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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Podcast: The Future Grocery Store

While I may have missed my annual sojourn to sin city for CES this year, I may soon be able to get something akin to walking the Vegas strip just by heading on down to my local grocery store.

That’s because, at least according to The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht, grocery stores will soon resemble the floor of a casino with all the screens that will show up there in the future. Whether it’s smart carts with a touch screen or digital displays up and down the aisles, we can expect lots more digital signage and screens in our lives as shopping becomes more connected and digitized in the future.

And, as I say on this week’s editor podcast, I’m totally on board with more tech in the corner store as long as it includes bread-making robots filling up the aisles with the smell of fresh-baked loaves.

In addition to talking about smart grocery carts this week, we also discuss:

As always, you can check out the Food Tech Show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Soundcloud, or just click play below.

Dragontail Systems and Pizza Hut Deploy Pizza Delivery Drones in Israel

Restaurant tech company Dragontail Systems announced today that it has joined up with Pizza Hut for pizza delivery by drone in Israel.

To make this type of airborne delivery happen, Dragontail is integrating drones into its Algo Dispatching System, which uses AI to manage food preparation and delivery workflow. The delivery drones won’t be dropping pizzas off at people’s front doors, however. Rather, they will fly pizzas to remote designated landing zones where delivery drivers will pick them up for last mile of the delivery.

This remote drop-off hub approach is gaining traction with delivery companies around the world. IFood is using this model in Brazil, and here in the U.S., Uber is taking this approach with its drone delivery program.

There are actually good reasons to use this multi-step approach when delivering by drone. First, it simplifies the regulatory issues around flying commercial delivery drones because it reduces the number of flight paths that need to be created and cleared with appropriate government entities. Second, even if there is a last mile that needs to be driven, a drone still zooms overhead bypassing a lot of ground traffic on its way to customers for a speedy delivery. Finally, a remote hubg can keep delivery drivers closer to the delivery neighborhoods, rather than having them go back and forth to a restaurant.

Regardless of approach, the drone food delivery space is heating up. Walmart is using Flytrex for a groceries-by-drone delivery pilot in North Carolina. Rouses Market is testing deliveries in Alabama. In Ireland, Manna is making deliveries in around Dublin. And Google’s Wing has been making drone deliveries in Australia.

Drone delivery could become a much more viable option for restaurants and other food retailers here in the U.S., as the Federal Aviation Administration released its final safety and nighttime flying rules for commercial drone operators at the end of last year.

Food Tech News: Food Waste For Solar Energy, DoorDash Announces New Gifting Feature

Food waste used to produce solar energy

A recent winner of the Sustainability 2020 James Dyson Award, Carvey Maigue (a student at Mapúa University in the Philippines) created a technology that converts food waste into UV light-capturing windows and walls. The system, called AuReus, traps luminescent particles from certain fruits and vegetables (which would otherwise be wasted) in a resin substrate. The particles then absorb and reflect the light, and PV cells along the side of the walls and windows absorb this light. Lastly, the captured light is converted to DC electricity.

DoorDash announces new gifting feature

This week, DoorDash announced its new gifting feature for the holiday season. Users can now send favorite food items to friends and family located anywhere in the country through the app. To send a food gift, a user simply needs to enter the recipient’s address on the app, and then customize the order with a digital card. Not sure what to send? According to DoorDash, the most popular requests include french fries, burrito bowls, and cookies.

Ikea pledges to make 50% of menu items vegan

By 2025, Ikea’s goal is to make half of its menu items and 80 percent of its packaged meals vegan. The multinational chain already carries vegan items like meatballs, soft-serve, and hot dogs. After reading scientific reports and consumer research studies, the company aims to do its part in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions through providing foods with a lower carbon footprint.

UK Pizza Huts adds Christmas Pizza

Do you think that pineapple on a pizza is a weird topping? I personally think traditional Christmas dishes as pizza toppings might triumph over pineapple for being even stranger. Pizza Hut locations in the UK are now carrying a Christmas pizza, which includes shredded chicken, bacon, sage & onion stuffing, and a red wine gravy. The pizza is available now and until supplies last.

