Frozen Food Maker to Expand in California

Ruiz Food Products, Inc., a manufacturer of prepared frozen foods for distribution to retail, convenience stores, clubs, vending, industrial, and foodservice, is expanding its manufacturing footprint in Vernon, Calif., by 150,000 square feet. The expansion will include the addition of two buildings in Vernon, near the assets of Culinary International LLC that Ruiz Food acquired last fall.

“As the demand for our El Monterey and Tornados products continues to grow, this additional manufacturing square footage will serve to meet our needs for additional capacity,” said Kimberli Carroll, chief operating officer of Ruiz Food Products. “The first production line is scheduled to be operational in the first half of our fiscal 2025.”

Ruiz Food said the expansion is expected to enhance its capacity for flexible manufacturing on the West Coast.

“Our commitment to our customers is paramount to our operations, and this will further improve our customer service levels as the Vernon team has already proven itself a reliable partner dedicated to our core values of innovation, safety, quality, teamwork, integrity, and respect,” Ms. Carroll said.

Ruiz Food employs more than 4,500 at five facilities located across the United States. —Source: Food Business News.

 

New menu items from Taco Bell, Culver’s, and Sonic Drive-In

As the fall season creeps ever closer, seasonal fan favorites are coming back to menus.

Taco Bell said it is bringing back nacho fries and introducing them to menus with a vegan twist for the first time nationwide. The vegan nacho sauce first made its appearance in vegan Crunchwrap, which was tested in select markets in June 2023.

“We’re thrilled to reintroduce nacho fries, now with a larger-than-life flair, and our beloved vegan nacho sauce,” said Liz Matthews, global chief food innovation officer at Taco Bell. “This sauce, born from the success of our vegan Crunchwrap, represents Taco Bell’s commitment to providing delicious, craveable food for a variety of lifestyles — whether you’re vegan, flexitarian or want to try something new, there’s a place for you at our table.”

Over at Culver’s the “CurderBurger” is making its return. The “CurderBurger” features the chain’s deluxe butter burger with a “fried cheese crown.”

“The enthusiasm we’ve seen since the CurderBurger’s inception continues to amaze us,” said Quinn Adkins, director of menu development at Culver’s. “We can’t wait to bring it back for a third year, and we hope this only-at-Culver’s delight continues to bring smiles to our guests’ faces as it has since it debuted two years ago.”

On the sweeter side of the menu, Sonic Drive-In is bringing back the Trick or Treat Blast, which includes Heath, M&M’s Minis and Oreo cookie pieces, all blended together with either vanilla or chocolate soft serve.

“We know that it can be hard to pick just one item to enjoy from your trick-or-treating bag, but Halloween is a time to indulge your sweet tooth and you shouldn’t have to choose just one,” said Mackenzie Gibson, vice president of culinary and menu innovation at Sonic. “We first introduced the Trick or Treat Blast in 2020, and this year we’ve reimagined the fan-favorite dessert to include a new lineup of three sweet add-ins that will make guests feel like they’re getting an entire trick-or-treat haul in every bite.”/ BySarah Straughn

Source: Culver’s, Sonic Drive-In and Taco Bell Corp.

 

Sustainability Taking Center Stage in 2023

Consumer interest in sustainability is becoming an increasingly important factor when choosing a brand, according to new research from data and analytics solution provider NIQ (formerly NielsenIQ). The company’s “Green Divide” report, which examined consumer preferences, attitudes, and behaviors around sustainability, found that 70% of consumers say sustainability is now more important to them when selecting products than it was two years ago.

When asked to choose the single biggest component behind their purchasing decisions, price remains paramount at 18.1%. Environmental friendliness and sustainability have continued to elevate in importance, though, now at 11.2%, ranking just behind safety and hygiene (13.1%), healthier options (13%), and equal with trusted/familiar brands (11.2%).

The growing perception environmental issues are impacting consumer health is partially responsible for the increased focus on sustainability, said Sherry Frey, vice president of total wellness at NIQ.

“They’re actually telling us ‘I’m being physically impacted by weather events, by droughts, by floods, I think the environment is affecting my health,’” Ms. Frey said. “Consumers are going to prioritize their health and the health of the planet to help others as well.”

