Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

fast casual

OneRare and Honeybee Burger Partner to Bring Plant-Based Food to the Metaverse

OneRare, the first dedicated food metaverse platform just announced a collaboration with LA-based Honeybee Burger to make plant-based food “more desirable, accessible and available everywhere.”

The vegan burger, founded by former Wall Street execs, is considered a mini-chain in Southern California but has grown in popularity alongside the plant-based movement and is planning to open locations in NYC and Chicago. Honeybee plans to leverage OneRare to enter the metaverse and create a virtual location accessible to anyone around the world.

It’s a good move and one that smaller restaurant groups should watch carefully; as giants like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Chipotle unveil their proprietary “metaverse” environments that will act like virtual storefronts and communities (Wendyverse, anyone?), taking advantage of already established platforms like OneRare will be important to compete in the fast-casual dining space in the future.

Adam Weiss, CEO of Honeybee commented, “we like to think of Honeybee as an innovator, redefining the potential of vegan food in order to increase the appeal of plant-based dining globally. On the food side, that means bringing new and exciting plant-based products to our customers, including things like Nowadays chick’n nuggets…and also Akua kelp patties, which we were the first QSR to serve. This innovation extends to our business and marketing, where we were one of the first to use Regulation CF to raise funds, and now we want to be one of the first to market in the metaverse.”

For now, Honeybee will use the OneRare “foodverse” to promote plant-based food and sustainable dining and feature an NFT menu created by the vegan chain. OneRare has been busy since raising its first funding round in November 2021, announcing dozens of partnerships with food and restaurant brands along with partnerships with NFT and cryptocurrency platforms.

Just Salad’s Latest Menu Innovation: Adding Your Carbon Footprint to Your Meal

One of our favorite topics here at The Spoon right now is the reinvention of the restaurant menu. Social distancing and new guidelines around restaurant reopenings are forcing businesses to forgo the standard reusable menu and adopt digital versions customers can view on mobile devices. It’s a big switch and not without its operational headaches. But it also opens up a lot of doors in terms of the kind of information that could eventually be available on the restaurant menu. 

For example, the carbon footprint of your lunch.

Fast-casual chain Just Salad announced today it will now label all of its menu items with a corresponding carbon footprint. The score for each menu item is calculated in partnership with a team at the NYU Stern School of Business, and will reflect “the total estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of ingredients in each menu item,” according to a press release from Just Salad.

These carbon footprints will first rollout on the chain’s website. Since digital menus are becoming the norm, it’s unclear if those changes will make it to physical menus, or indeed if those will even be in stores in the future. An exact date for the carbon footprint info on online menus has not yet been set.

Just Salad’s online menu is already fairly robust in terms of the nutritional information it provides customers about their meals. Hovering over an item pulls up the same nutrition facts one might read on the label of a box in the grocery store, and, for build-your-own salads and wraps, updates itself based on each ingredient you add to the mix. 

Since the carbon footprint scores for Just Salad’s menu items aren’t yet live, we don’t quite know what they’ll look like in digital format. I imagine they’ll be merged with the ingredients interface in some way so that a customer can view the nutritional and sustainability info of their meal in a single place. And while there was no mention of it in the press release, one imagines food traceability information could also eventually make its way into this new format. 

The carbon scores are a small step in menu development, but very telling in how this mandatory push to digital menus could welcome a new era of transparency when it comes to knowing where our food comes from and how our eating impacts the planet. In the ongoing quest for silver linings to come out of the current restaurant industry upheaval, this is definitely one of them.   

Sweetgreen Rolls Out Truly Compostable Bowls — Will Other Chains Follow Suit?

If you’ve grabbed lunch at a Sweetgreen before, you likely felt pretty virtuous as you tossed your takeout container, knowing that it’s “100 percent compostable.”

But the truth about those takeaway bowls is a lot less pleasant. According to The Counter (formerly The New Food Economy), all molded fiber bowls contain PFAS; a nasty class of chemicals that do not naturally biodegrade. That means that the compostable food containers you’ve been throwing out are not, in fact, compostable. In fact, they contain hazardous, unhealthy components that never break down.

However, Sweetgreen just took a big step to get rid of PFAS and make their to-go containers truly compostable. The fast-casual chain partnered with Footprint, a company fighting single-use plastic packaging, to develop a new line of biodegradable bowls that are completely devoid of PFAS (h/t FastCompany). Sweetgreen launched the bowls first in San Francisco earlier this year, since new legislation requires that as of January 1, 2020, all single-use food service ware (containers, cups, etc) in SF must be PFAS-free.

The containers are made of fibers from bagasse, an agricultural waste product, which is blended, heated, and covered with a natural coating so it won’t leak. The lids for Sweetgreen’s to-go containers are currently plastic, but the company plans to start selling lids made of the same compostable material soon. Sweetgreen has plans to roll out the compostable bowls at all of its stores nationwide in 2020.