McDonald’s, Starbucks Join Contactless Delivery Efforts in China as Coronavirus Spreads

McDonald’s, Starbucks, and other quick-service restaurants (QSRs) are now implementing contactless delivery across China in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, according to Reuters.

Yum China brands Pizza Hut and KFC began using the delivery method earlier this month, along with third-party services Ele.me and Meituan. Now, McDonald’s and Starbucks are using a similar approach in order to keep workers safe and help prevent further spreading of the deadly outbreak.

Customers are encouraged to order remotely via restaurants’ mobile apps and websites. Orders are then sealed into bags and placed in a designated pickup spot, such as at the entrance of a customer’s building. Delivery drivers are required to carry ID cards that show they had their temperature taken and do not have a fever. 

Starbucks recommends customers order via the chain’s mobile app for pickup orders. Customers then wait outside a Starbucks location until they receive a pickup notice for their order, which will be placed on a table just inside the store. Any customer who enters a Starbucks must have their temperature taken at the door. Starbucks is also working with Ele.me for delivery orders. 

Some form of contactless delivery existed prior to the Coronavirus outbreak. However, much of China’s population is currently limited in terms of their own mobility and unable to return to work. Roughly 760 million people in China live in neighborhoods or villages currently under some level of lockdown. At least 150 million of them — about 10 percent of the population — face restrictions around how they can leave their actual homes. That makes contactless delivery one of the only ways in which they can procure food, whether it’s restaurant meals or grocery items.

According to Allison Malmsten, a marketing strategy analyst at Daxue Consulting who spoke to Reuters, the outbreak “redefines contactless food delivery.”

As lockdown continues, we’ll doubtless see more restaurants, grocery stores, and delivery services ramping up contactless delivery in the coming days and weeks.

KFC, Pizza Hut Test Contactless Delivery in Response to China’s Coronavirus

As China continues to grapple with the deadly coronavirus outbreak, some restaurant chains are taking steps to ensure food delivery operations can continue. Yum China, which operates thousands of KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in China, is now using what it calls contactless delivery and pickup to safely get food from restaurants to customers without further spreading the deadly virus.

Yum posted videos to Chinese social media platforms Weibo and WeChat showing a delivery driver having their temperature taken, putting on a mask, and disinfecting their hands before heading out to make the delivery. Drivers are also required to disinfect both their hands and their delivery boxes after each delivery.

The food courier drops the order at pre-appointed spot outside the customer’s building then watches from a distance of at least 10 feet while the customer retrieves their order and goes back inside:

Yum China is also testing an in-store pickup version of this contactless delivery at some locations, where pickup racks have been installed inside. For both delivery and pickup, customers ordering via can now choose a “contactless” option when they order online. 

Chinese food delivery services Meituan and Ele.me are providing similar services. And it isn’t just restaurants peddling this contactless form of food delivery. Grocery stores — namely Alibaba’s Hema, JD affiliate Dada, and Meituan — are using contactless delivery for grocery orders, offering an in-app option for customers similar to that of Yum China. 

CNBC reports that as of last week in Beijing, roughly 20,000 people were delivering an average of over 400,000 orders daily from Meituan and Ele.me alone, but that the “logistical challenges,” such as couriers having to wait outside instead of delivering food directly to the customer’s door, have lowered the efficiency of delivery operations. However, the CDC points out that coronavirus getting spread from person to person usually happens “among close contacts (about 6 feet),” making the measures around contactless delivery necessary if food delivery is to continue.

Others are skipping the human element altogether and relying heavily on technology. A hotel in Hangzhou, China has been dispatching robots to deliver meals to quarantined guests.

Pizza Hut Partners With Zume and MorningStar to Put a Plant-based Pizza in a Round Box

Pizza Hut is following the footsteps of dozens of other major restaurant chains and joining the movement for plant-based meat. The Plano, TX-based company announced today that it has partnered with MorningStar Farms’ Incogmeato label to top one of its pies with plant-based sausage.