Data from market researcher HealthFocus International identified a similar trend, with 74% of consumers in North America indicating the health of the environment is “extremely important” or “important” to their overall health.

“People used to make choices separately about the environment and separately about their health,” said Julie Johnson, general manager of HealthFocus. “Now that connection is definite, and they connect what they are eating with those choices at the shelf.”

Younger consumers also are placing a larger emphasis on sustainability than previous generations. For instance, one study from FMI — The Food Industry Association found that 45% of Gen Z and millennials shop with sustainability in mind, compared to only 14% of baby boomers. Similarly, research from global intelligence company Morning Consult showed more than two-thirds of Gen Z respondents cite sustainability as having some impact on their food and beverage choices, and 32% said it has a major impact versus 17% of baby boomers who felt it has a major impact.

“We are anticipating that sustainability is going to keep accelerating because you just have so many young people that say they care,” Ms. Frey said.

With an uptick in sustainability product claims, NIQ additionally studied which claims are popular among consumers.

“There’s been just an explosion of claims in the store, we’ve had over 100 claims around sustainability, and every month there’s something new popping up,” Ms. Frey said. “Certain words like ‘environmentally friendly’ tend to index higher for those people that tie their health and the planet together.”

Claims like “responsibly sourced” and “zero waste,” also had universal appeal, but others were unlikely to resonate in specific demographics. Carbon claims, for example, are particularly polarizing for consumers who don’t prioritize sustainability or have low awareness of climate issues. Ms. Frey said that leaning into the nuances of packaging language can avoid this polarization while signaling the same environmental benefits, such as replacing carbon claims with soil health ones.

Increased interest in sustainability has not directly translated into more consumers living sustainable lifestyles. NIQ identified limited product choice as one of the barriers to living sustainably, along with price. More than 40% of consumers said cost was a key barrier, but 65% also said they were willing to choose a sustainable option if it costs more. The market researcher expects the price parity to decline in the coming years, as more products enter the space and erode the price premiums driven by unique claims, Ms. Frey said.

“Today, most consumers realize it is necessary to pay a price premium of some sort for sustainable products,” said Nicole Corbett, vice president of global thought leadership at NIQ. “But, as regulatory mandates dictate transparency, it will be more difficult to justify price premiums as consumer expectations shift to a new baseline.

“Sustainability will no longer be a ‘luxury’ or differentiated offer soon. Pricing will need to adapt as sustainability becomes the norm that all products must adhere to.” – Source: Caleb Wilson.

 

New Technologies Arrive in Clusters. What Does That Mean for AI?     

The potential — and hype — surrounding machine learning, artificial intelligence, and especially generative AI is everywhere. Some are predicting a full suite of “this changes everything” advances in all industries, for all professions, and for people in their public and private lives. This technology is unmatched at recognizing patterns in data, and its proponents argue it has the potential to be an enormous research laboratory that never stops working, a paradigm-buster that unlocks human creativity, an accelerator for human ingenuity, and a window into reality that is currently beyond reach. Sundar Pichai, of Google, likens it potential to fire and electricity.

I too am genuinely excited, if somewhat more reservedly. Today, AI offers opportunities to improve productivity, which has remained flat for a long time, and to tackle heretofore intractable problems, such as the search for antibiotic-resistant drugs, an understanding of how proteins fold, and finding materials with properties needed to build better batteries. Impressive successes ranging from Amazon’s recommendation engine to Callaway Golf’s design of its next-generation drivers, to PepsiCo’s efforts to manufacture more consistent Cheetos help justify the excitement.

But I also think that progress will take longer and prove far tougher than most expect, especially in commercial settings. As I’ll explain, success with AI demands concerted efforts that extend far beyond the technology. Thus, they demand the full commitment of a company’s most senior leadership.

It is important to note that AI has generated considerable excitement in the past, quelled by AI winters in the mid-1970s and early 1990s. And just three years ago, in 2020, The Economist noted that “Another full-blown winter is unlikely. But an autumnal breeze is picking up.” As one example, self-driving cars benefited from considerable investment, and always seem to be “just around the corner,” but are more probably decades away. Further, during the pandemic, when insights were are a premium, none of the hundreds of AI tools built to catch COVID have passed muster. Indeed, the failure rate of AI projects appears to be north of 80%. Finally, a recent study by Meta (formerly Facebook) researchers under controlled conditions suggests that large language models don’t get the facts right two-thirds of the time.

