It seems like every day there is a new automated something or another in foodservice, but all the bots, automation and other futuristic stuff generally either takes a long time or it doesn’t work. But Stephen Klein, cofounder and CEO of Ono Food Co. said they’ve built an automated truck to sell healthy smoothies (they call them “blends”) under the Ono Blends brand at scale in an almost shocking amount of time. “We have one truck that is built and operational, we’re about 14 months old,” he said. “We did […]
An atypical California-based pizza brand is diversifying itself beyond delivering pizzas into developing mobile delivery kitchens and new packaging to reduce the environmental impact of meal delivery. Originally started as a pizza restaurant that pivoted into mobile delivery kitchens (with &pizza, check it out HERE) Zume is now adding an entirely new dimension to the company with the goal of eliminating unnecessary packaging and making restaurant meal delivery less of a burden on the planet. With all that as a backdrop, we had a quick conversation with Zume CEO and […]
Uber Eats has added food-allergy filters to its app to make meal ordering easier for customers with restricted diets, and it’s also giving everyone the ability to opt out of single-use utensils that are falling out of favor with customers and some municipalities. According to a company blog post, restaurants are being directed to no longer include such disposable items by default. “Research suggests that single-use plastics harm the environment by disrupting the productivity of natural systems like our oceans and clogging urban infrastructure,” wrote Emily Boman, global policy for […]
Uber is getting into the online grocery business, which is increasingly being bundled into the same ecosystem as third-party restaurant delivery. In acquiring majority ownership of online grocer Cornershop, Uber will now have a toehold in Chile, Mexico, Peru and Toronto markets. The investment is expected to close in early 2020 and is subject to regulatory approval. Somewhat similar to Instacart, Target’s Shipt and other online grocery options in the United States, Cornershop (also known as Delivery Technologies) allows customers to browse the store and add items to their cart, […]
As part of an unusual but interesting study examining the U.S. retail scene as e-commerce disrupts a range of industries, MetLife Investment Management predicts that U.S. online grocery sales could swell to at least 7 percent of total sales by 2023. This would be a notable change, as online grocery sales haven’t taken off like other retail categories, especially restaurants, electronics and apparel. The authors predicted this would change by the mid-2020s. “Firms like Instacart, Peapod, Amazon and FreshDirect, however, have been refining their logistics, and we believe consumers who […]
As an early winter blows its way into parts of North America, the delivery winds continue to shift as DoorDash expands its market share lead over Grubhub, which dropped to third place behind UberEats. These findings are according to exclusive research from Edison Trends, which analyzed 1.4 million delivery transactions across the USA. Examining transactions that occurred during the first half of September 2019, Edison Trends found a handful of notable nuggets: DoorDash is leading the delivery market share race (by consumer spend) by a country mile; Uber Eats edged […]
Kitchen Podular CEO Michael Manion has placed himself at the leading edge of both the off-premises shift in restaurants and the broader desire for social experiences that’s disrupting many industries beyond foodservice. With a background in flashy in-person events and international nightclubs, he’s now focused on helping restaurants dive into neighborhood pods, which are somewhat like food truck parks, but located in residential neighborhoods rather than brewery parking lots or central business districts. I encountered my first pod on a recent vacation in Portland, Oregon. Visiting friends in the residential […]
For a long time, Domino’s management said they didn’t see any negative effects from the explosion in third-party delivery and they continue to criticize the industry. But along with those critiques, Domino’s is significantly changing its business model to compete with the “entry of many non-pizza QSR players,” as CEO Ritch Allison put it. During the company’s third-quarter earnings call on October 8, Allison was highly critical of third-party networks’ economic sustainability. At the same time, however, the pizza giant is enacting major changes to enhance delivery with a “fortressing […]
Famous Dave’s has released details of a new, more compact restaurant prototype that’s geared toward increased delivery and catering in its home city of Minneapolis. This smaller store format is part of the BBQ brand’s ongoing, multi-year revival that has included several new store designs. Replacing a much larger store in the trendy Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis, the new 3,000-square-foot Dave’s location will be significantly smaller, but will continue the previous bar-centric environment that was also known as a popular music venue within the Calhoun Square urban mall. The new […]
The new CEO of Papa John’s, Rob Lynch of Arby’s and Inspire Brands fame, is charting a different course than arch pizza rival Domino’s by stepping into third-party delivery and—hopefully—out of the dark shadow cast by company founder John Schnatter’s racist language. In a televised interview with CNBC last week, Lynch said the current disruptions from technology and delivery in the restaurant industry are an opportunity as the brand looks to get back to the business of growing. “The customers have spoken. These apps are growing really rapidly because the […]