Sweetgreen is one of several restaurant chains with high numbers of to-go orders that is increasing its sustainability efforts. Its competitor, Just Salad, recently announced plans to send zero waste to landfills by 2022. Coffee chain Blue Bottle aims to divert at least 90 percent of its waste from landfills by the end of this year.

On the fast food side, Taco Bell aims to implement PFAS-free sustainable consumer-facing packaging by 2025. Starbucks will switch to reusable packaging by 2030 in a bid to cut its landfill waste by half. And McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Subway, and Burger King have all made their own pledges to reduce single-use and plastic.

In a time when worry over COVID-19 could be making restaurants more hesitant to accept consumer’s reusable containers — Starbucks, for example, has stopped letting customers use their own drinking vessels — better to-go packaging is more needed than ever before. But implementing truly recyclable or compostable packaging is much easier said than done, even as more cities mandate PFAS-free to-go containers.

With its new biodegradable bowls, Sweetgreen shows that it’s taking sustainability seriously. The move should put some pressure on fast-casual competitors like Chipotle, Panera, Chopt, and more, to follow suit and step up their to-go container game.

IHOP Plans to Launch Flip’d, a Fast-Casual Concept Focused on To-Go, Delivery Orders

Casual dining chain IHOP will venture into fast-casual territory in 2020 with a new concept called Flip’d. The new standalone chain will focus heavily on to-go, delivery, and technology, according to a press release from IHOP.   

Like IHOP locations, Flip’d will serve three meals a day but keep a particular emphasis on breakfast. “The Flip’d by IHOP menu will borrow inspiration from iconic IHOP favorites – including the brand’s world-famous Buttermilk pancakes – but put a unique twist on flavors and portability in a way that only IHOP can,” the press release said. What that shakes out to in real life remains to be seen, but it will include a build-your-own pancake bar, made-to-order breakfast burritos and bowls, and grab-and-go salads and baked goods, among other items. 

Even more important than what’s on the menu is how you can order and retrieve those items. Customers will have the option to order either from a cashier at the counter or at a self-service kiosk. They can also order and pay online, then either pick the food up in a designated to-go area of the restaurant or have it delivered. It’s unclear yet if Flip’d will share IHOP’s exact same delivery strategy. Currently, IHOP customers can order delivery through the IHOP mobile app or website. The restaurant also works with DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, Uber Eats, and Uber Eats. Catering via ezCater is also available. 

The first Flip’d location is planned for Spring 2020 in Atlanta, with stores in NYC, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Denver in the works.  

IHOP is just the latest restaurant brand to launch a fast-casual spinoff of its main business, following the likes of Famous Dave’s, which launched Clark Crew BBQ this year, and The Cheesecake Factory, which opened an Asian fast-casual concept earlier in 2019. In 2018, Buffalo Wild Wings started testing B-Dubs Express, which includes a sauce wall and self-service beer stations.

All of which to say, restaurants diversifying into concepts that emphasize speed, self-service, and off-premises orders is becoming an ever-more popular strategy. No one would call it off-premises-focused concepts table stakes yet, but with the continued demand for delivery and to-go orders, and the foregone conclusion that ghost kitchens will rule 2020, fast-casual concept brands from old-school restaurant chains is something we’ll see more of next year. 

Seattle Shake Shack Goes Super Local with Crowd Cow Beef

Seattle has been salivating over our forthcoming Shake Shack for months. The Emerald City may have the iconic Dick’s Burgers, mountains of local produce, and more oysters than you can shake a stick at, but something about the Danny Meyer-led chain’s cheeseburgers, crinkle fries, and ice cream concretes has created a rabid fan base for the soon-to-be restaurant.

The new Shake Shack will open in Seattle’s Westlake neighborhood, smack dab in the middle of the sprawling Amazon campus, and will come with a few locally-inspired menu items. Chief among them is the Montlake Double Cut, which Seattle Met revealed today would be a double cheeseburger made with local beef sourced from Crowd Cow, topped with Just Jack cheese from Seattle institution Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, caramelized onions, and a mustard-mayo sauce on a locally made Macrina bakery bun.

Shake Shack has a history of teaming up with local institutions to add regional-specific dishes to the menus of its new outposts. For example, for its Austin, Texas location, the company created a burger topped with jalapeno-cheese sausage from Texas barbecue spot Kreuz Market. However, this Seattle creation marks the first time the chain has ever made a change to its custom-blended beef patties.

Honestly, we can’t wait to try the Crowd Cow burgers. (I’m a vegetarian, and I’m still excited about the partnership.) Crowd Cow is an online service that lets consumers buy craft beef (and chicken, and pork, and fish) from local farmers, then delivers it directly to their door. The Seattle-based startup recently raised $8 million to expand their network of farmers and improve their supply chain.

This partnership was a savvy move on Shake Shake’s part. By partnering with a marketplace like Crowd Cow, they can feature locally raised beef from small farms without ever worrying about hiccups in their supply. If a certain farm can’t provide meat one week, Crowd Cow can always search its marketplace to source some more.