Still, I’m less concerned about the technology per se and more concerned about the other advances that must accompany AI. History suggests it takes a wide range of related technologies, organizational innovations, and accommodations between the new technologies and society for any new technology to flower. I’ll use electrification and the printing press to illustrate these points, and then explore how they apply to AI.

As the Austrian political economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, successful technologies tend to arrive in clusters. With electrification came dynamos, generators, switch gears, and power distribution systems. With the printing press came the technology to make large quantities of cheap paper and ink. And, though not a technology per se, new materials other than the Bible and other classics were needed to fuel the demand for printed materials.

A single missing component can impede the adoption of the new technology. Today, for example, the lack of enough fast-charging stations is slowing the advance of electric cars.

Next, new technologies require new organizational capabilities. While the benefits of electricity and electric motors were easy to see, they required that factories be redesigned. It took 40 years of learning, experimentation, and investment along multiple fronts to fully electrify the factory. Similarly, it took about that long for the publishing industry, which helped match supply, demand, and price, to emerge.

Sooner or later, new technologies and societies must come to accommodate one another. In the beginning, electricity was dangerous — mistakenly touching a live wire could prove fatal! Over time, standard sockets and plugs helped ease that concern. Few people could read when the printing press was invented. However as societies became increasingly literate, the benefits of the printing press grew. Looking at these past clusters can help us understand the moment we’re in now, and what the future of AI might really look like. —  Source: Thomas C. Redman.

 

BurgerFi Better Burger Lab Lands In The Big Apple

BurgerFi recently announced it will return to New York with a new concept location in the city this December. The chain’s previous New York location, launched in 2013, was permanently closed during the pandemic.

The Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based burger chain’s new Upper East Side location, at 2,400 square feet, will be a Better Burger Lab experience offering Angus beef, fresh sides, draft beer, and frozen custard desserts. In addition, the space will also offer a yet-to-be-announced lineup of limited-edition menus, tastings, and other items not available at any other location.

“As a born and raised New Yorker, reopening our Manhattan location is a personal passion point for me,” said Carl Bachmann, CEO of BurgerFi International,in a release. “We will have a late-night menu to make sure we are meeting the needs of our guests…. The Burger Lab will create a unique experience [for them].” Source: by Teresa Buyikian.

 

 

Meals for At-Risk Americans Act would make it easier for states to apply to the USDA Restaurant Meals Program.

More Americans would be eligible for restaurant-prepared meals as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food assistance program under a new bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate on Tuesday. —

For many vulnerable Americans, preparing healthy food at home is not an option,” Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who co-authored the bill, said in a statement.

Padilla is one of three senators who introduced the bill Tuesday, along with John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

“The Restaurant Meals Program is an important resource for Americans struggling with food insecurity,” said Sen. Cornyn. “This bill would increase oversight, cut red tape, and modernize the application process to make it easier for more states to utilize this critical program.”

Eight states, including California, Arizona, Illinois and Michigan, currently offer Restaurant Meals Programs to provide prepared meals for individuals who are disabled, elderly, or experiencing homelessness. The Meals for At-Risk Americans Act would streamline the application process for states and restaurants, which currently need to apply by mail to participate.

If passed, the act would require the USDA to include a digital application for states seeking to establish Restaurant Meals Programs and to provide more technical assistance to states and restaurants.

The Restaurant Meals Program allows individuals who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits to use them to purchase prepared meals from qualifying restaurants. Many SNAP recipients are unable to prepare food for themselves because they cannot carry heavy bags of groceries, open jars, safely use a knife, or stand for long periods of time. Homeless SNAP recipients lack refrigeration to store healthy food and sanitary places to prepare it.

About 12.5% of the U.S. population receive SNAP benefits because their gross monthly incomes are below the federal poverty level, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Food Research and Action Center, a national organization that works to improve public policies to eradicate hunger, found that every $1 in SNAP benefits yields $1.50 to $1.80 in economic activity. FRAC is one of several groups endorsing the proposed legislation, along with the National Restaurant Association and the California Association of Food Banks.   Source:  SUSAN CARPENTER WASHINGTON, D.C.