Dubbed the Garden Specialty Pizza, said pie will be available starting October 23 for $10 per pizza for a limited time at the 3602 E. Thomas Road Pizza Hut location in Phoenix, AZ, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. “Limited supply” in this context means until supplies last, which, given the current craze for plant-based meat products among consumers, could be mere hours.

For both companies, releasing a pizza topped with plant-based meat is a way to ride the coattails of the alt-meat craze. The partnership allows Pizza Hut to compete with the likes of Little Caesars, who tested a plant-based sausage pizza with Impossible earlier this year. For Kellogg-owned MorningStar, promoting its new plant-based brand via a major restaurant chain could help the company’s ongoing efforts to reinvent itself as an innovative alt-meat company on par with Beyond Meat and Impossible, rather than a decades-old peddler of first-generation meat alternatives.

A pie topped with plant-based meat isn’t the only pizza innovation that particular Phoenix Pizza Hut location will see. The Garden Specialty Pizza will be served up in a round box The Hut has developed with pizza-tech pioneer Zume, which recently acquired a company to manufacture its own line of more sustainable packaging.

For Pizza Hut, Zume designed a box that uses less packaging than its traditional square counterpart, takes up less space in a customer’s fridge, and, most importantly, keep the pizza hotter in transit. It’s also industrially compostable. Pizza Hut says once the limited run in Phoenix is over, it will look at ways to distribute the box more widely in future.

All proceeds from both initiatives will be donated to Arizona Forward, an organization that brings businesses and civic leaders together to develop sustainability goals for the state.

Pizza Hut Testing Brightloom’s Cubby Technology in Los Angeles

Pizza Hut announced in a statement this week that it is testing out Brightloom’s automated pickup cubbies at its Hollywood location. It’s the same technology currently used in chains like MAC’D and Chicago-based Wow Bao.

The point of Brightloom’s cubby system is to speed up service and give customers a way to order digitally then retrieve their food without every having to interact with a human being. Users can place an order via the Pizza Hut app or website, though Pizza Hut said in the statement they can still order via phone or in-person if they prefer.

Once at the restaurant, users find their designated cubby, which digitally displays their name on the door and is built with a special lining that keeps pizza hot and drinks cold. From there it’s just a matter of grabbing the pie and heading out.

The pilot kicked off yesterday. Pizza Hut says it plans to roll out more iterations of it in West Coast locations in 2020.

The pilot also follows the Brightloom announcement this week that the company formerly known as Eatsa has rebranded, raised $30 million, and is working with Starbucks to license the latter’s mobile order-pay-loyalty technology for its own system. Brightloom will in the near future license this newly revamped tech stack to restaurants.

Linking up with Brightloom is a smart move on Pizza Hut’s part. As my colleague Chris Albrecht said not long ago, “pizza continues to disrupt itself,” and there seems to be no end to national chains throwing new tech initiatives at the process of ordering, retrieving, and delivering pies to customers. Little Caesars’ Pizza Portal is similar to the Brightloom cubbies in that it’s a temperature-controlled, self-service pickup station that also allows users to order and pay digitally. Domino’s, meanwhile, has kept busy releasing everything from in-car ordering functionality to AI-powered scanners that check pizza quality.

But as we mentioned at the time of the Brightloom-Starbucks news, Starbucks is arguably the leader when it comes to mobile order, pay, and pickup technology, and combining it with Brightloom’s already-powerful end-to-end restaurant management platform could seriously raise standards around all restaurant technology. Pizza Hut hasn’t said if its subsequent cubby rollouts will include this new version of Brightloom’s platform, which will be unveiled in October. However, a relationship with Brightloom could help give Pizza Hut the competitive edge it needs when it comes to technology over the long term.

KFC Parent Company Ramps Up Sustainability Plans for China, Introduces Reusable Baskets

Yum China this week became the first restaurant company in mainland China to receive the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) label for converting its used cooking oil into sustainable biodiesel.