By developing a burger that’s not only regionally-inspired but also made of regionally-sourced beef, the New York-based chain can attract customers who might typically avoid chain restaurants. “Shake Shack was looking to do something very particular to Seattle,” Crowd Cow co-founder Ethan Lowrey told me over the phone.

Not only is their beef local, it’s also much higher quality than you’ll see in a store or restaurant — even the fancy ones. The cows in Crowd Cow’s marketplace are raised for steak, which means their meat is a superior grade. “Our secret weapon is our ground beef,” Lowrey said. “Even if you compare it with the nicest ground beef you buy in a store, it’s just night and day.”

By sourcing beef from Crowd Cow, Shake Shack can capitalize on recent demands for transparent meat sourcing. As my colleague Chris Albrecht wrote a few months ago:

According to The Power of Meat report, conventional meat sales were flat in 2017, while meat with special production (natural, organic, etc.) and claims about ethical animal treatment saw “dollar gains of 4.8 percent and volume growth of 5.1 percent.” 

As far as we can tell, this partnership is the first time that Crowd Cow has sold their meat to a high-volume restaurant. Let’s hope the growing startup can keep up with the demand of Shake Shack-crazed Seattleites.

Beyond beef, Shake Shack will also add a few local creations to its menu of concretes (basically, extra-thick milkshakes): one with seasonal pie from A La Mode Pies, one with Theo’s dark chocolate, and another with brittle made from Sea Wolf croissants.

There’s no official word on the opening day for the Westlake Shack Shack, though it’s rumored to be sometime in the next few weeks. If you get to stop in and order the Montlake Double Cut, be sure to tweet us @TheSpoonTech and tell us how you liked it.

Customizable Fast-Casual Chain Vita Mojo Is All About the Software

When co-founders Nick Popovici and Steven Citou first pitched restaurants the idea for a fully customizable meal service a few years ago, they met with a lot of skepticism. “People didn’t think you could make money by doing bespoke meals,” said Charley Gloerfelt, Vita Mojo’s Head of Brand Development. 

Now, London-based Vita Mojo is trying not only to prove them wrong, but to help other restaurants hop on the modular-meal bandwagon, too.

Vita Mojo allows diners to create a fully customized meal via an in-store iPad at any of their three London locations, or using the restaurant’s app. Customers choose their desired base or protein, sides, toppings, and sauces, which are combined into a final plate that’s priced accordingly. So instead of being locked into a prescribed combo, diners can choose their own adventure. Each of Vita Mojo’s dish options also has a fully transparent breakdown of calories, macro levels, and allergens, so you know exactly what nutritional elements are going into your lunch. As of now there are 9 billion possible combinations.

Since they’re modular, Vita Mojo’s meal prices can vary quite a bit. In general, though, they’ll set you back £5-£7 ($6.50-$9.50 USD) for a basic lunch — the norm for most fast-casual spots in London. According to Gloerfelt, diners usually get their meal three to five minutes after placing their order. That timing might be normal at the average lunch buffet — unless you’re really indecisive — but is pretty speedy for a bespoke, high-quality meal. Plus, all of Vita Mojo’s meal components are geared towards health-conscious customers and made with transparently sourced ingredients.

Vita Mojo has also released a business intelligence platform that allows other restaurants to implement the same customizable meal model. They launched it at the end of 2017, just after we first wrote about Vita Mojo’s modular meal service on The Spoon.

Vita Mojo’s modular meal-building software at one of their restaurants.

The SaaS product lets food establishments track PoS data at a granular level. Since all meals created with the Vita Mojo system are modular, businesses can get a better sense of exactly which foods — not just which meals — are most popular. They can also predict future sales, reduce food waste, and see what ingredients are trending (cough, kale) in order to better inform recipe creation. So if they notice a lot of people are ordering sweet potato mash, they can order and prep accordingly — and even develop a few more recipes starring yams. 

So far, a few smaller businesses, like coffee chains and independent establishments, are using their software. Gloerfelt couldn’t give me any details on pricing for using the SaaS product, saying that it varied depending on how much support the restaurants or cafés required and how much customization they were looking for.

But that’s just the beginning. Vita Mojo only started leasing the software towards the end of last year, and they hope to expand the reach quite a bit within the fast casual dining scene. 

If this made you think of eatsa, you are not alone. The fast-casual chain shuttered all of their storefronts outside of their home city of San Francisco last year in an effort to focus on powering other restaurants with its technology. Though Gloerfelt didn’t indicate that Vita Mojo was planning on doing away with their restaurants anytime soon, she did tell me that they’re intended to be a proof of concept. In other words, they want to show that making a customized meal for every diner walking through the door is as cost- and time-effective as serving a set meal.

Vita Mojo is currently expanding their operations within the U.K. and looking at franchising their ordering and tracking software.