 

Customers will be able to order from two restaurants at once without an added fee. Restaurants will be automatically enrolled in the program

Uber Eats Launches Multi-Restaurant Ordering

Uber Eats customers can now order from two nearby restaurants or other businesses in the same order.

The bundling can be done with no additional fee and is intended to meet consumer demand for affordability, Uber Eats said.

It will be available only for restaurants that are close together and can be easily picked up by the same courier. Uber Eats didn’t provide a precise radius, noting it can vary depending on the time of day and courier availability. Delivery times can also vary, it said.

Restaurants will be automatically included in bundling but will have the ability to opt-out, Uber Eats said.

The feature gives customers more flexibility and selection and could prevent “veto votes” when groups are deciding what to order. It could also improve Uber Eats’ unit economics by boosting order sizes.

For restaurants, it could help drive orders they wouldn’t otherwise get. But it will also lengthen delivery times, which could hurt food quality.

Customers will see the option to bundle after they’ve added something to their cart. The app will surface restaurants and other businesses that are eligible to be added to their order.

Uber Eats said it originally built the feature for convenience stores only, but customers asked for it to include other businesses as well.

It’s similar to DoorDash’s bundling product, DoubleDash, which was added in 2021.  – Source: Restaurant Business.

 

Sysco is Buying Equipment Supplier Edward Don

Sysco Corp. said it has agreed to buy restaurant supplier Edward Don & Co. with the intent of establishing a new operation focused on specialty equipment and supplies.

The price and other transaction details were not disclosed.

Edward Don sells and distributes a broad range of equipment, from ranges to rotisseries. It is also a major supplier of disposable to-go packaging.

The company generates about $1.3 billion in annual revenues from restaurants and other foodservice facilities, according to Sysco.

The buyer said Wednesday in announcing the deal that Edward Don will function as a standalone operation run by the acquired company’s existing personnel and management. Sysco indicated that no Edward Don employees would lose their jobs as a result of the merger.

In addition to adding Edward Don’s product lines to Sysco’s extensive catalog, the deal will add another 1.4 million square feet of distribution space to the buyer’s holdings.

Sysco is the nation’s largest foodservice distributor, with annual sales of about $76 billion. Source: Restaurant Business.

 

TikTok helped revive the marketing jingle. Just don’t call it that.

Modern versions of brand anthems are “singles, not jingles,” one creative said.

When you think of the most memorable advertising from the ’80s and ’90s, what comes to mind? We’d wager a bet that it’s a jingle—maybe dulcet tones from Stanley Steemer, promising to get your home cleaner, or a jaunty phone number sing-along for Empire Today flooring. Even Full House, the pinnacle of all things ’80s and ’90s, made a point of referencing the humble jingle: Joey has a gig penning them for an advertising firm.

Those musical ad slogans from yesteryear represent “peak marketing,” Ashwinn Krishnaswamy, the “branding guru” of TikTok, said in a video, pointing to older examples like State Farm’s “Like a Good Neighbor” tune written by Barry Manilow in the ’70s, or songs from the mid-aughts advertising FreeCreditReport.com. But the term itself is falling out of fashion.

“I think the word jingle means something specific; It’s that ’70s, ’80s, ’90s song that is cheesy, or at least a throwback,” Zach Pollakoff, executive producer at audio production house Heavy Duty Projects, said, while Heavy Duty’s music producer Tom Cathcart said the term “comes with baggage.”

That doesn’t mean the jingle itself is dead. Call it what you want, but branded songs have been experiencing a revival thanks to TikTok, where a brand’s custom audio can become an irresistible earworm and help it stand out.

“We create singles, not jingles,” Geoffrey Goldberg, co-founder and CCO of creative agency Movers+Shakers, which has made audio for Hasbro and made the original track for e.l.f.’s #eyeslipsface TikTok challenge, told us.

A tune by any other name

Alex Dahan, founder and CEO of influencer agency Open Influence, said when digital agencies work on branded audio, they tend to use more modern terms, like “audio branding,” instead of “jingle.” But it comes in other flavors, too. His term of choice when talking to creators? “Brand beat.”

At Hasbro, which has used audio branding and jingles for decades, any audio it uses on TikTok is referred to simply as a sound because that’s the term used on TikTok for audio tracks, explained Brian Baker, Hasbro’s VP, of gaming. But the same track used on another platform might be referred to as a “custom song,” he said.