According to a press release, the company launched a pilot of its cooking oil project in 2018 in Chengdu, where all Yum China-owned KFC locations in the city converted their used cooking oil to biodiesel. For the project, Yum worked with biodiesel plants, oil storage sites, and waste collection companies.

For many quick-service restaurants, cooking oils are essential for business; they’re used for frying, grilling, and numerous other cooking tasks around the kitchen. In recent years, restaurants have shifted away from oils packed with trans fats to so-called “healthier” options like sunflower and soybean oil.

But even these healthier oils take their toll on the environment (and your insides, but that’s a story for another day). The EPA notes that cooking oils, whether from vegetable or animal sources, can “cause devastating effects” on the environment: they can suffocate plants and aquatic animals, clog up shorelines, catch fire, and destroy wildlife.

China is one of the world’s largest producers of waste oil, which is a huge environmental risk (to say nothing of the country’s gutter oil problem), but also a huge opportunity if more companies commit to helping turn it into sustainable fuel.

Yum China operates all mainland China locations of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, and owns the Little Sheep, East Dawning, and COFFii & JOY brands. Factoring in all these restaurants, that’s more than 8,600 restaurants across the country. In other words, there’s a lot of cooking oil to be recycled, and a company of Yum’s status could help set a standard for other restaurants across the country.

Recycled oil isn’t the only sustainability initiative Yum China has been up to of late. In the same press release, the company announced it had introduced reusable baskets to over 6,000 KFC locations across China.

The introduction of reusable baskets is in keeping with KFC plans here in the U.S., which include the chain converting to 100 percent renewable plastics by 2025. According to the press release, the move is expected to save more than 2,000 tons of paper per year and cut down the total amount of waste in Yum restaurants by 20 percent on average.

China, meanwhile, is turning itself into a hotbed of activity for foodtech solutions. VC firm Bits x Bites just launched an incubator in Shanghai that partners startups with major CPGs like Danone and Coca-Cola. Waste reductions, be it oils, plastics, or other materials, will no doubt play a role in some of those partnerships moving forward.

Food Tech News: Lyft Discounts Grocery Trips, (Plant) Life on Mars

Happy Saturday, all. Before you head off to kids’ soccer games or boozy brunches, catch up on this week’s food tech news roundup. We’ve got stories about Lyft discounting rides to help folks in food deserts have better access to fresh product, Pizza Hut trying out vegan cheese, and a new concept for a hydroponic farm on Mars.

Lyft offers discounted rides to grocery stores
Rideshare company Lyft is partnering with nonprofit Martha’s Table to launch a new initiative connecting people to fresh food (h/t Pymnts). Called the Grocery Access Program, Lyft will offer discounted rides to and from supermarkets to families living in two (undisclosed) neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. that don’t have ready access to grocery stores. Next up, the rideshare giant plans to roll out the program in more cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Photo: Dartmouth.

Design for Martian Greenhouse wins NASA award
A team of Dartmouth students has won NASA’s 2019 BIG Idea Challenge with their design for a greenhouse that can grow food on Mars (h/t Futurism). The hydroponic dome, which is equipped with a tank of nutrient solution and LED lights, would be able to grow up to eight crops, including kale, sweet potato, soy, strawberry, and wheat. Students estimate that it could create enough food to feed four astronauts 3,100 calories per day over 600 days. Bonus: It could fit in a single 20,000 pound package.

Did we miss anything new? Tweet us @TheSpoonTech!

You’ll Soon Be Able to Order Domino’s Pizza From Your Car

Domino’s announced this morning it will launch its Anyware digital-ordering platform in cars in 2019. To do so, the pizza chain-turned-tech trailblazer has teamed up with Xevo, whose in-vehicle commerce technology is currently in about 25 million cars.

This is actually not the first time the Anyware platform has made its way into a car. In 2014, Domino’s worked with Ford Motors to bring voice order to the Ford Sync vehicle. That initiative was slurped up into Anyware when the latter launched in 2015 and is still available today.

