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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

McDonalds

McDonald’s Installs Dynamic Yield’s Personalization Tech in 700 Locations

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 for drive-thru menus, which it can create based on data like weather, trending menu items, and current restaurant traffic. As you start ordering, the menu will automatically suggest upsell items based on that data as well as what you just ordered. Getting a McCafe? The system is probably going to suggest you order a donut stick, too.

Easterbrook noted on the call that, “Over time using data from the millions of customers that we serve daily the technology will get smarter and smarter through machine learning.”

For now, installments of Dynamic Yield’s tech are in the drive-thru, but Easterbook said we’ll eventually see it across all of McDonald’s digital platforms, including mobile ordering and self-order kiosks.

The focus on drive-thru is in part because of a larger effort by McDonald’s to cut down the amount of time customers spend in drive-thru lines. For most quick-service restaurants, the length of time customers spend in the drive-thru line has gone up over the years, despite advances in technology. Average speed-of-service time for drive thrus was 234 seconds in 2018 compared to 225 seconds the previous year, which only goes to show you it’s not about having the tech but knowing how to use it.

Acquiring Dynamic Yield is one way McDonald’s has addressed this problem. Another effort, which Easterbrook discussed on the call, was an “incentive program,” where McDonald’s locations competed against one another “to deliver the best drive-thru service times.”

However, it’s more likely that an AI-driven platform like Dynamic Yield’s will make the real difference in speeding up service and making it more accurate and personalized — in the drive-thru and otherwise. And Dynamic Yield isn’t the only version of AI up and running. Apprente makes neuroscience-inspired AI that can enable voice-ordering and integrate with restaurant POS systems. And 5thru, which isn’t yet in restaurants but is “coming soon” to a number of large quick-service chains, will (gulp) scan your license plate and offer personalized recommendations based on your linked profile.

McDonald’s installations of Dynamic Yield’s tech seems slightly different, though. Yes, the company is focused on making the drive-thru better, but, as the company plans to expand the tech into other areas, it seems like the Dynamic Yield acquisition is about integrating the many different pieces of the digital restaurant operation to drive the kinds of customer experiences and recommendations that will generate more sales. That could well be the winning strategy for any restaurant in this inescapably tech-driven new age of business.

McDonald’s (in Germany) Goes with Nestlé’s Incredible Burger for Vegan Option

When we write about fast food joints adding a plant-based burger option to its menu, it’s usually an Impossible or Beyond Meat plant-based patty. So it caught our eye when LiveKindly reported today that McDonald’s in Germany is making Nestlé’s Incredible Burger patty the center of its new Big Vegan TS.

The Incredible Burger, which in no way sounds like a knock-off of the Impossible burger, is Nestle’s take on a plant-based burger that looks and acts like traditional meat. On the surface, McDonald’s auf Deutsch’s move may seem like a snub of Impossible and Beyond, but it actually make sense and is something my co-worker, Catherine Lamb kinda saw coming back in December, when she wrote:

Impossible and Beyond may have a hold on the U.S. market, but they haven’t expanded much outside of the U.S. (yet). Nestlé would be smart to concentrate on the European market, where, despite several competitors like Moving Mountains and Naturli’ Foods, there’s still plenty of room for it to carve out its own space in the plant-based meat market. Given Nestlé’s size, it already has scale, manufacturing, and sales channels it can leverage to expand quickly.

So it’s understandable that the German McDonald’s would opt for the burger from neighboring Swiss company Nestlé. The question becomes: will Nestlé be able to replicate this type of McDonald’s deal quickly and establish a stronghold in Europe before Beyond and Impossible can make a meaningful leap across the Atlantic?

The McDonald’s news comes ahead of the impending Beyond Meat IPO, which could put added pressure on the company. Investors like to see growth, and getting boxed out of Europe before it’s even begun could be bad news. The bright side, however, is that Beyond announced today that it is going to be available in Belgium, and should Beyond’s IPO go well, it will have the warchest to fuel growth more aggressively into new markets.

The Big Vegan will be available in Germany starting April 29th. If you’re a German Spoon reader, let us know how it is!