Amy Cotteleer, partner and chief experience officer at ad agency Duncan Channon, which also worked on the #eyeslipsface campaign by selecting influencers for the campaign, called the OG term “antiquated,” particularly among younger audiences.

“It’s an inside baseball word,” she said. “It’s not what consumers are using.”

But even if the word jingle might be dead, branded audio bites are certainly not. Just open up TikTok and they’re easy to find. At the height of the sea shanty craze on the app, Sun Bum shared what it called a “sun shanty,” in a major key this time; Madewell, meanwhile, recruited the surf-punk band Nevva to sing a tune about jorts.

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“We want to create music that sounds like it’s something you would hear on the radio,” Goldberg, from Movers+Shakers, said. “It sounds like something that would be on your Spotify playlist, so there’s almost this unexpected nature when you realize, ‘Oh! That it came from a brand that I happen to love too.’”

That unexpected nature is on display in some of Hasbro’s recent audio branding work, including the tune “MR. MONOPOLY,” a “custom, TikTok-first” song created with artist Blvcktmptn for its #MePlayingMonopoly campaign, Baker said. This year, the brand worked with Movers+Shakers to create a song promoting the new Twister Air game loosely inspired by the original Twister jingle from the ’90s. Volume down

One of the main differences between more recent tunes and classic jingles is that the branding is more covert. In some cases, that means the brand isn’t even named in the lyrics. Heavy Duty wrote a custom song for Ikea using terms like “flatpack” and “Billy bookcase,” which was intended to prevent references to the brand from “being a bludgeon,” Cathcart said.

Lyrics also tend to be less focused on “buy, buy, buy,” Dahan said. Beauty brands in particular are keen on songs that are “very instructional and very literal,” Pollakoff said. Other brands are in it for the vibes. One Heavy Duty client simply requested as he put it, a “banger.”

Modern-day jingles also differ from their 20th-century counterparts in that they’re meant to be more participatory, encouraging consumers to get involved—something that’s made easier through social media.

“It’s not just about getting stuck in your head,” Goldberg said. “It’s about building a deeper connection with consumers.”

Hasbro tracks views, engagement, and sentiment “to assess whether the song is leaving people with positive vibes or not,” Baker told us. (That “MR. MONOPOLY” song, for example, drove more than 100 million views across about 1,400 unique videos, he told us.) And while Hasbro sometimes brings sales data into the equation, driving brand relevance and sparking conversation is what often matters more.

“The ultimate testament to a song’s success is captured when you candidly hear someone humming or singing your song aloud,” Baker said. “If your song hits unprompted singing status, you’ve made it.”

By Alyssa Meyers

 

Google Introduces Ad-Measurement Tool, Privacy Sandbox Forces Change

Google has built an ad-measurement tool that connects with marketers’ first-party data and is designed to work without browser cookies and other data tools that measure performance based on old methods.

Google Ads Data Manager — the measurement tool announced Wednesday — will become available in Google Ads early next year. The product roadmap includes rolling it into other Google platforms as the company continues to streamline the management and use of first-party data.

Advertisers will learn about connecting data sources and ensuring consumer data privacy as the advertising industry heads into the new year, and Google deprecates third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users globally in the first quarter of 2024.

In time, advertisers will have the ability to connect a variety of data sources, including customer relationship management (CRM) and customer data platforms (CDPs). This will include data sources like ActiveCampaign and Pipedrive, in addition to marketing technologies like Shopify Audiences.

cloud-based enterprise data storage systems, including CDPs such as Lytics, will also become available as well as data sources through Zapier.

Google wants the platform to provide access to all types of data through one collaborative interface where analysts can create new data connections and marketers can apply discrete data to measure conversions or reach people with relevant ads, explains Kamal Janardhan, senior director of product management and measurement at Google.

“Until now, creating these connections could mean engineers or analysts duplicating tasks, including custom queries,” Janardhan wrote in a post.

Brands and agencies struggle to build technologies that house customer information, but many make it difficult to use that data in marketing campaigns.

Google Ads Data Manager, if it is successful, will make it easier to measure customer interactions with the Google tag or sales that happen off the advertiser’s website.

