Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Featuerd

The Case for More Conveyor Belts in Restaurants

This is the web version of our newsletter. Sign up today to get updates on the rapidly changing nature of the food tech industry.

Spoon Editor in Chief Chris Albrecht posed an interesting question this week for restaurants to consider: Will we see more conveyor belt-style food delivery systems as consumers head back to dining rooms?

The short answer is yes. For now, the concept is most associated with sushi. But new developments in restaurant tech and operations over the last year suggest the conveyor belt will have many uses for many different food types moving forward — sushi or otherwise.

Conveyor belt sushi, better known as kaiten sushi, emerged in the 1950s when an Osaka, Japan restauranteur named Yoshiaki Shiraishi developed the concept to keep labor costs down at his restaurant and ensure quick service for customers.

Labor costs and shortages as well as improving speed of service are two major priorities in the restaurant industry right now, especially as restaurants continue to struggle financially from the pandemic and at the same time have to juggle multiple meal formats, from in-dining room to curbside pickup to drive-thru. And seeing as we’re still in a pandemic, many see limiting the human-to-human contact as another necessary priority. 

Managed properly, conveyor belt systems could easily address all three of the above elements: labor, speed, and safety. In a growing number of cases, they already do.

UK-based chain YO! (née Yo! Sushi) helped to popularize the conveyor belt concept in Britain long before the pandemic. And it seems the chain has made some some pandemic-related changes to its system over the last few months, including integrating it with QR code-based digital ordering. Rather than customers choosing what they want from a rotating display, they scan a QR code at the restaurant and choose and pay for items digitally. The conveyor belt then brings chosen items to customers. Speaking to BBC in 2020, Yo Sushi CEO Richard Hodgson said the belt system takes the place of a waiter, and “rather than using it to showcase the food, we’re using it to deliver the food straight to you.” 

Kaiten sushi never really went out of vogue, so it’s unsurprising we’re seeing more of these systems pop up in the age of social distancing. But the concept is rapidly spreading outside of sushi restaurants, too. As Chris noted a few in his post:

At the Country Garden robot restaurant complex in China, food is carried from the kitchen to the table via an overhead rail system and then dropped down by tether to the customer. At Alibaba’s Robot.he restaurant, also in China, automated robots on tracks deliver food directly to a table. The Robo Cafe in Dubai has a similar system of Roomba-like robot waiters for customers sitting at the counter.

Down the street from me, in Nashville, Tennessee, a mother-daughter duo opened a cheese-and-charcuterie conveyor belt restaurant called Culture + Co.

And with more restaurant orders going off-premises, the conveyor belt is becoming a back-of-house staple, too. Crave Collective, a combination ghost kitchen/virtual restaurant, runs a conveyor belt system through the middle of its facility that shuttles delivery orders to drivers waiting to deliver the food. Both Burger King and McDonald’s have introduced the conveyor belt as a delivery mechanism for getting food from the kitchen to drive-thru and/or pickup customers, though both examples are still just design concepts right now.

It goes hand-in-hand with the move towards less interaction between staff and customers, or at least less handing back and forth of physical things. As some of the above examples show, the format seems especially well suited to getting off-premises meals to drive-thru and curbside customers. I’m not the only one to think so, either. A growing number of restaurants, ghost kitchen operators, and other individuals in restaurant tech have all suggested we’ll see the conveyor belt in more of these scenarios in the future in addition to having them in the dining room.

If you’re interested in the future of restaurant automation, you should attend our upcoming ArticulATE food robotics virtual conference on May 18! Get your ticket today!

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

Drive-in burger icon Sonic is currently testing in-app tipping features through which customers can tip the folks that bring out their food. The company said being able to tip Sonic’s so-called “bellhops” via the chain’s app has been one of the top two requests from customers.

P.F. Chang’s announced this week a partnership with guest engagement and CRM platform Wisely. The latter provides marketing automation tools as well as table and waitlist management features to restaurants, with the underlying goal of creating “more personalized” restaurant experiences for guests.  

Major U.S. restaurant chains reported sales declines in February according to the latest update from NPD’s CREST Performance Alerts. The decline was in no small part due to snowstorms, rainfall, and ice in many parts of the country during the month of February. 

Uber Eats Launches Campaign to Support Independent Restaurants

Uber today announced Eat Local, a campaign the company says will support independent restaurants financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As part of the Eat Local package, Uber will donate $4.5 million to the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), which will in turn distribute financial assistance to U.S. restaurants facing COVID-19-related challenges. Restaurants must be on the Uber Eats and/or Postmates platforms to be eligible. 

According to the LISC website, the applications process for grants opens on Feb. 16. The grant program will offer to help restaurants meet certain expenses, such as payroll, rent, utilities, outstanding debts to vendors, and upgrading technology systems. 

Restaurants must have been active on Uber Eats or Postmates since Jan. 1, 2021 in order to be eligible for the grant. Businesses must also have less than five locations and not be affiliated with a national brand. (The full list of eligibility requirements is on LISC’s site.)

In keeping with earlier relief efforts from 2020, Uber’s Eat Local package also includes waived and reduced fees for restaurants around restaurant pickup orders and for orders placed via a restaurant’s own website but delivered by Uber Eats. Restaurants can get daily payouts instead of the standard weekly ones, and Uber will also continue matching donations made by customers via the Eats app’s Restaurant Contribution feature.

Uber (and newly acquired Postmates) along with Grubhub and DoorDash first began offering relief packages for restaurants back in March 2020, when shelter-in-place mandates first went into effect in the U.S. Since then, these services have launched various grant programs and assistance efforts, including Grubhub’s Winterization Grant and DoorDash’s ongoing Main Street Strong program.

All of these efforts go some ways towards helping small and independent restaurants, which have been most damaged by the pandemic. What remains unclear is how much grants and relief efforts help when stacked up against the high commission fees third-party delivery service continue to charge these smaller restaurants. That factor remains likely to be a point of heated debate long after the worst parts of the pandemic have subsided.

California Launches Meal Delivery Program to Feed Seniors and Aid Restaurants

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Friday the “Restaurants Deliver: Home Meals for Seniors” program, aimed at feeding vulnerable senior citizens while simultaneously giving more business to restaurants and their workers.

The meal delivery program, which is in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has two purposes, according to the state of California website:

  1. Help older and other adults at high risk from COVID-19 to stay home and stay healthy by delivering three nutritious meals a day, and
  2. Provide essential economic stimulus to local businesses and workers struggling to stay afloat during the COVID crisis.

The program is effective immediately. It will reimburse participating restaurants for three meals per day: up to $16 for breakfast, $17 for lunch, and $28 for dinner.  

Gov. Newsom noted in a press conference at the end of last week that the program is aimed specifically at independent restaurants that are struggling or that have been forced to close because of the pandemic. “We want to get a lot of independent restaurants up and running again,” he said.

Participating restaurants will be selected by local governments. Their meals must adhere to certain nutritional guidelines and, ideally, use locally sourced ingredients.

Across the U.S. restaurant transactions are down and at least 3 percent of restaurants have permanently closed their doors. Those that remain open are exploring other lines of business in order to survive and keep at least some staff employed. Some restaurants are selling groceries. Others have pivoted entirely away from food and are paying employees to sew masks.

The program is the first in the U.S. dedicated specifically to senior citizens impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. World Central Kitchen has a similar initiative in place in the U.S. and is working with restaurants to deliver meals to both seniors and communities in need.

California’s program will serve millions of seniors living in isolation at this time. Those interested can enter their location at 211.org to see if they qualify.