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I believe 2019 will be a noteworthy year for food and technology. According to PitchBook’s reported data findings, the past 10 years have seen a steady rise in funding for U.S.-based food tech companies. Such venture investments totaled about $60 million in 2008, and skyrocketed to $1.5 billion in 2017. Quite simply, these numbers likely reflect the industry’s labor costs and consumer spending (subscription required).
My predictions for 2019 are based on technologies I have spent a significant amount of time studying as part of my role as chief marketing officer of a sustainably sourced burger chain. I have found that restaurants and consumers alike are looking for alternative service systems to improve efficiency and lower monetary output.
1. Augmented Reality
As we move deeper into the technological world, there are many kiosk alternatives (and I will discuss kiosks in a moment) that bring restaurant service efficiency to brand new heights. Augmented reality technology creates an experience that, so far, we’ve probably only seen in movies (think the gesture-based user interface in Minority Report, but the screen is the table).
No more waiting. If your customer finishes their drink, the technology recognizes this and prompts their server for a refill. Additionally, augmented reality allows your customers to see a 360-degree, digital rendition of each menu item right in front of them. This allows for less back and forth between the customer and server, and minimizes miscommunication that results in food being sent back to the kitchen. In other words, less food waste and faster turnover.
When partnering with tech companies to deliver this feature to your customers, focus on creating an incredibly user-friendly experience. This will translate to a better customer -- and server -- experience.
2. Table Kiosks
Servers have begun to be assisted or fully replaced by kiosk systems. Stop into your nearest Applebee’s or TGI Friday’s to check out the recent robotic updates. Menu kiosks are one of the “older” technologies, but dropping them at the tables can be a big game-changer.
The point is that your customers can order right from your table without waiting in lines. If their drink is empty, they no longer have to flag down the server. A couple of taps on the touchscreen will notify the kitchen and server, and the drink will be refilled without a word. Your customers can order whatever they want from the menu, at any point during the meal, and expect it to be delivered to their table in a timely manner. Payments are also made at the kiosk. Easy as pie.
Table hardware does take up space and require initiation costs, and it will most likely come with some technical difficulties along the way. However, kiosks have the potential to improve your turnover rate and keep your company on trend, assuming the initial growing pains are overcome.
3. Plant-Based Technology
I am seeing veganism become much more mainstream, not only due to ethical responsibility, but also to an increased awareness of the environmental effects of the meat industry. For those reasons, providing meat alternatives on your menus may no longer be optional.
There’s a startup in San Francisco, for example, that uses a heme-extraction process to create a 100% plant-based protein that looks, tastes and even bleeds like meat. And in 2018, Impossible Food’s product launched in all our Bareburger locations. The way I see it, meat alternatives often work for everyone’s diet, religion and beliefs, so there’s no reason not to offer them as options for your customers.
4. Anti-Marketplace
Delivery marketplace systems like UberEats and Grubhub can be a headache for restaurant owners and managers. The 20-30% charges are not feasible for many restaurants.
Some solutions are simple: Promote your own website, build commissary kitchens to cut labor and production cost, or boycott the apps. But based on my experience, the average modern-day consumer doesn’t think to call the restaurant directly. The guest doesn’t want to talk to anybody. When ordering food, it is often their search on Grubhub that decides the meal. A boycott, for most, just isn’t plausible.
Keeping all our guests’ favorite restaurants in one place is the key. So, as an industry, restaurants should band together and come up with their own marketplace system. I think 2019 will be the year the industry gets together and defends its margins.
5. Artificial Intelligence
I’ll stress the obvious one more time: Food is important to people. Online ordering is soaring, and personal touch is becoming a thing of the past. Customer service is an entirely new ball game.
Some companies are utilizing Facebook bots that assist customers in ordering food. If a customer tells the bot, for example, that they are lactose intolerant, it will curate a customized menu just for them, without a dairy item in sight. That’s a serious game-changer for user experience, and it requires no extra work or time for the restaurant employee.
As a key player in the restaurant game, you may cringe at the thought of a bot handling things. A lack of personal touch seems incredibly out of place in the service industry. I mentioned growing pains earlier; it may not be comfortable for quite some time. Consider that sometimes, as with the case of food allergies, being exact is better than being cordial. We will have to recalibrate and find a balance between human and algorithms in order to continue to serve our customers to the best of our abilities.
Scott Boatwright, chief restaurant officer of Chipotle Mexican Grill, said it exactly right at this year’s Restaurant Leadership Conference: “The ground is shifting under our feet, and holding on to the past way we’ve run restaurants isn’t the way we are going to do business going forward.”
As with anything else, we must change, adapt and grow in order to succeed. For restaurant owners and marketers, technological advances are creating new opportunities and ways to meet customers’ needs. We may not know exactly what the future holds, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to be a lot of fun.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2019/01/18/five-technologies-that-are-reshaping-the-restaurant-industry-for-2019/ 2019-01-18 13:30:00Z
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