Yelp Has a New Initiative to Help Reduce Plastic Waste in Restaurants

Yelp gave a nod to Earth Day this morning by launching a new initiative that rates restaurants’ eco-friendliness factor.

With Yelp’s Green Practices initiative, Yelp reviewers can answer questions around a restaurant’s takeout packaging — whether the business offers compostable containers, uses plastic bags, or has discounts for things like bringing your own reusable beverage mug. The interface to do so looks and functions much like any other Yelp rating tool:

According to a blog post by Yelp product manager Jason Purdy, Yelp will use the information from the surveys “to better understand restaurant behaviors across the country and inform how we surface information about restaurant sustainability for consumers.”

Single-use plastics are just the start. Purdy noted in the same blog post that Yelp is working with a number of different partners to gather and present information about multiple sustainability issues, including the State of California Air Resource Board, the City of Los Angeles Green Business Program, and Clean Water Action’s ReThink Disposable program.

Purdy’s post also said Yelp will eliminate single-use plastic cups, plates, and utensils from all U.S. offices by the end of 2019.

Reducing packaging waste is a huge topic in the restaurant industry right now, with an ever-growing number of businesses announcing various moves to tackle their reliance on single-use plastic. Starbucks announced last year it would eliminate single-use plastic straws from its 28,000 locations by 2020. McDonald’s is trying to find a more sustainable hot/cold cup. KFC has said it will convert to renewable plastic sources by 2025.

Beyond businesses, the EU vowed it will ban single-use plastics by 2021. Stateside, Seattle became the first major U.S. city to ban single-use plastics, in 2018; California and Washington, D.C. NYC currently has legislation in place to enact a similar ban.

To be honest, there are probably enough initiatives in place at this point to fill a 1,500-word post. The question is whether they’ll have enough of an effect on consumer behavior to change our relationship with single-use plastics in restaurants. To be sure, programs like Yelp’s will get people thinking more about how much waste gets created just by getting a to-go order. Now it’s a matter of using these types of initiatives to get consumers beyond thinking and into action.

Starbucks Will Power More Than 300 Texas Stores With Solar

Starbucks made another move towards investing in green energy today when it announced a partnership with solar company Cypress Creek Renewables. In a post on the coffee giant’s Stories site, Starbucks noted that the two companies, along with U.S. bank, are “teaming up on a portfolio of farms across Texas.” The partnership includes two solar farms that will power 360 Starbucks stores across Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, and Arlington.

The post also noted that Starbucks is investing in six other Cypress-owned solar farms in Texas, and predicts that the eight total farms will reduce the company’s total carbon footprint by 101,000 tons annually.

The Seattle-based coffee retailer isn’t new to solar initiatives. In April 2017, Starbucks invested in NC-47, solar farm in North Carolina to power around 600 Starbucks locations in that state as well as Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. In September of 2018, Starbucks announced its Greener Stores initiative, which, among other things, aims to power all stores with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. That includes solar as well as wind — in November of 2018, the company invested in an Illinois wind farm to power almost 350 of its locations.

Starbucks isn’t alone, either, in its plans to ramp up the sustainable side of business, for which the year 2025 is shaping up to be the key date for big-name quick-service brands. Wendy’s has its Squarely Sustainable program, which so far has included using more energy-efficient kitchen equipment and HVAC systems. The company also plans to reduce its overall energy usage by 20 percent by 2025. KFC will convert its packaging to renewable plastic sources, also by 2025. Meanwhile, McDonald’s has said it will source 100 percent of its packaging from renewable materials by, yep, 2025, and Dunkin’ has said it will do away with polystyrene cups by next year.

What will become clearer in future is which of these areas will help quick-service chains make the most positive impact on sustainability. From the perspective of a consumer, it’s easier to see that impact in compostable coffee cups and cutlery as replacements for polystyrene and plastic. Renewables are trickier in that they are a) harder for customers to “see” and b) have a long way to go in meeting long-term climate and sustainability goals. However, that doesn’t make them any less important, and as we inch towards 2025, we’ll see more of these initiatives from more chains, both in the U.S. and globally.

With McDonald’s Dynamic Yield Deal, is the Era of Personalized Menus Upon Us?

