, as have others.

A video on Beyond Meat’s vision of taking animal protein out of the food chain is available here:

And then there’s the Impossible Burger. While Beyond Meat is working with other burger joints like Burgerfi to put their meat-alternative in the hands of consumers, Impossible Foods – the brain child of DNA microarray inventor Patrick O. Brown – decided to not only create a plant based burger that bleeds, but to create a national chain of restaurants – to sell the Impossible Burger.

While Ava Winery is focused on triggering the same pleasure receptors that are triggered when we consume a traditionally fermented fine wine, companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have the potential to create inexpensive alternatives to meat that could make a profound nutritional difference for people all around the world.

According to Ava Winery’s Alec Lee: “Today we’re on the cusp of significant technological breakthroughs in food production the likes of which have never been seen before. It took humanity nearly 10,000 years of agriculture to develop many of the crops and animal herds we consume today. It took only a few centuries to develop the farming tools that have culminated in large-scale, efficient mechanized farming. And it only took decades to marry science with food allowing us to directly manipulate the genetic constructs of our food.”

It’s worth watching Lee’s video, where he expands on these concepts and explores Ava Winery’s strategy:

AVA Winery

Image credit: Flickr user Star5112

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