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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Too Good to Go

Meet The Spoon’s Restaurant Tech 10

The restaurant industry has changed drastically over the last 18 months when it comes to tech. What was once a sector slow to change and reticent to embrace digital is now practically at bursting point in terms of the many technological solutions available to restaurants. As food tech investor Brita Rosenheim recently wrote, “the past 18 months, technology solutions across the restaurant and hospitality industry evolved at such a fast pace that keeping up with changes proved challenging, even for those of us who work in the space. This rapid rate of adoption in the industry caused even the technophobes in hospitality to rapidly embrace tech solutions. “

Picking just 10 companies from the hundreds out there was a Herculean challenge when it came time to make this list. From virtual restaurants to maintenance management solutions to making better use of data, there’s no end of innovation in the restaurant tech sector these days. Our list is a tiny sliver of that innovation, showcasing what we believe are some of the most unique and intriguing companies shaking up and rethinking the restaurant business. Some of these companies will be at our upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit (make sure to get your ticket!), some we’ve written about recently, and some we are just getting to know.

It goes without saying, of course, that this isn’t an exhaustive list, and if you have a restaurant tech company you’d like to get on our radar, drop us a line anytime.

In no particular order, here are The Spoon’s Top 10 Restaurant Tech Companies:

Too Good to Go

When it comes to eliminating food waste, Too Good to Go was too good to not include on this list. The Denmark-based company partners with hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and other businesses that have surplus food items at the end of each day and sells that food at a discount to consumers, who pick up the food at a designated time. Too Good to Go started in Europe, but raised $31 million and expanded into the U.S. this year. Businesses win because it turns leftover foods into revenue. Consumers win because they get good food at a discount. And the world at large wins because there is less food waste going into landfills. 

86 Repairs

You can’t run a restaurant without a fridge (or stove, or electricity), which means maintenance and repair management will always be relevant in the biz, no matter how many pandemics you throw at it. Chicago, Illinois-based 86 Repairs is leading a new generation of companies helping to make the management of maintenance and repair tasks a little less burdensome on restaurants. The platform digitizes information about all a restaurant’s equipment and coordinates troubleshooting, warranty checks, booking technicians, and other tasks. The idea is to give restaurants one central location at which to view all data about all maintenance, even for large, multi-unit chains with thousands of units.

Bite Ninja

The restaurant labor shortage will go down as one of the major issues — probably the major issue — restaurants faced in 2021. One of the most intriguing solutions to the issue comes from a company called Bite Ninja. In essence, the Bite Ninja platform lets restaurants outsource their staffing needs for the drive-thru lane to gig workers that take orders remotely. Drive-thru customers see a face on a screen and order as they would normally. They may not even know the person taking the order is probably sitting at their kitchen table instead of standing inside the restaurant. Bite Ninja’s founders say the platform can increase order accuracy and upsell rates for restaurants, while workers don’t actually have to report to a physical location to clock in. In the future, the tech will be available for more uses than just the drive-thru, including front-of-house kiosks, curbside pickup, and phone orders.

ConverseNow

ConverseNow currently creates conversational AI assistants for restaurant drive-thrus. In use at 750 restaurant locations in the U.S, ConverseNow says its AI achieves 85 percent order accruacy and bumps check sizes up by 25 percent. But ConverseNow is about so much more than just helping automate the drive-thru. The company wants its software to be the virtual plumbing for all of a restaurant’s digital ordering, connecting the drive-thru, mobile ordering, phones, kiosks and more. If it can achieve this, ConverseNow will convert many restaurant operators over to AI. 

Crave Collective

When The Spoon got a virtual tour last year of the Crave facility in Boise, Idaho that serves 16 virtual restaurant concepts, it felt like a look into the future of what restaurant/food delivery design could look in Metro areas. Not only were the physical attributes like a conveyor belt system that shuttled meals towards the front for delivery and a customer pick up area interesting, but Crave’s custom-built tech stack and in-house delivery drivers were indications that the company had built a facility and business model tailored towards the virtual brand era. The company wants to take it’s concept to four additional locations this year, and 10 by 2022.

