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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food Tech Accelerators Taking Applications in February

It’s that time again, folks. Each month we take a look at the world of food-focused accelerator programs by hand-picking a few of the latest programs taking applications. If you’re a startup contemplating the increasingly popular accelerator/incubator route, read on to find out more.

The Yield Lab Latin America
Remote/Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Yield Lab runs four different versions of its agrifood-focused accelerator program across four different regions around the world: Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. The program is currently taking applications for its Latin America cohort.

The Yield Lab LATAM 2020 program is a combination of virtual and onsite sessions, with each company assigned a dedicated Yield Lab Managing Partner to guide them through the curriculum. Chosen companies also receive a $100,000 investment.

The program looks specifically for companies developing technologies to help in the following agtech areas: crop production, animal health, precision agriculture, supply chain, food ingredients, and sustainability. Of course, within those areas lies an enormous range of company and technology types, as evidenced by the program’s portfolio of past participants, which includes Nutrivert, Foodshed.io, and Impact Vision. Companies should be commercial ready and able to scale.

There are just a few days left to apply to this one — applications close on February 14. 

Chipotle Aluminaries Project 2.0
Remote/Newport Beach, CA

Chipotle launched its Aluminaries program in 2018 in partnership with Denver-based nonprofit Uncharted. According to a recent press release, the eight-month-long program looks for companies working in agtech who “provide a solution to one of the top challenge areas faced by young farmers, including access to land, finance, and labor.”

It consists of remote and in-person programming, including a five-day summit in Newport Beach, CA. The eight chosen participants also receive mentorship, and while there’s no cash investment involved, companies taking part in the program get introductions to potential investors. There’s also a free Chipotle meal for participants each day for an entire year.  

Applications close March 11.

Image via Techstars.

Techstars Farm to Fork
Minneapolis St.-Paul, Minnesota

The Farm to Fork accelerator — one of many programs Techstars offers — focuses some on agtech, but also in areas like food traceability, waste reduction, and manufacturing. The program, which is done in partnership with Cargill and Ecolab, looks for companies using technology to innovate and solve problems in these areas.

Relocation to the St. Paul-Minneapolis area is required for the three-month-long program. Chosen participants get workspace along with a $100,000 convertible note, mentorship and networking opportunities, and access to potential investors.

Applications close April 5.



Chipotlanes, New Store Formats, and Personalization Are Driving Chipotle’s $1B Digital Business

Chipotle outlined big plans for its digital business, which surpassed $1 billion in sales in 2019, according to the company’s Q4 earnings call this week. 

The fast-casual chain saw digital sales in Q4 alone jump 78 percent to $282 million, and Company CEO Brian Niccol said on the call that digital orders made up one-fifth of Chipotle’s sales during the same quarter. He also recapped the company’s efforts around delivery, off-premises ordering, and other digital-focused initiatives, including the one everyone seems to be really excited about — the Chipotlane.

These are drive-thru lanes dedicated to customers ordering ahead via the Chipotle mobile app. Like digital drive-thru efforts from other chains, Chipotlanes are meant to speed up service for this particular order channel, which has seen wait times get progressively longer over the last several years. The tactic is clearly working: Niccol said on the call that Chipotle will more than double the number of Chipotlanes in 2020 “because our guests love the convenience and it strengthens our economic model by making our highest margin channel more accessible.”

The other big area of focus Niccol and Chipotle outlined on the call was the new store design, which the company unveiled in December and is trialing in a few different U.S. cities. This new design is Chipotle’s take on the express store format, which many QSRs and fast-casual chains are pursuing these days to cater more to the ongoing demand for delivery and takeout orders. These restaurants have fewer seats, and, in the case of Chipotle, digital pickup shelves where customers can simply grab their order and go. The company is currently monitoring the performance of the new store design’s initial locations.

