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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Curbside Bots and Contactless Everything: What the Post-Pandemic Restaurant Will Look Like

Even an introverted work-from-home veteran like me is starting to get kind of daffy during this here quarantine. But I will say that being stuck at home has given me a lot of time to think (and write) about the state of the restaurant industry, and I catch myself imagining what eating out will be like once we’re past this pandemic. So when Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson posted a letter this week to employees about the chain’s future, it caught my attention.

In his letter, Johnson more or less said the chain is planning to reopen some of its locations and outlined a plan for doing so. To be clear: Johnson uses the words “open” and “reopen” several times in the text, but at no point promised that your local Starbucks will reopen overnight with the usual setup and operations that existed before the pandemic. 

Which is why I’m singling out Starbucks in the first place. As an international chain that has already dealt with this recovery process overseas, and as a leader in digital business and operations, Starbucks’ plans for reopening stores give us a good hint of what we can expect restaurants to look like once the process of opening the economy begins.

Pulling from Johnson’s letter as well as numerous statements and activities from other restaurants, tech companies, and governments, we put together some predictions for what the post-pandemic restaurant experience might entail.

Note that most of these predictions are around operations and the customer experience. There are a host of other issues, from labor to food waste, I’ll be unpacking those over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

More space, fewer tables. This is less prediction and more fact, with public figures like California Governor Gavin Newsom saying restaurants will have more space between tables and fewer seats, to ensure social distancing when eating out. Separately, the WSJ noted that restaurant chains may operate at half capacity going forward, and include things like plexiglass shields between booths. That could also spell the end of buffet-style dining and family-style seating. Golden Corral, that bastion of all buffet restaurants, has closed all units for the time being. Even before state-mandated shutdowns, other businesses were nixing community seating. And grocery stores are closing down hot bars.

Lots more mobile payments. Some restaurants are already pushing customers to use their mobile apps to order and pay for food, eliminating the need to touch a kiosk or swipe a credit card. Granted, you have to have a well-designed, easy-to-use app in order to do this, which means we’ll see a surge in smaller restaurant chains developing and/or improving their own mobile experiences for customers, whether in-house or through a third-party service. I expect we’ll also see an uptick in mobile-only locations (though it’ll vary based on state laws around cashless businesses).

Curbside delivery for all. Curbside pickup was once the territory of Sonic and the odd McDonald’s location. With dining rooms shuttered these last few weeks, restaurants have had to find other ways of bringing food out. And since not all of them have been equipped with drive-thru, curbside pickup has become the default option for many. This is one of the methods Starbucks has put into practice over the last few weeks, in some cases even taking it a step further to offer “entryway pickup” for locations without parking lots.

Contactless everything. “Contactless delivery” barely existed as a phrase before China implemented it during the peak of its fight against the novel coronavirus. Now, everyone from Instacart to Pizza Hut offers it, and I doubt we’ll revert back to the old way of handing goods off between courier and customer. For contactless to live up to its name, though, brands need to think about the technical logistics behind the operation. Restaurants’ online order systems need to have the option built right into the checkout process. They should consider providing additional features, such as push notifications to alert customers when and where their order is ready. Contactless will stick around permanently for delivery and curbside orders and, when companies figure out how, probably for in-store purchases, too.

More drive-thru lanes. Austin, TX-based chain Torchy’s Tacos explained to me recently that once the chain was forced to shut down dining rooms, it quickly opened drive-thru windows in locations that had always had the feature but had never utilized it. Many restaurants set up shop in locations that were once a Wendy’s or other fast-food chain. If they haven’t already, they could utilize that space to start offering drive-thru on the regular to customers.   

Gloves and face masks for workers. Restaurants I’ve spoken with over the last couple weeks are quick to emphasize the steps they are taking to protect both customers and workers when it comes to health. Gloves and face masks nearly always come up in that conversation. They’re also part of Gov. Newsom’s plan for restaurants, and will definitely make their way into other states’ frameworks for reopening business.

