Mail-order health-food giant Daily Harvest identified the ingredient that made nearly 500 customers sick in a massive foodborne illness outbreak. In a letter to customers updating them on the outbreak, Daily Harvest CEO Rachel Drori wrote the company “identified tara flour as the cause of the issue.” She wrote the company was no longer using this ingredient, and said it was only used in the French Lentil & Leek Crumbles that were at the center of the outbreak. Drori wrote that it was the first and only time the company […]
Virtual restaurants are going through rapid evolutions as this subset of the restaurant industry matures. By focusing on operational simplicity, Catapult Concepts offers a new method of operating sub brands that the founder says is exceptionally easy and truly incremental. Founder and CEO Jake Schostak knows restaurants very well. He grew up in the restaurant business, and not just a little corner bistro but a large restaurant enterprise known as Team Schostak. It’s No. 50 on the Restaurant Finance Monitor 200 this year and operates more than 130 franchised restaurants […]
Partners Coffee just launched a new line of instant coffee for mail order and delivery, and the five-location coffee shop and roastery has some tips for doing national delivery right. Partners is a hip, Brooklyn coffee shop with five locations around the New York City area. Inside the company, however, is a sprawling ecommerce operation that plays up the hip brand, sustainable supply chain and small-batch roasting. The company has been shipping specialty coffee around the country for years and has coffee in grocery stores, as well. As more brands […]
Kitchen United raised $100M and announced plans to grow from 15 to 500 locations, partly with Circle K, a partnership that could rival its work with Kroger.
Nextbite’s new co-president, Denny Post, says her next big innovation is coming via virtual restaurants.
Reef and Hubb Kitchens have opened a virtual food hall at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport with nine restaurant concepts.
Wow Bao is taking its next step toward an off-premises-biased real estate model with high-tech vending machines.
Brian Hedlund has been named senior vice president of foodservice for the U.S. and Canadian markets at Vollrath Company.
Compass Group Canada will soon have three fully-robotic kitchens in a new partnership with SJW Robotics, the creator of RoWok. Compass, the largest foodservice company in Canada with more than 2,200 locations across the country, will pilot three kitchens starting this fall. The devices are essentially van-sized kitchens that offer fresh meals at all hours. That’s a key use case for Compass, according to Heather Wilkie, VP of innovation at Compass. “We’re on a mission to become the country’s most innovative foodservice provider, we’re doing this by offering some new […]
In a recent survey from Presto, drive-thru customers like the influx of automation and they want more. Presto, a digital services provider known recently for AI-voice technology, announced the findings of a biannual survey that showed a strong desire for more technology, if it made the experience better. The survey, dubbed the Presto Pulse, received responses from 243 consumers, which the company said represented a wide swath of U.S. restaurant consumers, about their recent drive-thru experiences. The majority (77 percent) said the overall quality of those experiences were the same […]