Let’s face it, menus are pretty boring. Go into almost any restaurant — fast food, fast casual or that fancy place you take mom once a year — and what you get is a set of food choices that don’t differ from one customer to the next.

And ok, we’ve seen incremental improvements over the past few years through interface technologies such electronic order kiosks and voice ordering, but the reality is a menu today is pretty much the same for us as it was for our parents and grandparents: a one-sized-fits-all list of food choices.

But here’s the good news: judging by recent moves by big restaurants like McDonald’s, that may soon change. Just this week the fast food goliath announced they were buying menu personalization startup Dynamic Yield for $300 million to make their drive thru and in-store menus more technologically dynamic. Chris has the story here.

Here’s an excerpt from the company press release describing what they plan to do with the new technology:

McDonald’s will utilize this decision technology to provide an even more personalized customer experience by varying outdoor digital Drive Thru menu displays to show food based on time of day, weather, current restaurant traffic and trending menu items. The decision technology can also instantly suggest and display additional items to a customer’s order based on their current selections.

Sounds great, right? After all, who wouldn’t want contextualized menu choices based on external environmental factors? Plus, trending items will mean more optimized options than the usual.

But here’s the thing: if that’s the extent of the personalization that a $300 million deal buys you, I’ll be pretty disappointed.

There’s Personalized and Then There’s Personalized

No matter what industry you follow, at this point you probably know personalization is hot. Whether it’s entertainment, nutrition, food or what-have-you, there’s probably more than a dozen startups who want to deliver something highly tailored to you, the end user.

The problem with most of these offerings today is that in most cases, personalized doesn’t really mean personalized, but instead it just means something slightly different based on a set of localized and current environmental factors.

What if instead we were to get truly personalized results tailored specifically for us? What if instead of a menu based on whether it’s hot or cold we got a menu based on what type of food we – you, me, us – like and eat on hot days or cold days?

In short, what if we were to see truly personalized food choices based on specific food profile?

This level of personalization is something we’ve been thinking about at The Spoon for a while. We talked about this exact topic at the Smart Kitchen Summit 2017. Alpha Labs’ Mike Lee had this to say about the idea:

“I’ve always believed there needs to be this interoperable data standard that encapsulates what your food preferences are,” said Lee. “Something that can be used from this app to this app to this grocery store. Much in the same way you have single sign-on with Facebook, I can log in somewhere, and it can show me content that’s sculpted to what I have.”

Think about it: instead of getting just an updated list of food based on what’s trending that day or if it’s hot or cold outside, you would get a menu that was created specifically based on your taste profile, biomarkers, allergies and more. This menu would be an entirely new thing to the world, something made for you and your unique characteristics.

Sounds intriguing.  It also sounds like the future. But is it a future that is near or far? A lot of it depends on how companies like McDonald’s, with Dynamic Yield in the fold, move in that direction.

There are definitely barriers. In a world rampant with data breaches and consumers increasingly worried about their privacy, the idea of more places having information about you and your specific preferences, biomarkers and more can be petrifying (not to mention perilous from both a political and business standpoint).

Still, I think it’s worth pursuing and I’m not the only one. Jim Collins, the CEO of Kitchen United, said menu personalization is one of the biggest opportunities going forward in restaurant. To him, today’s menus are like search engines of the early 2000s: kinda dumb.

“If you’re gluten-free, why do you see menu where 80 percent of the items have gluten?” he asked last fall on our panel about restaurant tech. “Why don’t you see one that only shows the 20 percent that’s not? That’s what I’m looking for.”

I agree and I’m pretty sure McDonald’s (and others) does too: true menu personalization is the holy grail. So while in the near term this deal likely means trending items and McFlurry recommendations when it’s hot out, in the long term I think we’ll see menus created instantly – based on your own McDonald’s or perhaps a more universal profile – for you.

McDonald’s Acquires Dynamic Yield to Make Menus More Netflix-y

McDonald’s announced today that it has acquired personalization platform Dynamic Yield to make the fast food giant’s menus more technologically dynamic. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources told TechCrunch the price was more than $300 million.