With the new in-car app, customers use the car’s touchscreen to find their local store, order, and track the pizza. Voice-ordering will also be available. According to a press release, the feature will be automatically loaded onto cars with Xevo platform starting “in late 2019.” While the release didn’t state which car brands this includes, Xevo already works with Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC, so I’d expect models from those companies to be on the list. Xevo also partnered with Hyundai in 2018 to allow customers to order and pay for meals from Applebee’s, so this isn’t its first go at a QSR partnership.

For Domino’s, the Xevo partnership seems like another stop on Domino’s quest to seemingly try out every new technology it possibly can for delivering pizzas. The list of channels from which Domino’s customer can use the Anyware platform keeps growing: phones, smart watches, TVs, Alexa and Google Home devices, Slack, Facebook Messenger, and Domino’s own Zero Click app. The chain also delivers to HotSpots, which are “non-traditional” locations like beaches, parks, and probably even the zoo. And Domino’s launched a separate partnership with global addressing platform what3words earlier this year, to use the latter’s technology in countries and regions that lack a more straightforward address system.

At one point, Domino’s was the only pizza chain around trying out new technologies left and right, but times have changed. Pizza Hut recently partnered with FedEx to use its autonomous bot to deliver pizzas, and even has some weirder projects in the works, like the autonomous pizza factory on wheels the company unveiled in 2018. (It’s still a prototype.) Papa John’s, who has weathered a good deal of trouble in the last year, got a $200 million investment in February. The company hasn’t said yet what the money will go towards, but if it wants to keep up, a little tech innovation will probably be part of its plans.

The only bummer about the Domino’s-Xevo deal is that you still have to either pick the pizza up at a store or get home by the time the pie arrives. My guess is that will change quickly, and Domino’s will either integrate its HotSpots into car ordering or even use the what3words’ tech. You have to figure that, with its many tech initiatives and a platform called Anyware, Domino’s is aiming to eventually deliver everywhere.

Can FedEx’s Autonomous Bot Improve Pizza Hut’s Last-Mile Logistics Problem?

Last week, my colleague Chris Albrecht noted that FedEx is launching an autonomous delivery vehicle called SameDay Bot. Pizza Hut, whose delivery strategy has had to undergo major changes in recent months, has jumped on board the opportunity and will use the bot to deliver to hungry customers later this year.

FedEx’s creation is a zero-emission, battery-powered bot designed to travel sidewalks and roads, and even climb stairs and curbs. FedEx enlisted the help of engineer Dean Kamen, best known as the inventor of the Segway, to develop the vehicle. And since it’s autonomous, the bot is equipped with mapping tools and cameras that allow it to maneuver through cities without crashing into pedestrians or upsetting other aspects of sidewalk life. It looks like a small fridge on wheels. When it reaches its destination, two doors automatically open and customers can grab their pizzas from inside.

Pizza Hut’s test run is slated for summer 2019 in Memphis, TN.

Getting a hot pizza into a customer’s hands — also known as last-mile logistics — is a key area for companies to get right when it comes to delivery. There are tons of potential solutions out there, from Postmates’ adorable li’l rover Served to Kiwi’s bots, currently roaming the streets of Westwood in Los Angeles.

Pizza chains seem especially aggressive when it comes to solving the last-mile logistics question — justifiably so, since pizza gets cold quickly and, despite coming in a nice, stackable box, will sometimes upset in transit and leave half the cheese and toppings on the cardboard, not the pie.

Partnering with FedEx isn’t Pizza Hut’s first foray into last-mile solutions. Last year, the Plano, TX-based company unveiled an autonomous kitchen that would cook pizzas in transit. The Tundra PIE Pro, as it’s called, is still a prototype, and Pizza Hut hasn’t disclosed if or when it will actually come to market. The company also expanded beer delivery earlier this year.

Even so, The Hut has its work cut out when it comes to standing out in last-mile logistics. Its chief rival, Domino’s, is widely recognized as one of the most tech-savvy and innovative restaurant companies in business today. Last year it launched “HotSpots,” or delivery locations that don’t have a traditional address but are instead places like parks, beaches, and other areas where groups gather. Domino’s has over 150,000 of these so far. In a completely separate endeavor, the company also expanded its partnership with what3words, whose algorithm converts GPS coordinates into more precise address locations. Domino’s is finding this initiative especially helpful in countries where traditional, orderly street addresses aren’t necessarily a guarantee.