Niccol hinted at personalization on the call when talking about the company’s loyalty program, which it has grown to 8.5 million members over the last few years. While he didn’t dive into much detail, saying only that “personalization and engagement are cornerstones of our evolving loyalty strategy.” But we’ve already seen what more personalization can look like in the restaurant world, from McDonald’s installing Dynamic Yield’s AI tech in drive-thru lanes last year to Taco Bell’s recent push to make recommendations via its app more personalized to each customer. 

Niccol said he expects it “to become a bigger driver in the future as we gain more experience gathering customer insight, while continuing to expand our digital ecosystem.”

Week in Restaurants: Delivery Gears Up for Super Bowl Sunday

In today’s delivery-crazed culture in which we live, Super Bowl Sunday has become as much about the food we’re ordering as it is about football or hotly anticipated TV ads. Makes sense, then, that QSRs, fast-casual joints, third-party delivery services, and many more are dabbling in delivery initiatives this coming Sunday. Check a couple of them below, as well as more restaurant-centric news from around the web this week.

Chipotle is running a TikTok campaign for Super Bowl Sunday.

In a clear bid to win over Generation Z, Chipotle has launched a campaign on TikTok called “TikTok Timeout.” For every commercial break after a timeout during the big game, some of the app’s most popular content creators will share their own Chipotle delivery ads set to Justin Bieber’s song “Yummy.” The campaign is searchable through the hashtag #TikTokTimeout.

Little Caesars spotlights delivery with DoorDash.

Known historically for its pickup service, Little Caesars finally joined the delivery craze not long ago when it announced a partnership with DoorDash to ship pizzas directly to customers’ doorsteps. The pizza chain is spotlighting that move with its first-ever Super Bowl ad, which could cost over $5 million. Clearly the chain is ready to invest aggressively in delivery. 

Postmates will have customers sign a waiver for wings.

Delivery service Postmates is running a couple Super Bowl-centric initiatives this week, according to an email sent to The Spoon. From January 30 to February 1, Postmates users can enter to win a wings pack themed around the web series “Hot Ones.” The goods, which include wings as well as “Hot Ones”-branded sauces, will be delivered to the winner on February 2 just before the game starts. The wings are apparently so hot users must sign a waiver upon delivery. 

In a separate campaign, Postmates users can also enter to win a year’s worth of pizza or wings. More details on the campaigns are here.

Yelp launches health score pop-up alerts for restaurants.

Yelp released a new feature this week in Chicago and Los Angeles that alerts users via pop-ups when a restaurant has health code violations. According to the Chicago Tribune, when a user scrolls through a restaurant’s review page, they will see a pop-up message alerting them if the establishment has a bad health score. Yelp already lists restaurants’ health scores on their pages; the added pop-up feature is a way to quickly call attention to businesses with the worst violations. The Chicago and Los Angeles release of the feature Yelp did in its hometown of San Francisco in 2015.


Week in Restaurants: Glovo Achieves Unicorn Status, Chipotle Will Pay your Delivery Fees

I’ll be honest, a small part of me wanted to turn this entire post into a list of all the ridiculous holiday swag from QSRs that’s out this holiday season. One-piece loungewear from Dunkin’? A fire log that burns the scent of KFC fried chicken? What’s not to like?

Don’t answer that. Instead, feast your eyes on the usual fare of restaurant-tech news from around the web this week, including funding news, more instant pay for employees, and marketing schemes almost as perplexing as fried chicken fire logs.

Delivery Service Glovo Raises Nearly $170M

Barcelona, Spain-based delivery startup Glovo, best known for its restaurant food delivery services, said this week it raised $150 million euros (~$167 million USD), with the investment led by Mubadala, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi. The round, which also saw participation from Lakestar, Idinvest Partners and Drake QSR. The new funds mean Glovo’s valuation is now at $1 billion and its status notched up to that of “unicorn.” Glovo said the capital will go towards growing the company’s workforce and hiring 300 new engineers and developers by 2020.