Robot staff.  Having said that, though, some might just opt for robots when it comes to who’s going to handle your food. My colleague Chris Albrecht recently pointed out that dining customers might prefer “the cold sterility of a robot” to a server wearing a face mask and gloves. Robots, of course, bring up the whole loss of human jobs angle. However, as Chris notes, with fears around the virus and human-to-human contact unlikely to subside for some time, for those restaurants that can afford it, robots might be an appetizing option, at least where city laws permit. Somehow I think they would come in especially handy for running curbside orders to cars.

Okay, wait a minute. Does all this mean my future restaurant experience will involve ordering food ahead of time via an app, then waiting at a plexiglass-encased table for a wheeled bot to roll up with my burger? That sounds lonelier than a month in quarantine.

I doubt it comes to that scenario, though. The COVID-19 situation changes daily, which mean so do expectations about what restaurants will look like when the economy reopens. Maybe all of these predictions will come true. Possibly none of them will. The most likely scenario is that a few of them, like curbside pickup and mobile payments, will become industry standards, and restaurants will use a mixture of the others based on time, money, and customer volume. As states begin discussions around reopening the economy and more chains like Starbucks start outlining their plans, we’ll get a clearer picture of what to expect in the the post-pandemic restaurant experience.

Thanks to Tech, Restaurant Employees Are Accessing Earnings Faster

One area that’s part of any good discussion about the future of the restaurant concerns employees — that is, the servers, baristas, drivers, managers, and others who make up the backbone of the industry.

How they get paid is something that’s fast changing as the industry grapples with dining room closures, mass layoffs, furloughs, and general economic tension. This week, we wrote about Domino’s teaming up with challenger bank Branch to offer employees instant access to their earnings via the Branch app.

Branch is one of a few apps out there that lets hourly workers — who often live paycheck to paycheck — get faster access to much-needed cashflow. DailyPay, which we’ve written about before, is another popular one.

I see an uptick in restaurants making it possible for employees to use these types of apps in future. As everything in the previous section of this newsletter suggests, the restaurant model is rapidly changing, and it’s hard to guess now which formats are most likely to be around next week, next month, or even next year. That means it’s also hard to predict how many people a restaurant will need on staff, and how many hours those individuals can work.

With so many questions up in the air, the least restaurants can do is integrate with one of these apps to get their employees paid faster.

McDonald’s Slows Development on Its Tech-Forward Store Remodels

In an effort to reduce capital expenditures by $1 billion, McDonald’s is slowing the development of its Experience of the Future store remodels across the U.S., according to a press statement the company sent out today. 

The move comes in the wake of the mega-chain, not to mention the entire restaurant industry, having to adjust both operations and expectations to serve customers during a global health crisis. Restaurant sales are down 80 percent, and many establishments are having to quickly pivot to delivery and takeout models in order to stay in business. 

Unlike smaller restaurants with shallower pockets, McDonald’s isn’t a newcomer to the off-premises world or the technology that powers it. Up to now, the company was running a $4 billion digital business driven largely by delivery orders. Acquisitions in 2019 of Dynamic Yield (AI tech) and Apprente (voice tech) further enhanced the chain’s to-go-friendly business model, and Experience of the Future stores are meant to encompass all these elements under one roof. They also feature self-service kiosks, curbside pickup areas, improved drive-thru lanes, and many other things meant to make the customer experience at McDonald’s as speedy and efficient as possible.

Then came COVID-19. In addition to closing dining rooms across the U.S., McDonald’s has also halted operations entirely at many stores, including 50 in the U.S., and every single one in the United Kingdom. Those shutdowns also include drive-thru and delivery.

“We entered 2020 in a strong position, but of course the world has since changed,” CEO Chris Kempczinski told Nation’s Restaurant News. “While our January and February global comparable sales were strong, changes in consumer behavior and the various restrictions in place by governments around the world have led to a significant decline in sales.” 