According to the press announcement:

McDonald’s will utilize this decision technology to provide an even more personalized customer experience by varying outdoor digital Drive Thru menu displays to show food based on time of day, weather, current restaurant traffic and trending menu items. The decision technology can also instantly suggest and display additional items to a customer’s order based on their current selections.

So it’s kinda like a Netlix, only it recommends Big Macs and chicken nuggets.

Mickey D’s said the technology had already been tested in several locations last year and will roll out at drive throughs in the U.S. throughout 2019. Additionally, the technology will be integrated into other customer screen experiences like in-store kiosks and mobile web app as well.

This type of dynamically generated content is one of the strengths of electronic menus as it can present and potentially better upsell items it knows people typically buy. McD’s can also make the purchasing process more efficient (i.e. present breakfast items prominently in the morning) to ideally sell more stuff.

No doubt a behemoth like McDonald’s acquiring Dynamic Yield will speed up adoption of advanced ordering and personalization tech, and spur others in the space to do the same (that is, if McDonald’s can get its franchisees on board).

In fact, drive throughs and kiosk ordering have already been experiencing a bit of a renaissance with QSRs. Long John Silver invested heavily in revamping its drive throughs as it looks towards fully automating the experience. Good Times Burger & Frozen Custard in Colorado is using AI to take customers’ drive through orders. And in-store ordering kiosks at Caliburger let you pay with your face.

Based in New York, Dynamic Yield had raised $83.3 million dollars.

Checkers & Rally’s Launch “Franchisee Friendly” Delivery Program

Burger chain Checkers & Rally’s announced via press release a delivery program this week that enables delivery from multiple third parties and is also, according to a company press release, “franchise-friendly.”

To service multiple third-party delivery partners at once, and perhaps also to avoid putting franchises through the kind of franchise McSaga McDonald’s currently finds itself in, Checkers & Rally’s have integrated delivery from five major players into a single point-of-sales system. Customers can order from Uber Eats, DoorDash, Postmates, Grubhub, and Amazon Restaurants, and that order will appear as any other ticket item in the system.

Enabling third-party delivery with multiple partners can and does often create operational issues for restaurants. There’s the pileup of hardware devices that come with using multiple services, often referred to nowadays as “tablet hell.” Plus, multiple new ticket streams from these third-party providers means someone has to key in the different orders from different devices, which would slow even the most well-oiled machine down while simultaneously raising the potential for error.

Checkers & Rally’s sought to avoid these pains by enlisting digital ordering platform Olo, who raised $18 million earlier this year from Tiger Global Investment. For the Checkers & Rally’s partnership, Olo helped implement a system that funnels all orders from third-party services into one channel that goes directly into the main POS system. While this approach isn’t exactly new — Chowly and OrderOut both provide this type of integration — Olo’s platform is specifically designed for larger chains (Checkers & Rally’s has around 900 restaurants currently).

The program also offers a benefit to franchisees in the form of a single point of contact for business. Everything from contract negotiations with the third-party services to tech support to training is addressed through the same contact. I’ve spoken with enough restaurant operators in the last year to know that getting support from third-party delivery services can make a call to the IRS seem fun.

Rick Silva, President and CEO of Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, said in a press release that the company wants “to provide our franchisee community with a fully integrated platform that would make it easy and profitable to fulfill delivery orders.”

That’s an important point: delivery is more or less a mandatory part of business nowadays, but the economics of working with third party services don’t always make sense for franchises. Paul Flanders, CFO of Burger King franchisee Carrols Restaurant Group, recently noted that “The economics [of third-party delivery] are probably marginal for the [franchisee] operator.” Meanwhile, the aforementioned McSaga has McDonald’s franchisees questioning some of corporate’s decisions around the exclusive partnership McDonald’s has with Uber Eats, arguing for a better commission split with third parties, and, in some cases, the ability to work with more services than just Uber Eats. A post by the National Owners Association, a McDonald’s franchisee group started late last year, stated that, when it comes to the many changes franchisees have to face, “simplification needs to be priority one.”

Simplification appears to be what Checkers & Rally’s is after with its newly launched delivery program. Of course, making it easier to take multiple orders from multiple services is only one element of doing cost-effective, operationally efficient delivery. But Checkers & Rally’s appears to be making franchisees an integral part of the process when making decisions about delivery, rather than an afterthought you throw technology at.