Chipotle to Pay Your Delivery Fees — For Anything 

Chipotle’s just took its focus on all things delivery to places no other fast-casual restaurant chain has yet to go. According to an announcement, Chipotle’s “Free Delivery Interception” campaign gives Twitter users the chance to win free delivery on any product, not just Chipotle food: “Expedited shipping on last-minute holiday gifts? Delivery on a California king mattress from college? Chipotle is in position and ready to intercept those fees.” To enter the contest, Twitter users can reply to this tweet using #ChipotleFreeDelivery and #Contest, and include a picture of your receipt and your Venmo handle. The chain is picking as many as 100 winners per day from now through December 22.

Takeaway.com Ups Its Bid for Just Eat

In what’s become an all-out bidding war for delivery service Just Eat, Takeaway.com has raised its takeover offer to “nearly £6.3 billion in stock,” according to Axios. The offer comes on the heels of Naspers-backed Prosus making multiple hostile bids over the last several weeks — all of which so far have been rejected by Just Eat. As Axios points out, Takeaway.com looks to be emerging as the winner of this battle, but it’s a fight where the details are changing quickly. Just last month, Takeaway.com said it wouldn’t raise its bid, and its stock proposal may be the higher number, but Prosus is offering cash. Shareholders have until January 10 to vote. Stay tuned. 

Chipotle Unveils a New Restaurant Design to Support Delivery, Digital Ordering

Chipotle today announced it is testing a design prototype for its stores aimed at further growing the chain’s billion-dollar digital business.

According to a Chipotle press release, the new digital-centric store design will be trialed in the following different Chipotle store formats: an urban storefront, a standalone restaurant with a Chipotlane, and an endcap restaurant with a Chipotlane. So far, the chain has stores in Chicago, IL, Cincinnati, OH, and Phoenix, AZ set to test the new design. It will also retrofit two existing stores in California.

“By better suiting our restaurants to accommodate the digital business, we’re able to finalize orders more effectively and provide a better overall experience for our guests,” Curt Garner, Chief Technology Officer, said in a statement.

The new store model will integrate longtime pieces of existing layouts, such as an open views of make-lines in the kitchen, with more recent changes the chain has made to accommodate the uptick in digital and delivery orders. That includes dedicated pickup shelves for digital orders, second make-lines meant to fulfill meals for delivery, and more Chipotlanes. 

In case you hadn’t guessed, Chipotlanes are a big part of that strategy. Unlike traditional drive-thru operations, those of Chipotle are designed specifically for digital orders. You cannot simply drive up to a menu board and order on the spot from a Chipotlane. Instead, customers order ahead via mobile and only use the window to pick up their food. Third-party delivery drivers can use this feature as well, saving themselves the trouble of having to walk into the store and locate their order. 

On Chipotle’s Q3 earnings call this past October, CEO Brian Niccol said the chain expects a total of 60 Chipotlanes by the end of 2019, though some of these new openings may shift into Q1 of 2020. Additionally, of the 150 to 165 new restaurants Chipotle plans to open in 2020, about half will include a Chipotlane. 

Whether by drive-thru, pickup shelves, or some other method, restaurant chains giving their stores makeovers for the digital-ordering era is a major strategy right now. Just yesterday, we wrote that Shake Shack is opening a new NYC location that will emphasize digital ordering and delivery. Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and a boatload of others have already made similar moves.

As to how widespread Chipotle’s new design prototype will expand, the chain said in the press release it will asses the performance of each of the four new locations before deciding when and where to roll the concepts out nationally. 

KFC Hints at AI, License Plate Recognition for Drive-thrus

KFC is exploring technology that would automate the process of ordering and upselling items in the drive-thru, according to an interview the chain’s U.S. Chief Technology Officer Christopher Caldwell did with Nation’s Restaurant News this week. KFC’s strategy looks to be focused on AI technology similar to that of McDonald’s, whose digital menu boards speed up ordering and automatically recommend items to customers.