To that end, McDonald’s says it plans to build fewer Experience of the Future stores, whether new locations or remodels of old ones, worldwide.  

Whether this is a sign of things to come from other similar chains depends. One of the major factors of Mickey D’s remodels is how costly they are — over $700,000 per store, in some cases. Not every chain’s digital business reinvention requires an architectural overhaul as well, especially if a brand is more interested in improving things like delivery and loyalty programs. That said, we may see fewer Chipotlanes and Starbucks Express Stores rolling out for the rest of 2020 — and possibly beyond.

McDonald’s Shuts Down U.K. Restaurants

By the end of the day today, McDonald’s will close all 1,270 of its restaurants in the U.K. in response to COVID-19 concerns. That includes takeout and drive-thru options as well as delivery.

McDonald’s sent the following tweet over the weekend:

McDonald’s franchisees in the UK are expected to follow those moves and close as well. Employees of corporate-owned stores will receive full pay for their hours scheduled through April 5.

Previously, McDonald’s had closed its dining rooms but remained open to fulfill off-premises orders around the world. Today, however, McDonald’s U.K. head Paul Pomroy told the BBC, “Over the last 24 hours, it has become clear that maintaining safe social distancing whilst operating busy takeaway and Drive Thru restaurants is increasingly difficult and therefore we have taken the decision to close every restaurant in the UK and Ireland by 7pm on Monday 23 March.” 

The chain also fully closed 50 locations in the U.S. on Friday, though those stores were part of larger buildings affected by COVID-19, not standalone locations. Still, the sweeping closures in the U.K. could be an indicator of what’s to come Stateside, particularly where takeout is concerned. Over the weekend, Starbucks ended takeout service from its U.S. stores because of the “high traffic” locations were experiencing. The Seattle-based coffee chain was one of the first to close its dining rooms and switch to a to-go model last week, with McDonald’s and others following shortly thereafter. Which could mean McDonald’s is well on its way to axing its own takeaway services in the U.S.

It seems doubtful McDonald’s would get rid of drive-thru or delivery right now in the U.S., given how important those two channels are to overall sales growth. But with news of the coronavirus changing not just every day but every hour and more states taking stricter measures to limit human to human contact, nothing is a given. This is far from the last time McDonald’s, Starbucks, and other QSRs will have to quickly shift strategy in the age of coronavirus.  

Starbucks in Coronavirus-Stricken Washington State Removing Tables and Chairs in Move Towards Take & Go Format

Here in Washington state, we’ve already seen restaurants pivot to new business models to deal with the fall out of COVID-19. And now, some select Starbucks have started to remove tables and chairs for customers and transition to a take-and-go format.

You can see what this looks like at the Starbucks in my own small town of Edmonds on the outskirts of Seattle:

In addition to removing the tables and chairs (or, more accurately, pushing them all into a corner), this Starbucks location has also removed the creamer station and workers are offering to add these to customer orders. Napkins have also been removed.

While Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson had hinted earlier this week they might move towards pick-up only formats, this is the first time that I’ve seen or heard of it in action.

As I wrote yesterday, traffic to restaurants in Washington and other states has tanked by up to 50%. Judging by the relatively crowd in this normally crowded Starbucks, the dropoff has been similar.

Update: A few hours after this post, Starbucks announced that it was going to a nationwide “to-go” model for at least two weeks.

Week in Restaurants: How Restaurants Are Responding to Coronavirus

Restaurants large and small face a major sales slump due to declining foot traffic and mandates from city governments to reduce capacity in the dining room. Meanwhile, larger chains are under pressure to provide more paid sick leave to their workers, and based on the number of businesses now focusing on to-go and delivery formats, we’re about to see a massive surge in delivery orders. Here’s what the week in restaurants and restaurant tech looked like in the wake of a pandemic.