The numbers will tell how effective this strategy is, and we’ll have to wait for those until the next round of earnings calls. In the meantime, the new program will serve both delivery and pickup orders.

Taco Bell Launches Nationwide Delivery With Grubhub

Today, Taco Bell announced an expanded partnership with Grubhub for nationwide delivery.

The news comes a year after Taco Bell parent company Yum! Brands bought $200 million of common stock in Grubhub and started testing delivery in a limited number of markets. With the nationwide expansion, delivery is now available at roughly 65 percent of Taco Bell locations (via Grubhub, of course).

For the nationwide rollout, the two companies reportedly worked for months to directly integrate Grubhub into Taco Bell’s POS system. An integration like that means (hopefully) fewer inaccuracies on delivery orders, since workers won’t have to take an order then manually rekey it into a Grubhub tablet, as is the usual process for restaurants. The integration is Grubhub’s largest to date.

It won’t hurt Grubhub’s ongoing expansion, which is currently stretching to second- and third-tier U.S. markets (aka smaller cities). Grubhub has reportedly increased its fleet of drivers to accommodate the Taco Bell deal, which will reach many of those smaller cities.

Taco Bell has some serious growth plans in the works. Besides expanding its delivery program, the Irvine, CA-based chain plans to grow to 9,000 stores worldwide by 2022. The company will also install self-service kiosks in every U.S. restaurant by the end of 2019. Two years ago, that might have seemed like a risky business decision. But kiosks are everywhere these days, it seems, from trendy food halls to McDonald’s.

Taco bell also plans to start testing vegan and vegetarian menus in 2019. While the chain already offers some vegetarian combos, this will be the first dedicated menu for meat-free and vegan options.

That will happen a little later in 2019. In the meantime, the chain will celebrate its nationwide delivery launch by dropping the delivery fee on orders of $12 or more for a limited time.

For McDonald’s Franchisees, Delivery Is Another Point of Friction In an Ongoing Battle

Despite a drop in guest counts, McDonald’s reported positive global and domestic same-store sales during its Q4 2018 earnings call, which took place this Wednesday, January 30.

Among the many numbers and initiatives discussed, delivery was highlighted during the call as a particularly lucrative area for McDonald’s moving forward. The mega-chain has been delivering since 2017, when it launched a partnership with Uber Eats. According to the call transcript, 19,000 McDonald’s restaurants globally offer delivery, making it a $3 billion business for both international and domestic stores. CEO Steve Easterbook noted the company will make delivery a “high priority” in 2019.

That’s great if you’re in corporate, or if you want a Big Mac delivered to your office or dorm room. For McDonald’s franchisees, however, delivery appears to be yet-another point of tension lumped on top of an already large pile of grievances.

The National Owners Association (NOA), formed in 2018 and representing about 400 McDonald’s franchisees, conducted a survey recently wherein the majority of 800 franchisees surveyed said they were not “satisfied with the economics” of delivery, and want McDonald’s to push for a better commission split with third parties. McDonald’s has a massive partnership with Uber Eats, who takes roughly 30 percent of each transaction.

“We need to have several vendors delivering for us, not just Uber,” on franchisee surveyed said. “Paying rent and service fees on Uber commission is not fair. Delivery is a necessary service these days, but we must be able to do it profitably.”

The other side of that coin, of course, is that multiple delivery services can become overwhelming very quickly because of the many disparate sales channels they add to a restaurant’s ticket stream, not to mention the extra devices. Loads of different software options to streamline these issues exist, but they cost money, and so McDonald’s franchise operators would have to factor in those costs to their idea of “profitability” were McDonald’s to ever welcome other delivery partners.

These recent comments from McDonald’s and franchisees follow on the heels of a year of aggressive initiatives around McDonald’s Experience of the Future store redesigns, which have sparked concern and frustration among franchisees. McDonald’s revamped 4,000 stores in 2018, bringing its total Experience of the Future stores close to 8,000. But the NOA has said these redesign elements don’t necessarily drive competitive sales, and that McDonald’s is launching too many expensive initiatives that don’t pay off.