The news comes on the heels of KFC’s little-publicized launch of an in-house online ordering platform, which happened earlier in October and is clearly part of a larger push from the Louisville, KY chain to increase efforts around the digital restaurant experience.

While Caldwell said the new native online ordering platform is “exceeding expectations” in terms of customer response, improving and innovating on the drive-thru is crucial for KFC.

That’s hardly surprising. Speed of service at the drive-thru in general has steadily gone down over the last decade, with the average time in 2019 a good 20 seconds longer than the previous year. But drive-thrus still account for a huge percentage of sales at QSR chains. For KFC, they account for about 65 percent of sales, according to Caldwell. Using automation in the drive through could potentially minimize both mistakes that happen during the order-taking process in the drive-thru as well as the length of time a customer spends waiting.

Caldwell also said drive-thru technology could bump up check averages thanks to better personalization and suggestive selling — one of the key benefits McDonald’s has been touting with the Dynamic Yield AI technology it’s rolled out to thousands of drive-thrus of late. He also hinted at license-plate recognition in the future, where the system can scan a customer’s plate and immediately suggest that person’s favorite meal.

A number of other QSRs are now testing new technologies and methods to speed up service in the drive-thru. Chains like Dunkin’, Krispy Kreme, and Chipotle are adding lanes for mobile-only orders. Sonic piloted AI-powered menu boards earlier this year. Meanwhile, companies like 5thru and Valyant AI are partnering with QSRs to automate more of the process through AI.

KFC hasn’t actually deployed any of this technology to actual stores yet, though Caldwell told NRN that “there’s going to be no shortage of [KFC] franchisees that want to adopt and be a test partner” when that finally happens.

With Delivery and Drive-Thru, Chipotle Is Aiming to Make Digital a $1 Billion Business

Chipotle’s is “knocking on the door of digital becoming $1 billion business,” CEO Brian Niccol said on a the company’s Q3 2019 earnings call today.

Digital sales for the fast-casual chain grew 88 percent year-over-year during the quarter, to $257 million, representing 18.3% of sales for the quarter, he said.

As expected, Niccol noted that delivery remains a major driver for digital growth for the company. Since 2018, Chipotle has had a partnership with DoorDash that includes integrated delivery — where orders made on the DoorDash platform go directly to Chipotle’s in-house POS system — to speed up service. The company was also one of the early adopters of the increasingly popular hybrid delivery strategy, where restaurants can use a combination of in-house and third-party functionality to built out a delivery operation that best suits their individual businesses.

Delivery may have been front and center for Chipotle this past quarter, but the company’s efforts around the drive-thru are also becoming a major part of its digital strategy. Once known as a chain that rejected the idea of the drive-thru, Chipotle has since begun adding these so-called “Chipotlanes,” which are drive-thru lanes dedicated to mobile orders. On the earnings call today, Chipotle CFO Jack Hartung said that “based on the early success of Chipotlanes, we shifted our real estate strategy to seek more sites that can accommodate a Chipotlane.” Chipotle currently has more than 80 restaurants under construction, he said, and about half of those will have a Chipotlane, bringing the company’s total of them to 60 by the end of 2019.

Drive-thru lanes across the QSR industry have gotten slower over the last decade as menus get more complicated and restaurants struggle to keep up with changing consumer expectations around technology and digital capabilities. Adding more dedicated lanes for mobile orders will help, but the real technology to keep an eye on in the drive-thru will be AI. On that front, Chipotle isn’t completely silent. The company has been “quietly” introducing AI into stores over the last several months in the form of AI-powered voice assistants for phone orders. If Chipotle wants to realize its ambitions of digital becoming a billion-dollar business, it will need to double-down on these efforts and others in the AI realm in the coming months.

Chipotle ‘Quietly’ Introducing AI Into More Stores

Chipotle has been implementing more artificial intelligence (AI) into its stores this year in the form of AI-powered voice assistants for phone orders, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. The chain has already implemented the technology into 1,800 locations so far this year, and plans to have the system in remaining U.S. stores by the end of 2019.

