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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

QSR

NPD: QSRs Outpace Full-Service Restaurants in Terms of Transaction Improvements

The restaurant industry closed 2020 by “moving its way out of the steepest declines the industry has experienced since the Great Recession,” according to a new update from The NPD Group. 

Restaurant transactions in December 2020 were down 10 percent compared to the same period one year ago. However, that figure is a 27-point improvement from restaurant transactions in April 2020 — at the height of shelter-in-place mandates in the U.S. — when transactions were down 37 percent from the previous year.

NPD’s numbers suggest some much-needed improvement for the restaurant industry overall, after nearly a year of lockdowns, capacity restrictions, and consumer fears around eating out.

That improvement doesn’t look equal across all sectors in the restaurant biz, though. NPD notes in its recent report that full-service restaurants, which typically did not have much in the way of to-go strategies in place at the start of 2020, “bore the brunt of transaction declines throughout the pandemic.” In April, full-service transactions declined by -70 percent compared to a year ago; they improved to -30 percent in December.

Individual state restrictions also have something to do with the numbers around full-service restaurants. NPD noted that In more restrictive states, full service restaurant chain transactions are down 60 percent to 70 percent. In less restrictive states, “there isn’t as much of a gap between quick service and full service restaurants.” 

Most major QSRs were already better prepared to shift to off-premises operations when the pandemic struck in full force last year. Some, like Chipotle and Starbucks, had existing strategies in place around digital, drive-thru, and express store formats. Others, like McDonald’s, had the deep pockets and technical expertise to pivot quickly — a luxury most smaller chains and independent restaurants cannot afford.

According to NPD, major QSRs’ takeout, drive-thru, and delivery orders “soared” over the last several months, despite restrictions across the overall restaurant industry: “Quick service customer transaction declines bottomed out in April with a decline of -35% versus year ago, but quickly improved as shelter-at-home orders were lifted. In December, quick service restaurant chain customer transaction declines were down -8% versus last year.”

With things like speed of service, simpler menus, and more-efficient kitchens remaining top priorities for restaurants in 2021, improvements to the overall industry is likely to remain divided between the quick-service chains and their full-service counterparts for some time to come.

Report: Foot Traffic to Major QSRs Down by 50 Percent from Start of Year

It’s probably not much of a shocker to learn that far fewer people are venturing inside quick service restaurants (QSRs) these days. There is, after all, a global pandemic that continues to rage across the U.S. But Yahoo Finance posted a story over the weekend with actual data showing just how precipitous the drop in foot traffic has been for a number of major QSR brands.

According to location intelligence service Gravy Analytics, as of December 8, foot traffic to Burger King, Popeyes, KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Domino’s, Papa Johns and Starbucks fell 50 percent compared to February 2020. Furthermore, Gravy Analytics reports that foot traffic to Chick-Fil-A, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Dunkin and Chipotle dropped more than 40 percent compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Obviously the key word here is “pandemic,” which forced big changes to restaurants of all sizes here in the U.S. Early on in the pandemic, restaurants in various parts of the country were forced to close dine-in operations entirely. Though many have reopened, most dining rooms still operate under reduced seating capacity and other restrictions as states continue fighting the virus. [I REWROTE THIS GRAF FOR CLARITY]

Given that fewer people could physically stand and sit inside a restaurant, it makes sense to see the kind of drop in foot traffic that Gravy Analytics reported. And as we learn more about COVID, especially how it travels farther and faster inside restaurants than previously thought, these types of limitations are likely to stay in place until the vaccines are widely available. The question now is, even when the vaccine arrives, will people still want to dine in, or equally as important, will QSRs want them to?

In response to the pandemic, QSRs have been aggressively pivoting away from dine in and more towards drive-thrus and delivery. In the back half of this year, McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King have all announced various plans for future store designs to emphasize pickup and drive-thru operations rather than dine in options. At the same time, the rise of delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats means that hungry consumers don’t even need to leave their couch if they want a Big Mac or a Whopper.