Slice

While it’s easy to think most pizza restaurant shops are savvy at online ordering, the reality is that the typical independent sees only about one in five pizzas ordered online compared with three out of four for Dominos. Slice saw this as an opportunity and created a consumer app to help put independent pizza shops (16,000 of them so far) on solid digital footing to compete with the 800 pound gorillas in Dominos and Little Caesar’s. But what helped Slice make this list was their acquisition of POS startup InStore. Before Instore, Slice helped indies enter into the world of online ordering. Now, Slice Register (the POS based on Instore) enables the small guys to level up to the big guys and create a true multichannel pizza business with loyalty programs and integrated online/offline marketing programs.

Qu POS

The past decade saw restaurant point of sale move into the cloud and adapt features like pay-at-table and integrated online ordering, but the virtual brand explosion may be the biggest test yet for these systems. Qu POS is betting big on a virtual restaurant future with their KitchenUP platform, which acts as a lightweight operating system for ghost kitchen/virtual brands with unified management of multichannel order management, reporting, third-party delivery integration and other features built into an API-first architecture. FranklinJunction is utilizing KitchenUp across its network of 500 “host kitchens” to help power virtual concepts for such brands as Nathan’s and Frisch’s Big Boy.

Ordermark/NextBite

An arguably bigger trend than ghost kitchens this year has been restaurants finding and leveraging underutilized kitchen space in which to run delivery-only restaurant concepts. NextBite, a company created by restaurant tech company Ordermark, helps restaurants find that space and launch those concepts. The platform operates a number of virtual/delivery-only brands restaurants can add to their existing business and in the process make some incremental revenue. The company raised a whopping $120 million for this concept at the end of 2020, and has since launched more than 15 virtual brands in thousands of kitchens around the country. 

Manna

Look! Up in the sky! It’s your latte! Drone food delivery seems like sci-fi, but Manna is making it a reality right now. Earlier this year, the company was doing 50 to 100 drone deliveries a day and it’s prepping to launch service in a second Irish city. Though there are still regulatory hurdles to overcome, drone delivery could be a boon for restaurants because it delivers meals in minutes without needing to put a full-sized delivery car on the road. Drones are starting to take flight around the world, and Manna is helping the industry take flight. 

Delivery Hero

Delivery is table stakes at this point for the restaurant industry, but we pub Delivery Hero on this list because of all the big-name services out there today, it has one of the more noteworthy approaches to the concept. In addition to operating restaurant food delivery services around the world (via a bunch of different subsidiary brands), the Berlin, Germany-based company has also launched its own VC fund to foster food tech innovation, opened an education program to teach coding to underserved individuals, and, most recently, kicked off a new initiative to provide its restaurant partners with sustainable packaging. All these efforts point towards the possibility of a food delivery industry that’s not only faster and more efficient, but also more inclusive and sustainable.

Too Good To Go Partners With Waze to Fight Food Waste

Too Good To Go is an app that connects users to stores and restaurants with unsold surplus food and offers it at a discounted price. This week, the company announced that it has partnered with Waze, a GPS navigation software app, to fight food waste.

The partnership is called Waze for Good initiative, and it will last throughout the month of August. On the Waze app, the map will feature 100 Too Good To Go partner businesses in the metro areas of Washington D.C., Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, and Portland. Some of the featured stores will include Just Salad, Auntie Anne’s La Colombe, Juice Press, PLNT Burger, Café d’Avignon.

Waze users will see dropped pins on the map for Too Good To Go business partners. When selected, these pins will give information about the business and the initiative. The participating partners will offer “surprise bags” of surplus food, costing around $3.99-$5.99 each, that users can pick up. Earlier this month, Too Good To Go partnered with JOKR, a ghost grocery store chain to offer similar $5 surprise bags of surplus products.