Domino’s builds most of its tech in-house. Pizza Hut’s success with the SameDay Bot, meanwhile, will in part depend on FedEx, since the technology belongs to the latter. If FedEx decides the technology is a bust and shelves it, Pizza Hut will have to find another route to autonomous delivery vehicles. On the other hand, FedEx is a last-mile logistics company, and the SameDay bot could very well prove itself an efficient, cost-effective way of delivering products. In that case, Pizza Hut will have found a far cheaper solution to autonomous delivery than any in-house tech ever could be — for the company, its franchises, and its customers.

How Should Papa John’s Spend Its New $200M Investment?

This morning Papa John’s announced a $200 million investment from hedge fund company Starboard Value. The company has also named Starboard Value CEO Jeffery Smith as Papa John’s new chairman. The investment is a bright spot after a well-documented year in hell for the struggling pizza company, including a drop in shares earlier this month after talks with other potential investors fell apart. And while a $200 million shot in the arm won’t single-handedly fix Papa John’s reputation, it could help the company once again compete more seriously with the likes of Pizza Hut and Domino’s.

A press release stated that half the $200 million investment will go towards repaying debt, and the remainder will be “providing financial flexibility that enables Papa John’s to invest capital to further advance its five strategic priorities.” Technology is one of them, and it should play big role in how Papa John’s allocates the new funds.

Since the chain’s struggles began around July 2012, other companies have released several noteworthy tech innovations that are changing the way they deliver pizza.

Some highlights are:

Pizza Hut took over as the official sponsor of the NFL. That’s not a tech development in and of itself, but it has allowed the Plano, TX-based company to push its digital rewards program to more people and try out new ways for customers to interact with the app. Pizza Hut also unveiled an autonomous pizza-making machine it’s calling a “mobile pizza factory” manned by a robotic arm that makes pizzas as a human drives to the delivery address.

Domino’s had already rolled out its Hotspots prior to the start of the Papa John’s saga. The company has since furthered its efforts in location-based technology by expanding its what3words partnership to the Middle East, which alleviates some of the friction and delays involved with delivering to regions with irregular and/or non-existent street address systems. The company also added an AI-powered loyalty campaign in 2018.

Even Little Caesar’s, who does not and may never deliver, has been hard at work on pizza innovation with the Pizza Portal, a self-service pickup station for mobile customers, and has a patent for a pizza-making robot.

Papa John’s hasn’t exactly been sitting around doing nothing. The company did revamp its rewards program at the end of 2018, making it easier and faster for customers to earn points and therefore free food. The move, however, seemed more a reaction to falling sales than a push for digital innovation.

That said, Papa John’s should continue to invest in its mobile ordering and rewards platform, fine-tuning the tech to make it as quick and effortless as possible for customers to order. CEO Steve Richie has stated in the past that millennials and Gen Z are an important audience to reach with new initiatives, so any revamping or new developments for mobile order should bear that in mind.

Drive-thru is another area Papa John’s could invest more in and differentiate itself. Dunkin’ set a standard last year with its tech-driven drive-thru, which offered a dedicated lane for pickup orders. Papa John’s could give its mobile rewards program a boost and get on the edge of a growing trend by incorporating a similar strategy at stores that have drive-thrus, and possibly even consider building more drive-thrus where space permits.

If space doesn’t permit (like the hole-in-the-wall location up the block here in Brooklyn), pizza lockers could do the trick. Imagine ordering and paying for a pizza via mobile app on your way home from work, swinging by Papa John’s after you climb out of the subway, and picking up a hot pie from a designated locker. I could see this working in a mega metropolis or even in the airport, where grabbing a slice you paid for on your app would be the fastest way to eat en route to a connecting flight.

Where do you think Papa John’s should spend its investment cash? Drop your thoughts into the comments below.