With 2020 almost in the rearview mirror (thankfully), and the aforementioned vaccine on its way, hopefully the numbers we see from QSRs and all restaurants will be a lot better.

KFC Is the Latest QSR to Ditch the Dining Room in Favor if Digital Drive-Thru

KFC unveiled two new designs today for future stores that emphasize off-premises order formats and minimal dining room space, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. The Louisville, Kentucky-based chain is the latest major QSR to revamp its store format in response to the pandemic’s impact on the restaurant industry.

One design is for an “express” store format with no indoor dining space. Clocking in at about 1,300 square feet, the design is intended for use in crowded urban locations where space is both limited and expensive. This is a tactic also used by chains like Starbucks and, most recently, Chipotle. 

KFC’s other design is all about the drive-thru, which the company said grew 60 percent year-over-year in Q3 of 2020. The format includes multiple drive-thru lanes, including those dedicated to mobile orders, a small outdoor seating area, and designated parking spots and entrances for customers and delivery drivers picking up digital orders.

These new prototypes have actually been in development since last year. Chief Development Officer Brian Cahoe told NRN today that the company hit the “pause” button on these projects when the pandemic hit in order to learn and apply new requirements the pandemic would bring to the restaurant experience.

More obvious safety measures are one thing. The new KFC stores will include automatic doors and more space between tables. And of course, with the emphasis on digital ordering, a more contactless pickup or drive-thru experience is also on the menu. The company said some stores would also have a digital cubby system in future.

The QSR has in the last couple months become ground zero for testing out new restaurant tech. Besides digitizing the drive-thru, which everyone from McDonald’s to Tim Horton’s is doing, brands are introducing features like geofencing, conveyer belt meal delivery systems, and AI-powered menu boards to the restaurant experience. Many are also ditching the dining room in favor of drive-thru-only locations and ghost kitchen facilities. 

KFC will open three new restaurants based on these prototypes in 2021. 

UPDATED: McDonald’s to Create its Own “McPlant” Burger, with an Assist from Beyond Meat

UPDATE: After publishing this post, McDonald’s sent us the following:

  • In the same way McDonald’s does not run its own farms, we are not manufacturing our own plant-based meat for the McPlant platform; we will rely on our suppliers, the third leg of McDonald’s three-legged stool (which includes the company, franchisees and suppliers)
  • Beyond Meat was our testing partner for the P.L.T. plant-based burger in Canada
  • We have not announced which suppliers we will work with on McPlant

In its corporate blog post announcing the McPlant, McDonald’s wrote:

Last year, with those customers in mind, we tested our first plant-based burger in select restaurants in Canada. Based on what we learned and an encouraging response, we’re excited to give you a sneak preview of the McPlant – a delicious plant-based burger crafted for McDonald’s, by McDonald’s, and with the kind of craveable McDonald’s flavor our customers love.

In fact, we think our culinary team nailed it. There are other plant-based burgers out there, but the McPlant delivers our iconic taste in a sink-your-teeth-in (and wipe-your-mouth) kind of sandwich. It’s made with a juicy, plant-based patty and served on a warm, sesame seed bun with all the classic toppings.

Does this mean, Beyond could be a supplier for the McPlant? We’ve reached out to McDonald’s for further clarification.

UPDATE 2: Well this tale of two tweets certainly clarifies the situation. Beyond will be helping McDonald’s with its McPlant:

Original post follows:

McDonald’s announced today that it is creating its own line of plant-based meats dubbed, appropriately enough, “McPlant.” The McPlant will begin testing in markets next year and will be applied to both beef and chicken substitutes.

There’s been a big question mark around what McDonald’s plant-based strategy would be. Sales of plant-based meats have surged over the past couple of years, making the potential flexitarian market undeniable. While QSRs like White Castle and Burger King have rolled out versions of their burgers with Impossible Foods,McDonald’s has been relatively quiet about any forays it might make, at least here in the U.S.

