STACKER (WSYR-TV) — What should it have been prefer to run a restaurant earlier than the invention of electrical energy and air con? Or the provision of trains and vehicles that may ship contemporary meals day by day?
Whereas the idea of consuming out most likely looks like it hasn’t modified a lot because the oldest recognized restaurant in Austria opened within the ninth century, the way in which restaurateurs run their enterprise has modified dramatically.
Because the meals service trade has advanced over time, main improvements akin to refrigeration, walk-in freezers, microwave ovens, and secure and sanitary plastic and stainless-steel containers have remodeled the way in which we eat.
These days, eating places more and more want new applied sciences to scale back meals waste and general prices.
The Process Group pored over trade information and traits to spherical up 10 main know-how improvements within the restaurant trade, from tabletop pill ordering to incineration dehydrators that flip leftovers into compost.
Whereas synthetic intelligence and different cutting-edge software program are powering a few of at the moment’s technological improvements, others are merely the long-awaited collaboration between engineering and the restaurant trade, a few of which emerged out of necessity in the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
Learn on to be taught in regards to the drones, robots, and administration software program which might be bringing eating places into the longer term.
Pizza meeting machines
The coronavirus pandemic has left eating places in a extreme bind, between take-home orders resulting in decrease general gross sales and the virus itself leading to a continued scarcity of obtainable employees. However the problem additionally introduced advances in automated assist.
Pizza chains already lead in some respects, which is sensible — a pizza is a predictable, programmable measurement that have to be cooked the identical approach each time.
Have a look behind the counter at a Little Caesar’s or a fast-casual chain like Blaze and you may see the longer term at work. Seattle’s Picnic Works guarantees 100 pizzas an hour, with a single worker on the helm of its dough, sauce, cheese and toppings machine.
Kitchen administration software program
Till now, many shoppers have skilled POS programs at farmers markets and small companies. However for eating places, kitchen administration software program can go a lot additional.
Sturdy programs can monitor stock and even use-by dates for precious contemporary produce. Returning prospects are greeted with a file of their earlier orders and even their favourite dishes, in addition to service changes akin to a reduction on their subsequent order.
Service robots
Meals servers, in contrast to bussers or servers, are restaurant staff whose sole function is to deliver meals to prospects when it’s prepared. Tech large LG has developed a helper robotic known as the CLOi ServeBot that may be programmed to run groceries.
Eating places can code these robots with maps of their areas and tables, however from there, the robots do the work, bringing trays of meals to prospects. They’ll even monitor order modifications and extra objects by way of a touchscreen interface.
Absolutely automated eating places
Along with the pizza automation know-how talked about above from Picnic Works, different varieties of eating places are additionally discovering methods to automate their processes.
Bay Space startup Mezli, for instance, is a self-contained, totally automated restaurant that serves cereal bowls. The substances are already cooked after which reheated when ordered via the machines contained in the cellular restaurant. After an order is positioned, the machine locations the required mixture of things right into a bowl to finish the order.
This idea could substitute staff, but it surely harkens again to a time when the drive-thru restaurant dominated the roost within the early to mid-20th century, providing an expertise someplace between a merchandising machine and quick meals.
Tablets on the desk
Tabletop tablets have been round for almost a decade in American restaurant chains, with Applebee’s spearheading the development in 2014. Tablets assist streamline components of the restaurant expertise that may in any other case create bottlenecks.
Prospects can use them to order as an alternative of making an attempt to get a server’s consideration, and so they also can use the tablets to pay their invoice with out ready for his or her server to run their bank card or deliver them cash.
Whereas some may say that tablets take away the private contact that solely a server can present, there may be a whole a part of the restaurant trade, akin to buffets and fast-casual eating places, the place servers are already not the norm.
Evaluation of meals waste
Meals waste is a serious drawback worldwide, from grocery shops to establishments like faculties and hospitals to dwelling kitchens, but it surely’s particularly problematic for eating places. Lately, nevertheless, meals waste evaluation has made it a lot simpler for restaurant staff to resolve the issue.
A meals waste analytics firm offers restaurant staff with software program they’ll use with digital measurement instruments to trace stock and gross sales to assist forecast restaurant wants. Furnishings large Ikea, for instance, made headlines in October 2022 for chopping its meals waste in half after consulting with an analytics firm known as Winnow.
Drone supply
Researchers estimate that “final mile” logistics, the transportation of a product from the manufacturing hub to the shopper’s door, accounts for greater than 50% of the whole value of getting items to shoppers.
As an alternative of delivering items by automobile, bike or truck, drones can assist decrease money and time for the final mile, avoiding site visitors and requiring much less human contact. By way of drone meals supply, Domino’s delivered the primary pizza by drone in New Zealand in 2016. In 2022, an organization known as Flytrex started delivering meals by way of drone in North Carolina and Texas.
Compost programs
Composting has seen exponential progress in America within the 21st century. In 2000, the US composted 680,000 tons of meals, in comparison with 2.59 million tons in 2018, in keeping with the Environmental Safety Company. That is a 280% enhance because the flip of the century.
On the particular person stage, individuals who have entry to compost bins can course of their pure meals waste and keep away from including to landfills. However composting can be helpful for native eating places and even large-scale kitchens that use incineration dehydrators to scale back each the meals waste itself and disposal prices.
Not solely is it higher for the setting, however additionally it is simpler and extra economical logistically to eliminate a truckload of processed compost versus three and even 10 truckloads of meals scraps that need to go to landfill. trash.
Kitchens within the cloud
Cloud kitchens, also referred to as ghost kitchens, aren’t a model new phenomenon, however they’ve definitely gained a variety of consideration in the course of the pandemic. In response to analysis by Technomic and the Nationwide Restaurant Affiliation, 15% of restaurant operators reported utilizing a cloud kitchen earlier than the pandemic; by Could 2020, this had elevated to 51% utilizing cloud kitchens for at the least a few of their supply orders.
With out prospects eating in, cloud kitchens solely permit for the industrial preparation of meals for supply or pickup service. Moreover, for chain eating places with particular identities, ghost kitchens supply a method to broaden to serve different meals or cuisines.
For small culinary companies akin to caterers, a ghost kitchen can present a possibility to maneuver into a brand new market with out discovering and growing a restaurant area.
Drive-thru AI
Drive-thru eating has seen a resurgence in the course of the pandemic, providing prospects a method to keep outdoor whereas nonetheless visiting their favourite eating places. Drive-thrus sometimes contain an worker listening to a buyer’s order, manually getting into it into the register, taking their cost, after which fulfilling their order, which creates extra alternatives for issues to go fallacious.
Nevertheless, lately the development of synthetic intelligence has simplified the drive-thru course of. Prospects can converse via an AI-equipped speaker that may place the order, present the shopper’s complete and pay via a kiosk, as an alternative of getting to cease at two home windows to pay and obtain their meals.
Chains like McDonald’s, Panera, and Sonic Drive-In have all labored on perfecting AI drive-thru ordering in recent times.
This story initially appeared on Process Group and has been produced by
distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.