The as-yet-unnamed female voice greets customers and takes orders. According to NRN, she “actively listens and makes suggestions when she thinks a customer might have omitted a topping on a bowl or burrito.” Over time, her algorithm learns and can remember more and more complex orders.

Chipotle has actually been quietly testing this technology out since 2018, when it introduced its “voice” to just 10 stores. But so far as AI is concerned, the time to be hush-hush about these initiatives might be coming to an end. Domino’s has been using a chatbot since 2018, an AI-powered system called DOM that also takes phone orders. And ever since McDonald’s acquired Dynamic Yield and started aggressively rolling the company’s tech into its drive-thrus systems (and soon its self-order kiosks), AI has been not a buzzword but the buzzword flying around QSRs and fast casual chains.

Having AI-powered tech in the restaurant has a few advantages. In the case of phone assistants like Chipotle or Domino’s, it can speed up the order process and minimize the amount of time employees have to spend on the phone (assuming the voice assistant can learn and retain complex orders and not need human intervention to process them). AI can also improve how well restaurants can offer more personalized recommendations to customers — that is, ones tailored specifically to that customer and based on everything from a person’s past orders to the weather outside.

What it won’t do, at least in Chipotle’s case, is take away jobs. Nicole West, vice president of digital strategy and product at Chipotle, told NRN that the phone-order system is meant to make the phone order process more convenient and save restaurant managers and employees time.

Chipotle Fires Up New Accelerator for Food Tech Startups

Fast food chain Chipotle is getting into the startup biz: the company announced today that it is launching a new accelerator program for food-related ventures.

Dubbed the Chipotle Aluminaries Project, the seven-month program will be run in partnership with Denver-based non-profit Uncharted and will focus on ventures working on “alternative farming and growing systems, farming and agriculture technology, food waste and recovery, and plant and alternative products.”

Buzzfeed News reports that Chipotle is contributing $200,000 to Uncharted to support the program and will lend its marketing and communication expertise to the ventures. Programs accepted also get some Chipotle perks, like monthly office catering and free burritos.

Chipotle has even recruited celebrity chef (and future Smart Kitchen Summit speaker!) Richard Blais and restauranteur (and member of the Chipotle Board of Directors) Kimball Musk to provide mentorship for those ventures accepted into the program.

The elephant in the room for Chipotle, of course, is their checkered past with food safety, including a recent incident that left hundreds of people in Ohio sick. Though the company didn’t specifically call out food safety among the types of ventures it’s looking for right now, a Chipotle rep told Buzzfeed” “We anticipate that we could see some food safety ventures, no doubt.”

The verticals Chipotle has identified are pretty hot areas — especially food waste and plant-based products. Both of those sectors have seen an influx of venture funding lately.

But food tech accelerators in general are all the rage nowadays. BSH Home Appliances teamed up with TechStars to create one. TechStars has its own Farm to Fork accelerator. A.P. Moller-Marsk partnered with startup accelerator Rockstart for a food waste-focused program. Hatch is an accelerator for aquaculture from Alimentos Ventures. Food Nest should be announcing its first cohort soon. And while technically not an accelerator, Albertsons recently formed a grocery tech venture fund with Greycroft. And there’s even more than those!

Let’s hope there are enough good ideas to fill all those accelerators. If Chipotle is looking for a few good startups to invest in, they should swing by our Startup Showcase at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle in October. And if you’re looking to join the Chipotle accelerator, they start accepting applications on September 12.

Chipotle and DoorDash Join Forces for Delivery Service

Chipotle just announced a partnership with DoorDash, through which it will bring delivery services to 1,500 of its locations 2,441 locations.

The move is Chipotle’s largest delivery effort to date. It comes on the heels of CEO Brian Niccol (formerly of Taco Bell) joining the company, and after a rocky few years that included such gems as e. coli and norovirus outbreaks, lawsuits, and a 95 percent drop in profits.