After some tests with Beyond Meat in Canada, and the fact that a former McDonald’s CEO sits on Beyond’s board, there was speculation that Beyond would become Mickey D’s plant-base burger provider of choice. But that turned out to not be the case and McDonald’s decided to develop its own product internally. (See update above for clarification provided after this post went live.)

Having a heavyweight jump into the faux meat space could be a rising tide that lifts all plant-based boats. One Marketplace estimate from a few years back suggested that McDonald’s potentially sells more than 2 billion burgers a year. If the company can even convert a small percentage of its customer base to a plant-based alternative, that could spur those same people to seek out and buy more plant-based meats from their grocers and elsewhere. Getting millions of people to reduce their meat intake would also have benefits to the environment and our planet.

We are in a golden age of meat alternatives, with the likes of Impossible, Beyond and more developing products that are closer and closer to the real thing. Now the question is, can the golden arches push the whole plant-based sector forward?

Green Monday Launches a Plant-Based Menu Across McDonald’s Hong Kong Locations

Hong Kong-based Green Monday announced today it has struck a longterm partnership with McDonald’s to launch a plant-based menu across all McDonald’s and McCafé locations in Hong Kong and Macau. The menu will incorporate Green Monday subsidiary OmniFood’s alt-pork products into the meals. Green Queen was first to break the news.

The new menu features six dishes developed around OmniPork Luncheon, a plant-based alternative to the processed meat product that’s popular in Asia. Meals include OmniPork Luncheon & Scrambled Egg Burger,  OmniPork Luncheon N’ Egg Twisty Pasta, OmniPork Luncheon Deluxe Breakfast and OmniPork Luncheon Jumbo Breakfast, as well as OmniPork Luncheon & Egg Cheesy Toast and OmniPork Luncheon & Egg Mayo Ciabatta. All items are vegetarian, though not vegan, since meals include egg.

David Yeung, cofounder and CEO of Green Monday, told Green Queen that the partnership is “the most monumental and game-changing breakthrough for the plant-based movement in Asia, and one of the biggest milestones globally.”

Currently, partnerships between McDonald’s and plant-based protein companies are few and far between. The mega-chain struck a partnership with Beyond Meat in Canada last year, though the chain ended that trial in April of this year and has no plans to renew it. In the past, McDonald’s has publicly said it will wait to see if plant-based protein is a longterm trend before aligning itself with any one brand. 

But thanks to the pandemic highlighting the perils of the meat supply chain, demand for and investment in plant-based protein products has grown so much that the sector is less a trend nowadays than it is a mainstay on retail shelves and restaurant menus. With other QSR brands already featuring plant-based items across their menus (see KFC’s Beyond Meat partnership), McDonald’s can hardly wait much longer to make plant-based items available among its own offerings.

Green Monday itself just raised $70 million. The OmniPork Luncheon menu launches tomorrow across more than 400 McDonald’s and McCafé locations combined. 

There is no official word on whether this partnership will expand, though Green Queen points out that Citic Group and the Carlyle Group, which operate the McDonald’s franchise business in Hong Kong, also run the QSR’s franchise business in Mainland China. OmniFoods debuted OmniPork there last year. Clinching the QSR segment market would be an enormous feat for both Green Monday and plant-based protein in general.

Survey: 71% of Consumers Are ‘Amenable’ to More AI in Their Restaurant Experience

Well over half of consumers “are amenable” to more artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced tech in their restaurant experience, according to a new survey from ad-tech firm AdTheorant.

The survey of over 2,000 U.S. adults, conducted this past September by The Harris Poll, looks at consumer sentiment and interaction with quick-service restaurants (QSRs) and fast-casual restaurants (FSRs) across a number of areas, AI among them.

Of those survey respondents, 71 percent said they would be “open to QSRs/FSRs incorporating AI into their business.” In particular, consumers would be most interested in AI if it could help drive down the cost of menu items (43 percent) and speed up the ordering process (42 percent).

As to the actual AI technologies that could do that, consumers are most interested in screens, according to the survey. Sixty-six percent said they were interested in using a touchscreen device (phone, kiosk, etc.) to order and nearly half of respondents, 42 percent, said they would like a voice-ordering system. 