Starbucks Considers Switching to Delivery, Takeout Format

Starbucks already temporarily suspended its reusable cup program last week. Then yesterday, in a letter to customers, company CEO Kevin Johnson wrote that the chain is considering an off-premises-only model for some stores for the time being. That would mean customers could only order via the Starbucks mobile app, and all orders would have to be for pickup, delivery, or drive-thru. Johnson said closing entire stores outright would be a last resort, and that any changes made to store formats would be decided on a “community-by-community and store-by-store” basis.

NYC Restaurants Must Reduce Capacity

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that New York City bars and restaurants must reduce capacity by 50 percent starting today at 5 p.m. Gatherings for 500 people or more have been completely banned. De Blasio said small businesses affected by this change have the option of no-interest loans to consider, and those who face eviction should check the city’s website for free legal assistance.

 

Restaurants Add Paid Sick Leave for Workers

Darden, the parent company of Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, and Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen launched a new sick leave policy this week where employees earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. The new policy applies to about 180,000 restaurant workers across Darden’s portfolio. A Darden spokesperson mentioned that this is a permanent change that has actually been in the works for some time. “We did accelerate the rollout given the current environment,” he added.

McDonald’s announced paid sick leave for up to two weeks for employees that are asked to quarantine themselves due to coronavirus. The policy applies to corporate-owned stores only. Workers are currently demanding paid sick leave for all employees across both corporate and franchise locations.

Noodles & Company is also now offering emergency pay for quarantined workers at company-owned stores. The plan is similar to McDonald’s, where hourly workers who normally do not get paid sick time will receive paid time off if they are unable to work after being diagnosed with or quarantined because of COVID019. The company is said to be working on a longer-term paid sick leave policy for employees. 

Starbucks, in addition to its moves above, is also now offering catastrophe pay to workers who have been diagnosed with or exposed to COVID-19, as well as anyone who “comes into close prolonged contact with someone in their store or household” who has the virus, according to a letter from company president Rossann Williams. These groups are eligible for up to 14 days of catastrophe pay. Additional pay replacement “may be made up to 26 weeks” if an employee is still unable to return to work.

Food Tech Show: Coronavirus Hits Housewares Show, Cargill Launches Plant-Based Burger

It’s another episode of the Food Tech Show!

This week I got together with the Spoon’s Chris Albrecht and Catherine Lamb to talk about some of food tech’s most interesting stories of late, including:

As always, you can listen to the Food Tech Show on Apple podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you get podcasts. You can also download direct to your device or just click play below.

Starbucks Canada Embraces Plant-based with New Beyond Meat Breakfast Sandwich

The plant-based meat prophecy is finally coming to fruition. Starbucks announced this morning that it would introduce a Beyond Meat, Cheddar, and Egg Sandwich in its Canadian stores beginning on March 3rd (h/t CNBC). The new sando will feature a custom Beyond Meat patty flavored with fennel, rosemary, and other herbs and spices. Pricing details were not disclosed.

As I mentioned, this morning’s news didn’t exactly come out of left field. The announcement came just a few weeks after the coffee giant’s Q1 earnings call, in which Starbucks COO Rosalind Brewer stated that a plant-based breakfast sandwich would be coming to both Canada and the U.S.

Canada has become a sort of testing zone for QSRs who are eager to test out meatless meat. McDonalds, Wendys, and KFC all have done meatless tests up in the Great White North. At the same time Canadian fast-food chain Tim Horton’s, which was one of the early adopters of Beyond Meat, discontinued the plant-based option completely just last month.

That blip aside, plant-based breakfasts are catching on like wildfire here in the U.S. Dunkin began testing its own Beyond Meat breakfast sandwich (made with its own custom patty) back in August of last year, and quickly rolled it out to all stores nationwide. Burger King is also selling the Impossible Croissan’wich, featuring its new plant-based pork, at a limited number of locations.