The platform does not change the way Google’s products work today but rather simplifies the way advertisers use them. It requires minimal or no code knowledge, reducing the workload to use your data in marketing.

Gabe Joynt, Salesforce senior director of product management, told Google it has made it easier for customers to connect with their customers using Google Ads. More customers can use data and insights in Salesforce Data Cloud by activating audiences across Google’s Ads ecosystem.

Some refer to this transition of measuring ads without cookies and serving ads from the browser as a complicated mess, but Google execs believe that’s about to change.

When Google Ads Data Manager launches, it will simplify numerous partners’ conversion for leads, which is meant to improve the accuracy of conversion measurement and bidding, and Customer Match, which consolidates the view of audiences.  by Laurie Sullivan

 

Domino’s is working with Microsoft to build a proprietary AI assistant

Microsoft Cloud and Azure OpenAI Service are collaborating to create a generative AI tool to improve customer experience and help with back-of-house tasks

Domino’s announced Tuesday that the pizza chain is working with Microsoft to develop an in-house generative AI assistant to help automate some back-of-house tasks for employees and improve the ordering process on the customer experience side. Microsoft Cloud and Microsoft’s generative AI tool, Azure OpenAI Service, are collaborating with Domino’s to experiment with these new AI capabilities over the next five years.

“We are thrilled to co-innovate with Microsoft using Azure AI technology to advance the future of pizza ordering and store technology powered by secure, connected data and simplified processes,” Kelly Garcia, Domino’s executive vice president and chief technology officer said in a statement. “Our collaboration over the next five years will help us serve millions of customers with consistent and engaging ordering experiences while supporting our corporate stores, franchisees, and their respective team members with tools to make store operations more efficient and reliable.”

Although the project is still in its early days, Domino’s is striving to put the Microsoft AI assistant to work in the back-of-house—helping to automate such tasks as inventory management, ingredient ordering, and staff scheduling. The company will also eventually be able to use AI to streamline pizza preparation and quality control through predictive tools.

Together, both Domino’s and Microsoft are establishing an Innovation Lab, powered by engineers for both companies to help accelerate the development of smart store and ordering innovations for the pizza company.

“As consumer preferences rapidly evolve, generative AI has emerged as a game changer for meeting new demands and transforming the customer experience. Through our strategic partnership, Domino’s continues to be a customer-first leader in the quick service restaurant industry,” Shelley Bransten, Microsoft corporate vice president of global retail, consumer goods, and gaming industries said in a statement. “There is no better or more integrated platform than the Microsoft Cloud for delivering an AI-enhanced and connected experience that will drive loyalty and engagement for millions of customers, franchisees, and employees.” Source: joanna fantozzi.

 

Denny’s names Pankaj Patra as chief digital and technology officer

The new position will support the diner brand and Keke’s in IT

Denny’s Corp. has named Pankaj Patra to the new position of chief digital and technology officer, the company said Friday.

The Spartanburg, S.C.-based owner of the diner and Keke’s Breakfast Café brands said Patra will identify new technology solutions for its divisions and will start the new role on Oct. 30.

Michael Furlow, Denny’s executive vice president and chief information officer, will remain on staff through the end of the year to support the transition, the company said.

“Our restaurant teams and our guests rely on technology to enable a seamless experience, which makes the work that our IT team does absolutely critical,” said Kelli Valade, Denny’s CEO, in a statement.

AWe are excited to add Pankaj to the team to help us build on the solid foundation already in place while leading us in identifying new, relevant, and innovative solutions to serve our guests, employees, and franchisees in the future,” Valade added.

Prior to Denny’s, Patra served as chief information officer at Dallas-based Brinker International Inc., parent to Chili’s Grill & Bar brand, where he oversaw information technology and data security for the company and its restaurant brands.

“Denny’s is an iconic restaurant company that understands and values the connection between great people and smart technology,” Patra said. “I am looking forward to working collaboratively across the company to identify opportunities for improvement and implement exciting, innovative, transformative solutions.”

Denny’s as of June 28 had 1,591 restaurants, 1,525 of which were franchised and licensed restaurants and 66 of which were company-operated. The Keke’s daytime breakfast brand, which it acquired in 2022, had 55 units, 47 of which were franchised. Source: Ron Ruggless.