Restaurants are already trying to meet this demand. Self-service kiosks are becoming a regular fixture at QSRs and FSRs as chains revamp their store formats to be more delivery- and takeout-friendly. In the last few months alone, we’ve seen Shake Shack, Chopt, Sweetgreen, and Krispy Kreme, among many others, unveil new store formats that feature kiosk ordering. Meanwhile, KFC is reinventing the concept of the drive-thru to be more touchscreen-centric, and McDonald’s leads the pack in terms of AI in the restaurant with its 2019 acquisitions of AI company Dynamic Yield and and voice-tech startup Apprente.

More surprising was the lower percentage of survey respondents who said AI offering more personalized food recommendations was important. On of the goals for McDonald’s when it acquired Dynamic Yield this past March was to make menus more “Netflix-y.” In other words, menus could dynamically generate recommendations based on a number of factors (past orders, trending items) and in doing so offer more relevant recommendations and upsell items.

AdTheorant’s report, however, notes that just 22 percent of consumers said this would be an important driver of their adopting more AI tech during their restaurant experience.

Part of that may be a matter of exposure. McDonald’s aside, many chains are still just getting started when it comes to the AI-driven menu. Dunkin’ is said to be dabbling with it. Starbucks says AI is a key piece of its overall digital strategy moving forward and that it’s Deep Brew initiative, which will (among other things) power better menu recommendations will be a big part of the chain’s focus in 2020.

Week in Restaurant Tech: Burger King’s Silent Drive-thru, Customers Fear Data Breaches

Another year another Smart Kitchen Summit, which happened this week and included much discourse on the connected kitchen, food as medicine, and, of course, how tech is changing the restaurant world. And while the event is over, there’s still plenty of news from the week to catch up on. Here are a few more tidbits of what went on in restaurants:

Burger King Launches Silent Drive-Thru

Burger King is up to its PR stunts again, this time capitalizing on the stereotype that people in Finland hate small talk. The resulting Silent Drive-thru option is exactly as it sounds: You order via the BK mobile app, select the “Silent Drive-thru” option, then wait in a dedicated parking space until an employee drops your food off with nary a “hello” exchanged. While Burger King has admitted the promotion — originally meant to boost mobile app orders — is “a bit of an exaggeration,” it has also doubled sales via the app and sped up orders by 7 to 8 minutes, according to Adweek. No word on whether you still have to make eye contact with the person dropping off your Whopper.

Image via Qu.

POS Company Qu Launches New Platform

Maryland-based POS company Qu introduced a bundle of new features this week as part of a new “data-centric platform” meant to improve the POS experience for restaurants. Among the new offerings are the ability to directly integrate orders from third-party sources directly into the POS system, a unified menu management system, and greater ability to add dynamic pricing options to items. The idea behind these new features is to end some of the fragmentation that’s entered the restaurant industry of late thanks to new sales channels and multiple versions of menus floating around.

Image via Unsplash.

Over Half of QSR Customers Worry About Data Breaches

Digital security company Sift released new research this week that suggests data breaches are a major concern for QSR diners. Over half — 62 percent — of survey respondents said they are concerned their digital interactions with QSRs will lead to fraud like stolen payment information, hijacked accounts, and fake reviews. Meanwhile, 49 percent said they would hold the restaurant responsible for any fraudulent activity. While Sift’s report is obviously a little biased in urging companies to prioritize security of their digital properties, there’s nonetheless plenty of truth to the idea. Just ask DoorDash.

Future Food: Impossible? Beyond? Our Guide to Meatless Meat in Fast Food

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. The newsletter has exclusive additional content, so be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss a beat!

Quick service restaurants (QSRs) can read the tea leaves: consumers want more tasty, meatless options. The month after it put the Impossible Whopper on St. Louis store menus, Burger King reported an 18 percent increase in foot traffic. Del Taco’s introduction of the Beyond Meat tacos was one of the chain’s most successful product launches ever.