Approximately 40 percent of food waste in America comes from restaurants, grocery stores, and food service companies. A few other food rescue apps like FlashFood and Food Rescue Hero are focused on saving food from grocery retailers. Online grocers Misfits Markets and Imperfect Produce rescue products that aren’t visually fit for retailers. While Too Good To Go also works with grocery retailers, it is one of the few companies to focus on preventing food waste from restaurants.

Both the Too Good To Go and Waze app is available for free on iOS and Android phones.

JOKR and Too Good To Go Team Up to Help Eliminate Food Waste with Mystery Boxes

When it comes to fighting food waste, every little bit helps. So while the new partnership between speedy delivery grocery service JOKR and food rescue app Too Good To Go may only impact a small geographic area, it will perhaps inspire others to make a big impact.

JOKR, which launched in New York City this past May, operates a network of small, dark grocery stores that promise to deliver your food in just 15 minutes. The Too Good To Go app is an online marketplace that connects consumers with surplus food from restaurants, bakeries, cafes and grocery stores to prevent it from being thrown out.

Together, the two companies have teamed up to create “surprise JOKR bags.” These mystery bags feature food, groceries and pantry items that were about to go to waste at JOKR’s store hubs. According to press materials sent to The Spoon, the JOKR bags have a retail value of $15 but will sell for just $5. Surprise JOKR bags are available through the Too Good To Go app, and can be picked up (not delivered) at participating JOKR hubs. Since the partnership went live on July 14, JOKR and Too Good To Go have already saved more than 100 bags of food.

Though the partnership is limited right now, it’s another example of how speedy grocery delivery services are looking to differentiate themselves from one another. New York City in particular is getting packed with speedy grocery delivery as JOKR, Gorillas, Fridge No More, 1520 and soon Buyk all operate there.

If 15-minute grocery delivery becomes a commodity, these services will need to figure out a way to stand apart without just engaging in a race to the lowest prices (the overall economics of speedy delivery still need to be borne out). Some speedy grocers like Food Rocket and 1520 are adding ready-to-eat meals and ghost kitchens to their services in order to stand out. JOKR being able to tout food waste reduction with a little bit of fun (surprise!) and a cheap price could help hook its service with potential customers.

Right now the JOKR and Too Good Too Go surprise bags are only available in Williamsburg and Long Island City in New York, with plans to expand to other NYC locations soon.

Too Good To Go Expands Its Food Waste App Nationally Across the U.S.

Not so very long ago, the United States lagged far behind Europe in terms of the widespread availability of food rescue apps. Fortunately, a heightened awareness of the world’s food waste problem has changed this and created opportunities for food rescue companies in the U.S.

Case in point: Too Good To Go’s recent expansion westward. The company, originally started in Denmark, today announced its plans to expand across the United States, following a successful program in select East Coast states. The first stop is San Francisco, with 200-plus food businesses participating, including Mission Chinese, La Boulangerie, and Indie Superette.

Via the Too Good To Go app, users can browse surplus food options from participating restaurants, bakeries, and grocery stores at the end of every day. They can then sign up for a “surprise bag” which includes surplus items from these businesses. Depending on the business from which it’s ordered, that bag could include pastries, extra sushi rolls, surplus produce, and many other items. 

Too Good to Go brought its app Stateside in 2020, starting in New York City. The company followed that move with a $31 million fundraise at the start of this year, specifically meant to enable a wider expansion around the U.S.

And while the concept of food rescue might be more commonplace Stateside compared to a couple years ago, it’s still unusual in the restaurant biz. Grocery delivery services like Misfits Market and Imperfect Foods address the grocery sector. Canada’s Flashfood app, based in Toronto, Ontario, similarly addresses surplus food in the grocery store via its U.S. partnership with Meijer. 

That leaves a wide-open opportunity for Too Good To Go when it comes to restaurants. After the San Francisco launch, the company will expand to Seattle on May 12 and Portland on May 19. The plan is to be in “many of the largest U.S. cities” by the end of this year.  