The Starbucks news comes at a time when we were starting to wonder if the honeymoon was over between QSRs and plant-based meat. However, it looks like that statement may have been premature. Taco Bell announced yesterday that it would “definitely do something with plant-based protein,” and probably before the end of the year. And despite lackluster Impossible Whopper sales last quarter, Burger King is still going whole-hog on plant-based meat with the aforementioned meatless Croissan’wich.

It’s also encouraging that Starbucks isn’t debuting the Beyond Meat sandwich as a limited test or pilot program; rather, it’s rolling out as a permanent part of Starbucks Canada’s core menu. That shows a level of faith on the part of the coffee corporation that the meatless meat is going to be a success, at least in Canada.

What with the hint from Starbucks’ Q1 earnings call, I don’t think we’ll have to wait long before a plant-based breakfast sandwich makes its way south of the border. Until then if you’re in Canada next month and happen to try out, send us a note to let us know how you like it (and how it stands up to Dunkin’s).

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.

Starbucks’ New Store Format Could Be the Birth of the AI-Powered Airport Coffeeshop

Sometimes the airport feels like my second home, which makes trips to airport coffeeshops a frequent part of life. But so often, those trips involve at least 20 minutes of shuffling through a long line, carry-on bag in tow, worries about missing the flight in the back of my head.

Starbucks’ latest moves at the airport seem aimed to eradicate exactly that situation, not just for me but for the millions of people who fly in and out of airports each day. As announced earlier this week, the coffee retailer will expand its presence in airports and introduce new store formats (including pop-ups) in airports thanks to new partnerships with airport retailer/restauranteur Paradies Lagardère and airport hospitality group OTG Management.

The new partnerships come less than one week after airport foodservice company HMSHost ended its longstanding exclusivity contract with Starbucks. With the OTG and Paradies Lagardère deals, Starbucks will introduce things like mobile ordering and payment options as well as pop-up stores that can move throughout the terminal and deliver coffee orders straight to customers’ gates. Storefronts will be able to move around based on the time of day, according to a press release from OTG, and the mobile ordering integration will make it easier to purchase a coffee and have it waiting for you at the gate before you board the plane or even when you arrive at your destination city.   

What the actual stores will look like is not yet clear, though I suspect it will be some sort of kiosk-like structure that’s easy(ish) to move around, breakdown, and reassemble.

While the prospect of not waiting in a ridiculously long line for a latte is good news in and of itself, I’m more intrigued by what the new partnerships could mean for the future. Starbucks is one of those QSRs that’s made technology — and what that technology could enable in terms of guest experiences — a central part of its strategy for years now. The company has arguably the best mobile app of any restaurant business out there when it comes to quickly and seamlessly ordering, customizing, and paying for a drink. It has been vocal about making AI a key part of its operations moving forward.

Right now, QSRs use AI technologies to gather information like weather, traffic, a customer’s location, and their order history to suggest more relevant upsell items, improve order accuracy, and speed up lines. That last point is especially relevant to the airport where waiting in a long line could mean missing your flight.

If Starbucks were to integrate more AI and predictive technology into its airport operations (that feels more like a “when” than an “if,” honestly), it could utilize more data to make these new pop-up locations more available to a wider potential audience. If Starbucks knows that come Monday morning, the terminal will be jammed with business travelers, it could plan accordingly in terms of staffing and the number of mobile locations it makes available. If data could tell Starbucks that the flight over at gate C7 is delayed for an hour, workers could set up a storefront nearby. 

This is a little speculative on my part, as Starbucks hasn’t actually mentioned any of the above scenarios, nor has it officially dropped the phrase “artificial intelligence” in reference to airports. I imagine data collection at airports comes with its own special set of security issues and regulations as well, so it’s doubtful this granularity in data will happen immediately at the airport.

The new pop-up store format will, however. Starbucks plans to open these stores around airports in 2020, along with more traditional storefronts as well. So at the very least, you’ll soon be able to skip the 20-minute line when it comes to getting a coffee before the flight. 