It’s a smart play for fast-food joints to embrace plant-based meat, allowing them to:

  • Attract new customers who might not otherwise opt to eat at the restaurant
  • Draw back lapsed customers who might have pivoted away from fast-food to embrace a more plant-based diet
  • Boost their brand and frame themselves as an innovator.

With all this action, it can be hard to keep track of which chains are serving which meat alternatives. Who’s got the Impossible patty? Which spots are hitching their horse to Beyond Meat? Which restaurants have yet to make a move, and is anybody rejecting meat alternatives altogether? (Cough, Arby’s, cough.)

It’s a lot to keep straight. Thankfully, we drew up a handy one-sheet outlining which QSR’s are lining up behind which meat alternatives. Check out the full piece for details, then go order a vegan combo meal.

Image: The Spoon.

Beefing up the portfolio

Big Food is going whole-hog on plant-based meat investment.

Tyson, the world’s second-largest meat processor, made headlines when they decided to invest in Beyond Meat. (It has since cut ties, but that’s a different story.) Major Canadian packaged meat company Maple Leaf Foods acquired vegan meat veterans Field Roast and Lightlife Foods and has plans to build the largest plant-based protein factory in North America. Late last year, Unilever snapped up Dutch startup the Vegetarian Butcher.

Photo: Before the Butcher.

This week that list got a little longer when the owners of Jensen Meat Company, a ground beef processor, acquired meatless meat startup Before the Butcher. It’s a textbook symbiotic relationship. Big Beef gets to diversify its portfolio and carve out a chunk of the white-hot alterna-meat market. Before the Butcher gains access to more capital and bigger production facilities, which can help the startup scale and differentiate itself in the crowded plant-based protein market.

Win, win. Expect to see quite a few more of these type of acquisitions coming around the curve. But also expect to see some consumer pushback against big meat companies coming in and sticking their noses (and pocketbooks) into the alterna-meat space.

Photo: Moving Mountains

Protein new ’round the web

Photo: Beyond Meat sausages and burgers.

In the spirit of research and summertime I grilled up a few Beyond Meat burger patties and sausage links last night. Look out for a meatless meat grilling guide coming at you soon.

Eat well,
Catherine

Which Fast Food Restaurants Serve Plant-Based Meat (or Are Thinking About It)?

Thanks to fast-food chains, meatless meats are no longer a niche product meant for vegetarians or vegans — they’re the norm. They’re making plant-based meat more affordable and accessible, and democratizing the alternative protein revolution.

Adopting meat alternatives is also a smart business play for QSR’s. Case and point: Del Taco and Burger King have reported sales increases in the months after they introduced plant-based meat options.

As alternative meats spread like wildfire onto fast-food menus, it can be hard to keep track of which chains have embraced meat alternatives and which are still mulling it over. To help straighten things out we decided to make a handy-dandy list showing which QSR’s in the U.S. and Canada have plant-based meat on their menus, what products they’re serving (Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, other), and even which restaurants refuse to touch the stuff with a 10-foot pole.

Click on the photo below to enlarge.

Photo: The Spoon

But this list is just a high-level overview. If you want more context into the plant-based meat strategies behind some of the most widespread fast-food restaurants, we’ve laid that out below.

Impossible Foods

Photo: the Impossible Whopper at Burger King.

Burger King: On April 1 Burger King launched a Whopper made with plant-based Impossible Foods patties in select St. Louis locations. Just a month later, the fast-food chain announced it would begin rolling out the Impossible Whopper in all of its 7,300 locations nationwide by the end of the year. First stop(s): Miami, Florida; Columbus, Georgia; and Montgomery, Alabama.

White Castle: White Castle was kind of the trendsetter of fast-food restaurants embracing plant-based meat. In April 2018 the chain first started serving the Impossible Slider for $1.99 at select locations on the East Coast before rolling it out nationwide in September of that year.

Qdoba: The Mexican food chain began testing bowls and tacos made with ground Impossible “beef” in February of 2019. As of May 2019, the plant-based options are available at all Qdoba locations.