It might seem weird that a brand concerned with food integrity as well as bouncing back from a couple health scares would enlist the help of someone from one of America’s least-healthy chains. But Niccol, who succeeded founder Steve Ells at the beginning of March, is credited with turning the Taco Bell image around through menu and marketing innovations, and ultimately making it more appealing.

He’s aiming to replicate that success at Chipotle. Offering delivery should certainly help, since over half of millennials rate convenience as a top driver when buying food, and it doesn’t get more convenient than having quick-service grub delivered to your home or office.

Delivery, anyway, is increasingly becoming one of the most important aspects of a food-service business. The food delivery market is expected to hit $76 billion in 2022, and many consider delivery services a “must-have” rather than “nice to have” for restaurants of all types.

DoorDash has similar partnerships with Dunkin’ Donuts, Wendy’s, and Jack in the Box, among many others. This latest pairing follows DoorDash’s announcement in March that the company has raised $355 million in Series D financing and plans to “triple [its] geographic footprint from 600 to 1,600 cities.” DoorDash’s system integrates directly with restaurants’ POS systems, which creates inherently speedier service.

To celebrate the DoorDash-Chipotle launch, the two will offer free delivery on orders of $10 and up placed via the DoorDash app, effective now through May 6, which means you can celebrate Cinco de Mayo by ordering tons of fake Mexican food by using the code “GETCHIPOTLE.”

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu will join TheSpoon’s Smart Kitchen Summit in Europe on June 11 and 12. Head over to Dublin to see him and other leaders in the food business space.

National Restaurant Association Attacks Cyber Threats With a New Tool

Restaurants are as vulnerable as any business when it comes to cybersecurity and data breaches. We saw that last month, when at least 5 million credit card numbers were swiped from Sonic Drive-In customers.

In a timely move, the National Restaurant Association has responded by publishing an update to its 2016 Cybersecurity 101 guide and tool (PDF), titled “Cybersecurity 201: The Next Step” (PDF).

The tool is a kind of primer on the five steps of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework: Identity, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. Gartner has predicted that half of all U.S. businesses will use this framework by 2020.

Cybersecurity 201 is considerably longer than its predecessor, and is focused specifically on restaurants and the actions they can take to protect themselves. It lays out four hypothetical “attack” scenarios and the actions restaurant owners should take in response.

Not that these types of scenarios are fictional in any way. As new technologies make their way into the hospitality industry, and as establishments accept more and more digital payments, businesses grow more and more vulnerable. Arby’s and Chipotle were both attacked this year, as was Whole Foods. And those were just the big ones. You don’t have to be a nation-wide chain to get hacked. Many of restaurant-industry attacks are focused around the POS system, which also happen to be one of the most difficult types of threats to protect against. And a restaurant without a POS system these days is a rare find.

Cybersecurity 201 was designed for restaurants of all sizes and types. The tool walks readers through restaurant industry-specific action steps around the NIST Framework. Every suggested action is rated on a scale of one to five in terms of importance, with five being “urgent.” Currently, 17 items are considered urgent, including having a consistent response plan, monitoring the physical environment (aka, guidelines for day-to-day operations at the restaurant), and identifying internal and external threats. The guide wraps up with a handy glossary of terms.

Restaurant Business Online, meanwhile, has published six tips for restaurants to consider when it comes to security at their establishments. Of all the tips, “understand that you can’t eliminate risk” highlights one of the most important points about cybersecurity: technology and guidelines may be evolving to combat attacks, but those attacks are evolving right alongside them. Acknowledging that and committing to a plan of constant assessment is perhaps the smartest thing restaurants can do right now.

Sonic eventually acknowledged the attack and posted information on what affected consumers could do. That’s cool and all, but patrons have the least amount of control over the situation when their favorite restaurant gets attacked. Hopefully Cybersecurity 201 can help restaurants assume more of the responsibility for these attacks—before they happen.