That expansion comes at a time when the conversation around food waste has gotten much louder. In the U.S., 35 percent of all food went to waste in 2019, the most recent year for data. ReFED points out that “a massive acceleration” is needed in order to address this problem and meet  national and international goals to reduce food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030. That effort has to come from many different groups — government and regulatory bodies, food companies, restaurants, and tech companies alike.

Interested to learn who is innovating in that space to better help us reach that goal? Join The Spoon and ReFed on June 16 for a half-day virtual event discussing the businesses, innovators, and capital partners behind the country’s fight against food waste. Reserve a ticket today.

Surplus Food Marketplace Too Good to Go Raises $31M to Expand in the U.S.

Copenhagen, Denmark-based Too Good to Go announced today it has raised €25.7 million (~$31 million) to expand its surplus food marketplace that fights food waste. The investment was led by /blisce, with participation from existing investors and employees. 

Too Good to Go’s main mission is fighting food waste. The company partners with hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and other businesses that have surplus food items at the end of each day. Those businesses can list food on Too Good to Go’s B2C marketplace at discounted prices. Consumers then simply browse the marketplace via the Too Good to Go app or website, place an order, and retrieve their food from the merchant at a designated time.

Too Good to Go already operates in 15 countries around the world, including several in Europe, including the U.K., Spain, and Italy. The expansion enabled by this new funding will focus mainly on the U.S., where the company has a smaller presence. It launched in New York City and Boston in September 2020, and has since also moved into parts of New Jersey. Specific cities and locations for this latest expansion were not named, though Too Good to Go’s roster of partners includes everyone from local grocers to massive chains like Hilton, Coop, Le Pain Quotidien, Yo! Sushi, and many others.

Surplus food marketplaces are not as prevalent in the U.S. as they are in other countries, despite the fact that the majority of food waste in this country happens at consumer-facing levels. Flashfood, a Canada-based company that offers a similar surplus food business, operates in some parts of the U.S. Karma is another Scandinavia-based surplus food app, but as yet it does not have a presence in the U.S.

All of which is to say, the opportunity is still wide open for Too Good to Go and other companies bringing the surplus food concept Stateside. 

Food Waste App Too Good to Go Makes Its U.S. Debut in NYC

Food redistribution app Too Good to Go made its U.S. debut today in New York City. With it, restaurants, cafes, and markets in the Big Apple can redistribute to consumers their surplus goods that would otherwise go to the landfill.

Copenhagen, Denmark-based Too Good to Go already has a presence in several markets around Europe, including the U.K., Spain, France, and Italy. The app acts as a marketplace for surplus food, where businesses can post their leftover food at a discount. Users then search among the local restaurants and grocery stores listed on the app, place and order, and retrieve their food from the merchant.

The NYC launch coincides with the UN’s first-ever International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, which is today. New York, meanwhile, makes for an appropriate place for a food-waste-fighting app. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that average NYC households waste 8.4 pounds of food per week. Too Good to Go’s own recent survey found that while 86 percent of the city-area residents want to waste less food, 88 percent don’t realize the connection between food waste and climate change. And as we outlined in a recent food waste report on Spoon Plus, food waste’s global carbon footprint right now is about 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases.

So far, food redistribution apps that directly connect the consumer and the retailer are few and far between in the U.S. Canada-based Flashfood app teamed up with Meijer grocery stores in last year to sell the chain’s surplus food in the Midwest U.S. So far, however, the market in this country is ripe for new entrants. 

Too Good to Go says it already has “nearly 200” merchant partners signed up, including Stumptown Coffee, Prince St Pizza, and Brooklyn Fare. 

Too Good To Go Raises €6M to Rescue Food in 16 Countries

Too Good To Go, the Denmark-based company fighting food waste, recently announced that it had raised €6 million ($6.8 million) in internal funding.

I spoke with Javier Amigo Miranda, CMO of Too Good To Go (TGTG), who told me that the fundraise was powered by private investors, including Mike Lee, co-founder of fitness tracking app My Fitness Pal, with participation from TGTG’s own CEO and Chairman of the Board. Amigo Miranda told me that this latest funding brings TGTG’s total warchest to roughly €18 million ($20.4 million).