 

Resy and Eater co-founder raises $24M for Blackbird, a restaurant loyalty platform

Blackbird Labs, a hospitality tech company whose platform helps restaurants stay in touch with guests and incentivize them to dine out more frequently today announced that it raised $24 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from QED, Union Square Ventures, Shine, Variant and others, as well as restaurant groups Quality Branded, Rustic Canyon Group, Soulva, and Brooks Reitz.

Founder and CEO Ben Leventhal says that the proceeds, which bring Blackbird’s total raised to $35 million, will be put toward helping Blackbird scale its operations.

“The restaurant business model is broken,” Leventhal told TechCrunch in an email interview. “It can be really expensive to remain at the top of a sea of competition. Operational costs are also at an all-time high, and restaurants need revenue. There’s only two paths forward: creating new revenue streams or creating regulars who’ll want to come back.”

To Leventhal’s point, a 2022 survey from the National Restaurant Association (NRA) found that 54% of restaurant owners had to reduce the size of their dishes in response to rising food costs. A further 47% of the respondents said that they had to increase menu prices, as well.

And restaurant failure rates aren’t exactly declining. Restaurants have about a 20% success rate, according to the NRA, with about 60% failing within the first year and 80% failing within five years of opening.

Leventhal is perhaps best known for co-founding Eater, the food and drink publication (acquired by Vox in 2013), and Resy, the restaurant reservation service (acquired by American Express — which is also a Blackbird investor — in 2019). He came up with the idea for Blackbird in the early days of the pandemic after noticing that restaurants were finding innovative ways, like rolling out clothing lines and selling pancake mix, to keep customers engaged.

“I was struck by the ingenuity of restaurants, who used their brands and audience to create sales streams that weren’t food,” Leventhal said. “This led me to start thinking about other ways restaurants could combat the serious business challenges of declining margins and eroding direct customer relationships.”

Blackbird is designed to help restaurants both amplify their reach and reward guests, Leventhal says. How? By giving operators a way to not only greet diners by name but learn their personal preferences, including when they last dined out, their preferred seating, and their likes and dislikes.

“With this knowledge, restaurants can serve guests in an unparalleled fashion, making them feel like they’re very important and appreciated regulars, and reward their ongoing patronage with free and appreciated perks,” Leventhal said.

Blackbird does this by having diners touch their phone to a proprietary NFC reader to create a membership or “tap in.” Members can “level up” with each subsequent check-in, Leventhal says, unlocking benefits like off-menu items and a direct message concierge.

Blackbird diners also earn virtual currency each visit, which can be spent on items (e.g. an entree or drink) or tallied toward membership rewards with restaurants via Blackbird’s smartphone app. There’s a web3 component; the currency is technically a cryptocurrency. Blackbird partnered with Privy, a crypto wallet management startup, to provide embedded wallets so users can sign up with a phone number and manage balances alongside their Blackbird membership.

On the back end, Blackbird captures a range of diner data on restaurants’ behalf — including dining history, birthdays, and home addresses — so restaurants can target diners with promotions. Restaurants can also use Blackbird to message “top-tier” members with access to a dedicated support line, letting them know when a reservation is made available, for example.

Some customers might not feel comfortable sharing that sort of behavioral data with restaurants. But Leventhal insists that Blackbird is handling data collection in a “transparent” manner, going so far as to give diners control over which specific information (e.g. dining history) restaurants see.

Through Blackbird, restaurants can sell paid memberships to guests, as well. Leventhal says that one restaurateur, a Jewish bistro in Brooklyn, sold founding Blackbird memberships — complete with perks including personalized bomber jackets and a home dinner cooked by a private chef — as a crowdfunding tool before it even opened.

The concept of promoting paid memberships in the restaurant industry — an increasingly common practice — is unavoidably polarizing. For most (including this reporter), dining out is expensive as it is, and having to pay to cut the line to reserve a hot new table or receive better treatment doesn’t exactly feel equitable.

Leventhal, though, assures me that the goal isn’t to foster more ultra-exclusive dining clubs but to give diners at restaurants “of all sizes,” particularly small independent restaurants and restaurant groups, an additional way to support the venues they love.

“With Blackbird’s technology platform, we’ve built a unique, intimate, and symbiotic relationship between restaurants and their regulars,” he added.