Little Caesar’s: The new Impossible Supreme pie — featuring Impossible Foods sausage, green peppers, mushrooms and caramelized onions — is available at select Little Caesar’s in Florida, New Mexico and Washington State. The pizza chain plans to expand it to all of their stores if it proves popular.

Red Robin: As of April 2019, diners can sub an Impossible patty for any burger at all 570 Red Robin locations.

Cheesecake Factory: The Impossible Burger hopped on select Cheesecake Factory menus in August 2018.

Umami Burger: Umami Burger currently sells four different Impossible burgers.

Hard Rock Cafe: As of January of this year, patrons can get an Impossible cheeseburger at select Hard Rock Cafe locations.

Beyond Meat

Photo: Beyond Meat x Del Taco.

Del Taco: The fast-food Mexican restaurant began offering Beyond Meat’s plant-based “beef” as a protein option on their tacos, burritos, and bowls in September 2018. As of this April, it’s available at all 580 locations across the U.S.

Tim Horton’s: The Canadian fast-food chain added Beyond Meat sausages to their menus last month. Customers can add the plant-based sausage patty to three of Tim Horton’s breakfast sandwiches.

Applebee’s: The Beyond Burger is available at select Applebee’s locations in NYC.

Carl’s Jr.: Beyond Meat’s first big play into the fast-food burger space was with Carl’s Jr. The Beyond Famous Star burger debuted on Carl’s Jr. menus in January of 2019 and quickly spread to all of its 1,000+ locations. (We did a taste test, if you’re interested.)

TGI Friday’s: The fast-casual restaurant began testing Beyond Burgers on its menus in 2017, rolling them out to all 469 locations in January of 2018.

A&W: In July of 2018 Canadian fast-food chain A&W began selling the Beyond Burger. It’s currently available at all of their 925 locations in Canada.

Dunkin’: In July of 2019 Dunkin’ locations in Manhattan began selling a Beyond Breakfast Sausage Sandwich, making it the first place in the U.S. to serve Beyond’s plant-based sausage patties.

Subway: Subway will start testing a Beyond Meatball Marinara sandwich at 685 locations in the U.S. and Canada for a limited time in September 2019. Beyond developed a meatball specifically for the partnership.

KFC: The fried chicken chain will start testing Beyond Meat chicken nuggets and wings at a location in suburban Atlanta for a limited time.

To Be Determined

Photo: Chick-Fil-A

Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Dunkin’, Papa John’s: These chains are also rumored to be in talks with Impossible Foods to develop a plant-based menu option.

Chick-fil-A: Last month Chick-fil-A announced that it was exploring new vegan entrée options, including one made with realistic plant-based meat. Exactly what type of entrée is still TBD, but according to Chick-fil-A’s executive menu director, it might be “some type of alternative meat on a sandwich.”

Taco Bell: The fast-food chain has a relatively hefty vegetarian menu but no plant-based meat options as of yet. In London Taco Bell briefly experimented with a meatless ground beef option made from pulled oats, but seems to have taken it off the menu.

Starbuck’s: Though they have plenty of alternative milk options, Starbuck’s has yet to introduce a plant-based meat option to their breakfast, lunch or snack offerings.

McDonald’s: Ah, the White Whale. Despite the fact that all its competitors seem to embracing plant-based meat, McDonald’s is hanging back. At a recent shareholder meeting the fast-food giant stated that it would introduce an alterna-meat menu item once it was sure that there was sufficient consumer demand. Over in Germany, McDonald’s serves Nestlé’s “bleeding” plant-based Incredible burger.

 

No Way

Photo: Arby’s Meat Mountain sandwich.

Arby’s: When Arby’s president Rob Lynch heard rumors that the chain was looking into a plant-based menu option featuring Impossible “meat,” he panicked — and then set the record straight. He stated categorically that Arby’s has no plans to introduce any meatless meat options to its menu, now or in the future.

Have you tried meatless meat at any fast-food chains? Let us know what you thought in the comments below!

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.