TGTG is essentially a surplus food marketplace. At the end of the day businesses can post leftover food on the TGTG app at a discount. Hungry people can use the consumer-facing side of the app to search local restaurants and grocery stores for surplus food, place an order, then swing by and pick up their discounted grub in a pre-set collection window.

TGTG currently serves 9 countries and has aspirations to expand to 16 by the end of the year. According to Amigo Miranda, the company has saved over 10 million meals from the landfill since it was founded in 2016.

Europe is becoming a hotbed surplus food rescuing companies. Winnow optimizes BOH kitchen operations to reduce food waste, and Olio facilitates free food surplus sharing among neighbors and businesses. TGTG’s biggest competitor is Karma, based across strait in Sweden, which also connects local restaurants with deal-hungry consumers looking to purchase leftover food at the end of the day.

TGTG may have a bigger reach than Karma — which is only available in the U.K. and Sweden — but the latter seems to be experimenting more widely with new marketplaces for surplus food. In August of last year Karma raised $12 million, and a few months later Karma partnered with Electrolux to install smart fridges in grocery stores filled with discounted surplus food. Hopefully TGTG will use some of its new funding to not just expand geographically, but also explore new ways to get excess food out of the landfill and onto consumers’ plates.

Now You Can Buy Insanely Cheap Restaurant Leftovers Using an App

The concept of food waste usually conjures images of servers removing half-eaten meals from diners’ tables and chucking the remains of the meal into the trash. There is, however, a completely separate type of restaurant food waste: the untouched edibles thrown out of the kitchen. Maybe someone ordered too many avocados, or the chef made more soup than there are diners to eat it. Whatever it may be, a lot of perfectly edible food is going to waste, and more and more see this as a big problem.

Solving that problem is the inspiration behind Too Good to Go, an app that functions a lot like Seamless, where you can buy back unused food from local restaurants at majorly discounted prices.

Through the app, a user selects the restaurant and purchases an order. From there, you just need to show up at the restaurant before closing time, where you’re given a takeaway box and can fill it with as much food as you care to. (I should clarify that restaurants sell unused food from the kitchen, not the scraps from diners’ plates.)

Prices range from £2 (roughly $2.59 USD) to £3.80 (about $4.93 USD), and you’re not just getting some third-rate takeout shack’s leftovers. Places like Yo! Sushi and Chop’d have gotten on board, as have supermarkets, buffets, bakeries, and universities.   

“Food waste just seems like one of the dumbest problems we have in the world,” co-founder James Crummie recently said. The restaurant industry is wasting about 600,000 tonnes of food each year, and in the UK alone there are one million people on emergency food parcels from food banks. Why do we have these two massive social issues that are completely connected, yet there is not much going on to address them?”

That 600,000 tons of food also produces another 200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the U.S. wastes enough food annually to fill a college football stadium, and it’s estimated that worldwide, one third of food produced for humans is lost or wasted.

Fortunately, TGTG isn’t alone in trying to do something about this. Here NYC, you can now buy surplus food from restaurants via the Food for All app. Users log into the app, purchase a meal made from the surplus food, and can pick it up one to two hours before closing time. You can even opt to eat the meal right there in the restaurant. Restaurants can choose to donate proceeds from each meal to charity.

Courtesy of Finland, BuffetGo lets users buy food from restaurant buffets for up to 90 percent off the original price. Twenty percent of the profit from each meal goes towards the United Nations World Food Programme. The service is available in a handful of countries, including the U.S.

These apps aren’t just helping the planet, though. For restaurants, they’re an easy way to save money, since wasted food is a big contributor to high food costs. And for diners, particularly those with tiny kitchens who rely on delivery and takeout, it’s a much cheaper way to get dinner on the table. All of those factors working together make the concept of buying leftovers via apps a very promising one for the future of food.