Starbucks Pledges to Cut Carbon Emissions, Water Usage and Landfill Waste by Half by 2030

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson announced in a letter Tuesday that the company aspires to become resource positive within the next decade. 

To meet that aspiration, Johnson set three goals for Starbucks: reducing carbon emissions from its direct operations and supply chain by half; replenishing half of its water usage with a focus on “communities and basins with high water risk;” and a 50 percent reduction in its waste sent to landfills from its stores and manufacturing facilities. As part of that last goal, Johnson announced it is joining the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment.

Starbucks has a lot of work ahead. The company, according to its own estimates, is responsible for 1 percent of all paper and plastic cups in the world, or 6 billion cups. It currently operates more than 28,000 stores across the world. 

As part of the pledge, Starbucks announced “five environmental strategies that will begin to move us toward a resource-positive future”: expanding plant-based options; shifting from single-use to reusable packaging; investing in “innovative and regenerative agricultural practices, reforestation, forest conservation and water replenishment” in its supply chain; investing in better ways to manage its waste; and developing innovations for more eco-friendly stores, operations, manufacturing and delivery.

“We agree with the consensus of scientific experts who note that without drastic action from everyone — governments, companies and all of us as individuals — adapting to the impact of climate change in the future will be far more difficult and costly,” Johnson wrote, “taking a toll on our supply chains, our business, and more importantly, the lives of everyone involved, including coffee farmers, our suppliers, Starbucks partners, customers and every community we serve.”

Johnson wrote that the company doesn’t have all the answers, and called on parties including entrepreneurs and its partners and customers to provide innovations and ideas.

Starbucks is among one of the biggest restaurant companies by revenue, and one of the largest to pledge to reduce its contributions to global warming causing emissions and pollution. McDonald’s and Taco Bell have also set ambitious sustainability goals. Drastic change is needed if we’re going to stem the worst effects of climate change, and business leaders’ commitment to the cause is both necessary and welcome, especially as world leaders continue to be dismissive of the threat life on the planet faces.

A Snapshot of the 6 Biggest Fast Food Companies’ Sustainability Pledges

Environmental issues are no longer an invisible threat. With temperatures warming, oceans are heating up and extreme weather events such as hurricanes and forest fires, as we’re currently seeing in Australia, are happening more frequently.

There’s only so much individuals can do to lessen our impact on the warming planet, including flying and driving less and cutting back on meat. It’s on governments and businesses, especially corporations, to stave off catastrophe.

As we start off a new decade, let’s take a look at the sustainability pledges of the top fast food companies by revenues. As emissions that result from meat and dairy production are on track to contribute 70 percent of the total allowable greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the BBC reports, fast food chains’ decisions have a lot of impact on the planet, although most pledges have centered around packaging. As some of the largest brands on the planet, these moves will not only cut back on climate change causing emissions and pollution, but provide an example to other businesses.

1. McDonald’s

The world’s biggest restaurant company in 2018 was the first fast food company to commit to sustainability. McDonald’s pledged that by 2025, “100 percent of McDonald’s guest packaging will come from renewable, recycled, or certified sources,” and also “to recycle guest packaging in 100 percent of McDonald’s restaurants.” For this year, it also set a goal that “100 percent of fiber-based packaging will come from recycled or certified sources where no deforestation occurs.” The company has also invested in a wind farm and a solar farm that it said will produce “more than 2,500 McDonald’s restaurants-worth of electricity.” As far as plant-based options, the Golden Arches is expanding its Beyond Meat test in Canada.

2. Starbucks

According to the coffee giant, “an estimated 600 billion paper and plastic cups are distributed globally,” and Starbucks accounts for an estimated 1 percent of that total. It has set a goal to “double the recycled content, recyclability and compostability, and reusability of our cups and packaging by 2022.” It plans to phase out straws this year. (A small competitor of Starbucks, Blue Bottle, plans to eliminate disposable cups entirely.) Starbucks, which said it has invested in renewable energy, has also set a goal to design, build and operate 10,000 “Greener Stores” globally by 2025. Starbucks offers several plant-based milks, and is expanding its lineup of non-dairy drinks.