Kiosks are one such effort. McDonald’s has self-order kiosks in roughly 17,000 McDonald’s restaurants worldwide. But some franchise operators cite them as another area that doesn’t pay off. “What good will new buildings be when we cannot deliver service because we are short-staffed. Employee turnover is at an all-time high for us. Our restaurants are way too stressful, and people do not want to work in them. Kiosks are not the answer,” one operator stated. But on the call, Easterbrook noted that previous trials show how guests adopt the technology over time, indicating they will become more comfortable with the kiosk process as we go along.

Shake Shack is a good example in action of Easterbrook’s statement. The company unveiled a cashless, kiosk-centric store in October 2017 and abandoned the concept less than a year later, due to an influx of customer complaints around those kiosks. But in August of 2018, Shake Shack made an about-face and announced it would expand its kiosk locations (with some adjustments based on customer feedback). The company received much more favorable feedback the second time around.

Meanwhile, McDonald’s has extended the deadline of its Experience of the Future stores, giving operators the option to complete them by 2022, rather than the original date of 2020. Roughly 2,000 stores are expected to be overhauled in 2019 and 2020.

KFC Will Convert to Renewable Plastic Sources By 2025

KFC announced today it plans to eliminate non-reusable, plastic-based packaging from its supply chain by 2025, Nations Restaurant News reports.

To meet that pledge, the chain will work with suppliers worldwide to identify alternative plastic sources for items like lids, cutlery, straws, and plastic bags. Additionally, the chain said via press release it will conduct audits of its franchises current systems to find areas for reducing plastic waste. Though the chain hasn’t said what could potentially replace plastic, KFC franchisees will be able to create their own sustainable packing agenda, so materials could vary based on markets.

“With environmental sustainability as a core aspect of how we do business, this commitment represents a public acknowledgment of the obligation we have to address these serious issues.” KFC CEO, Tony Lowings, said in the press release.

Some KFC stores have already taken large steps in the direction of cutting down on plastics. In 2018, the company stopped offering lids and straws for drinks at 84 of its Singapore locations — though that only applies to customers eating at the restaurant. Locations in France and Romania, meanwhile, are looking to replace plastic straws with paper ones.

KFC’s pledge follows similar moves by the likes of McDonald’s and Starbucks to reduce single-use plastics. In January of 2018, McDonald’s announced its goal of having 100 percent of its restaurants use fully recyclable packaging by 2025. Also in 2018, Starbucks launched its open-source “Greener Stores” initiative, of which reducing waste is one part. Prior to that, the coffee giant had announced it would eliminate single-use plastic straws from more than 28,000 locations by 2020.

Like those chains, KFC’s reach is wide, as the company operates 22,000 restaurants in 135 countries across the globe. It’s also involved in the the NextGenCup Consortium, a partnership amongst food-service leaders to address the 250 billion cups produced annually that wind up, for the most part, in landfills. Working with partners like McDonald’s, Starbucks, The Coca-Cola Company, and KFC’s parent company, Yum Brands, the consortium fosters innovation towards finding a more sustainable cup design for quick-service restaurants.

Finding the perfect cup and then getting it into stores will be something of an uphill battle, given the dizzying inconsistencies over what can be recycled where, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. You also have to get consumers to actually recycle, which sounds like a no-brainer but will be a challenge, given that, in the U.S., 91 percent of plastic isn’t recycled.

Still, it’s nice to see mega brands signing on to make steps towards change. I expect we’ll hear more rumblings around this in the coming months, and 2020 so far looks to be the year major change starts happening when it comes to finding more sustainable ways to do quick-service food.

Starbucks Expands Uber Eats Delivery Pilot Across U.S.

Starbucks this morning announced (via an email) it will expand the delivery pilot program it runs in Miami with Uber Eats to other U.S. cities. Starting today, the program is available in San Francisco, and will move to NYC, DC, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles over the next few weeks.

Starbucks has been testing out the delivery concept since 2015, when it launched a partnership in the U.S. with Postmates, which it has maintained over the last few years. Then, in 2018, Starbucks teamed up with Uber Eats in Miami to offer “favorite items that have been tested for delivery.” This latest round of cities is an expansion of that pilot.