Beyond Meat Cooks Up Fast Food Partnership with Carl’s Jr.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions included eating less meat, you won’t have to cross Carl’s Jr. off your list. The fast-food chain announced today that it has partnered with plant-based meat company Beyond Meat to make a “flexitarian” version of their Famous Star burger.

The Beyond Famous Star burger will contain a quarter pound of Beyond’s “beef,” cooked in Carl’s Jr.’s signature charbroil style. It will presumably also have lettuce, tomatoes, onions, dill pickles, special sauce (ketchup + sweet relish), and mayo (though whether or not the mayo will be vegan isn’t clear).

A regular Famous Star burger will set you back $4.09, without cheese. The Beyond Famous Star burger will be available in 1,000+ Carl’s Jr. locations in 2019 and will cost $6.29.

$6.29?? That’s pretty pricey for a fast food burger, even one that clocks in at a sizeable quarter pound. For comparison, the Impossible Foods’ plant-based slider at White Castle will only set you back $1.99. To be fair, it only contains half as much “meat” as the Beyond Famous Star burger and doesn’t have the LTO, but it costs less than a third of the price.

Fast-food diners at White Castle were apparently open to ponying up an extra dollar to go plant-based, and the Impossible slider has now rolled out at locations across the U.S. But there’s no guarantee that Carl’s Jr. patrons will shell out over two bucks more to make their Famous Star burger vegan.

Regardless, the move shows that Beyond is prepped for some serious expansion. This news comes a few months after the company inked its first U.S. fast-food chain partnership with Del Taco. (Their plant-based burgers are already available in Canada’s A&W chain). However, Beyond is currently available in just over twenty Del Taco locations — its partnership with Carl’s Jr. would massively ramp up its fast-food presence, allowing it to better compete with plant-based frenemy Impossible Foods, who is planning to launch in retail next year.

These new partnerships will equate to much higher product demand, so hopefully Beyond Meat has moved on from its past supply chain issues. If it can pull off this partnership, no doubt we’ll be seeing Beyond burgers on more and more fast-food menus — and maybe even someday the Golden Arches?

“You Want AI with That?” Clinc Builds Conversational Voice Control for QSRs

Those long-running jokes about mangled drive-thru orders at fast food joints may become a thing of the past if Clinc delivers on its promise. The startup is building AI-powered voice controls that allow hungry humans on the go to order food in a more conversational manner.

Clinc, which has spent the past two years creating AI voice controls for financial services companies, is looking to expand into the quick-service restaurant (QSR) sector to augment the voice control capabilities of drive-thru windows and in-store ordering kiosks.

According to Dennis Zender, Vice President of Sales, Innovation & Strategy at Clinc, unlike other voice-powered AI tools on the market right now, Clinc’s AI does not rely on a tree structure or need to map back to a dictionary for its responses. This allows Clinc to treat everything said to it as data, allowing its AI to handle more complex — and messier — conversations.

If you think about your typical chatbot experience, it’s very stilted and formulaic. You say something, wait for a response, say something else, next response, and so on. Clinc promises that its AI will allow you to carry on a much more complex set of instructions. As you can see in this demo video Clinc created, the customer gives a relatively complex drive-thru order, with multiple items and special requests. He even changes his order.

Having a robust AI system in the drive-thru actually fits with the high-tech renovations many fast food chains are implementing. Long John Silvers is adding HD screens and digital audio to their drive throughs, and Caliburger lets you pay with your face at an indoor kiosk (not to mention its robot cooking burgers).

Clinc’s complex conversations are also reminiscent of Google Duplex, which is an AI that can hold eerily human-like conversations. The goal for any QSR is efficiency and speed, and automation promises to do just that. Having a reliable chatbot system that can accurately take orders and “converse” with customers would free up humans to do higher-level work. Or… ya know… eliminate them altogether. (Eep.)

Right now, Clinc is in talks with a number of QSR companies, but hasn’t rolled out anything official yet. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has roughly 100 employees and has $7.75 million in funding.

So say what you will about fast food; if Clinc clicks with chains, AI ordering is something we’ll all be chatting about.