3. Subway

The sandwich company hasn’t made any specific pledges, and pins a lot of the responsibility of energy conservation on its franchise operators. Subway offers a meatless Beyond Meat meatball sub. The company says its paper products, including towels, tissues and napkins, are made from 100 percent recycled material. As for the rest of its materials, including cups, wraps, bowls and lids, Subway makes no further commitments to make them more sustainable.

4. Chick-fil-a

The popular chicken restaurant that closes on Sundays also hasn’t issued any major sustainability pledges. The company said last year it is “thoughtfully searching for sustainable design solutions that are recyclable, compostable or contain recycled content — starting with new bowls” made of recyclable PET plastic. Chick-fil-a has committed to reducing construction waste for its new locations. The chain offers no plant-based options.

5. Taco Bell

The Mexican-inspired food chain is the latest to issue a big sustainability pledge. It has committed to “making all consumer-facing packaging recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025 worldwide,” as well as adding recycling and/or composting bins to all restaurants, “where infrastructure permits.” Last year, it committed to more sustainable beef. Taco Bell has long featured vegetarian and vegan options, and recently made them more prominent on its menu.

6. Burger King

The other burger chain also hasn’t set any firm sustainability commitments for the decade. Rather, it said it will “continuously review our policies on animal welfare, sourcing and environmental impact to ensure that we remain good corporate citizens in the communities we serve.” The company, responding to a Change.org petition, said it will stop giving out plastic toys, but only in the U.K. At least you can get the Impossible Whopper at every U.S. store.

Of course, the companies who did make pledges are not beholden to them. It’s up to investors and consumers to hold each company responsible to do their part to reducing their contributions to climate change.

If any company updates their pledges, we will revisit and update this article.

Starbucks’ Chinese Competitor Luckin to Launch IoT-powered Self-service Coffee Machines

Luckin, one of China’s largest coffee chains, announced this week in a press release two new offerings aimed at getting coffee to consumers as quickly and conveniently as possible: the Luckin Coffee EXPRESS smart unmanned coffee machine and the Luckin Pop Mini smart vending machine. Both machines are part of Luckin’s push further into the world of self-service locations, what the company calls “the unmanned retail market” in an effort to reach more customers and stay competitive with its chief rival, Starbucks.

These unmanned terminals will be in office buildings, college campuses, bus terminals, gas stations, highway service stations, and residential communities, according to the press release. Though Luckin hasn’t specifically said what for, IoT and facial recognition will be used, most likely to speed up the ordering process. 

Of course finding faster, easier ways to get coffee to customers is a major priority right now for chains. Starbucks opened an Express store in Beijing last year that focuses specifically on delivery and pickup orders. It is also operating ghost kitchens in China in collaboration with Alibaba’s Heme supermarkets. 

In the U.S., both Briggo and CafeX have self-service coffee kiosks manned by robots at airports around the country (though it’s worth noting that CafeX just shuttered all three of its downtown San Francisco locations). Meanwhile, a company called Bandit operates a mobile-order-only cafe in Manhattan, where customers order ahead via the Bandit app and simply pick their drink up when it’s ready. 

Luckin, which has so far focused heavily on delivery and pickup order formats, doesn’t yet have any locations in the U.S. For now, its focus seems to be expanding further across China and in doing so competing with Starbucks. Luckin’s self-operated stores numbered 4,507 by the end of 2019, according to a press release. Starbucks, meanwhile, has tried self-service vending machines in the past, a concept that never took off and is no longer being promoted.

Whether Luckin’s new self-service offerings prompt Starbucks to double-down on its self-service efforts again remains to be seen. The Seattle-based coffee retailer has already said it plans to open more express stores in high-traffic areas in China. That probably includes airports, bus terminals, and office parks — the very same places Luckin is placing its self-service machines.