For the Miami pilot, the caramel Frappucino has wound up being the most popular item ordered thus far. That isn’t surprising, since blended ice, sugar, and whatever else they put in those things will travel a lot better than a piping hot cup of black coffee (though fewer people probably want that in Miami anyway).

Which brings up a good point: hot liquids don’t travel well (duh). The times I’ve ordered coffee from the deli down the block, I’ve gotten a paper cup quadruple-wrapped in plastic cellophane containing a sort-of hot beverage. I’ve always blamed myself for being lazy enough to get coffee delivered in the first place. But if pricey coffee drinks become a standard delivery item, companies like Starbucks may need to think about more delivery-friendly packaging.

Still, I doubt packaging will deter people. The addition of Japan as a delivery market last year suggests the Starbucks-Uber Eats pilot is thus-far fruitful. Others — namely, Dunkin’ and McDonalds (also via Uber Eats) — are also jumping on the coffee-delivery trend, which will fuel more competition in the market.

Uber Eats, meanwhile, is ramping up its efforts across many areas of the food-delivery space. The company has been looking to use drones for delivery, and has exclusive partnerships with virtual (aka ghost) kitchens, too. While I speculate here, one could even imagine Starbucks and Uber Eats setting up a ghost kitchen to handle the influx of extra orders an expanded delivery partnership could bring.

Finally, the Uber IPO has been looming in the future for some time, though it, along with Lyft’s, are reportedly stalled at the moment due to the government shutdown. In any case, expanding a partnership in a space growing as fast as a delivery seems a well-calculated move for Uber Eats, right now and when that IPO eventually does happen.

Food Tech News: Shake Shack Goes Mobile, McDonald’s Israel Adopts Tech to Help the Blind

After traveling these past few weeks to CES and the Fancy Food Show, we’re excited to kick back and do precisely nothing this weekend. Hopefully you have a similar amount of plans. But before you get to finally reading that New Yorker stack on your coffee table, take a quick read through our weekly food tech news roundup. This week we’ve got stories on everything from dairy-free yogurt to booze-free cocktails — enjoy!

McDonald’s Israel uses sensors to help blind customers
This week McDonald’s Israel announced that it would install a voice navigation app in all its stores in order to assist blind customers and those suffering from dementia. In-store Sensors from Israeli company RightHear will interact with customer’s phones, which will read out custom directional voice instructions. This move will make McDonald’s Israel the first restaurant chain in the world to offer full access to visually impared customers. It’s kind of shocking that it’s taken so long for this to happen, but hopefully if the sensor program has success at McDonald’s Israel it will spread to the rest of the chain’s global locations — and to other fast-food restaurants, too.

Photo: Shake Shack.

Shake Shack announces plans to launch mobile food truck
Shake Shack is going mobile. This week Randy Garutti, CEO of the wildly popular fast-casual chain, announced that Shake Shack would be launching a food truck concept in early February. The first two trucks will be in New Jersey and Atlanta, but move around throughout their respective regions. According to Skift Table, Shake Shack’s leadership team plans to mainly use the trucks for community events, private parties, and local festivals.

Photo: YoFix

Israeli company YoFix launches dairy-free/soy-free yogurt
Last week we wrote about how Chobani was getting into the plant-based dairy game — it seems they’re not the only ones. This week YoFix Probiotics, winner of PepsiCo’s European Nutrition Greenhouse Programme 2018, announced a line of vegan, soy-free yogurts made from a blend of oats, legumes and seeds. The three flavors will have the “same or better” nutritional value as regular yogurt but will have no dairy, soy, added sugars or preservatives.

Photo: Coca-Cola Company

Coca-Cola debuts non-alcoholic “cocktails”
If you’re doing Dry January (and hats off to you), good news: there’s a new mocktail option for you. This week Coca-Cola introduced Bar None, its new non-alcoholic cocktail concept, in various retailers in Atlanta. The booze-free bottled drinks come in four cocktail-inspired flavors, like Sangria and Ginger Mule. According to Food Dive, this marks the first time a Big Food/Drink company has launched a line of non-alcoholic beverages — we’ll see if their bet pays off.

Did we miss anything? Leave us a comment or tweet us @TheSpoonTech!