The question is, can diners be persuaded to use Blackbird in the first place? A 2023 poll by William Blair found that the majority of customers don’t opt into restaurant loyalty programs and that only 35% consider loyalty programs in deciding which restaurants to visit.

Leventhal believes that they can. And he has some data to back it up: Since launching several months ago, New York City-based Blackbird — which has 20 full-time employees — has signed up around 80 restaurants including chef David Chang’s Momofuku chain, 22 of which are actively using Blackbird.

“There’s no one out there that does exactly what we do,” Leventhal said. “We admire the loyalty programs built by Starbucks, Sweetgreen, and more, but we’ve created Blackbird to be an easily accessible loyalty platform, empowering restaurants to have an unparalleled ability to engage customers, reward returning patrons and drive new revenue streams.”

Blackbird’s future plans entail rolling out a referral program that’ll let diners invite friends to become members at a specific restaurant for exclusive dishes. Beyond this, Blackbird intends to experiment with its cryptocurrency, potentially offering membership upgrades, rewards for activities like tap-ins, and ways to pay for parts of — or whole — meals.

“Those at the forefront are trying to figure out how to achieve a broader diversity of revenue,” Leventhal said. “Blackbird is designed to be this solution for restaurants — driving loyalty, opening up for interesting revenue plays and incentivizing customers to return again and again.”

Source: Kyle Wiggersmage Credits: Amal KS / Hindustan Times / Getty Images

 

Yooga wants its restaurant operating system to be ‘Toast of Latin America’

Yooga, developing a Brazil-based restaurant operation management system, raised its first institutional funding of $2.3 million in seed capital. The round was led by SaaSholic with participation by Gilgamesh, Apex Partners and Backfuture.

Vinicius Melo, Victor Sortica, and Cassiano Guerra Fernandes co-founded the company in 2017 and bootstrapped Yooga for three years before taking $300,000 in a friends-and-family round in 2020.

It was born out of Melo’s experience in college waiting tables. He wanted to build software to help restaurants automate their operation processes and at the same time offer a product that anyone could use regardless of their tech ability.

Melo even lived in a software house, à la the television show “Silicon Valley,” to learn how to develop it. A friend in the software house hooked Melo up with Sortica after he expressed a need for a developer.

Yooga provides software so that restaurants can manage orders, send orders to the kitchen, provide last-mile delivery, and control inventory and cash flow. The vision is to help customers bring all of those processes under one platform. The company is able to bring customers on board within a week, and in as little as two months, customers are seeing results, Melo said in an interview.

The co-founders say Yooga aspires to be the “Toast of Latin America,” saying that Toast had paved much of the path the co-founders wanted to take.

“When we started to look around, we learned we were doing something similar to Toast, which was a good benchmark,” Sortica told TechCrunch.

Melo and Sortica don’t consider Toast competition because the market in Brazil is so fragmented, meaning there are hundreds of companies with hundreds of customers. And the legacy software was not evolving fast enough to create something that could cater to the restaurant of today, they said.

To put that in perspective, Yooga has over 6,000 clients and is growing, Melo said. Most of those clients were using paper and spreadsheets previously, with Sortica adding that 60% of restaurants in Brazil don’t utilize any software.

Much of the company’s revenue comes from monthly subscriptions that can start as low as $35 per month. Yooga is also working on adding new revenue streams from payments and other professional services.

Yooga handles $2 billion in transactions annually with more than 4 million orders flowing through its platform per month. It is currently growing in double digits monthly, the co-founders said. The new investment also values the company at $20 million post-money.

Melo and Sortica plan to deploy the capital into hiring additional staff and technology development. Two of the first new features coming out soon will be a “tap on phone” and PIX payment solutions. They expect these new revenue streams will put Yooga on track to double its average revenue per user.

“In the last three or four months, we have had positive EBITDA and want to grow faster now,” Sortica said. “As a company, we are doing great and didn’t need the funding — we aren’t burning a lot of cash — but we understand it is the timing. With fewer people raising, we wanted to drive forward. Our goal is to be the owner of this category.” Source: Yooga

 

Delivering innovation: Technology advances the restaurant industry

Taking orders at the drive-thru Technology is rapidly changing the way restaurants operate on-site, online, in corporate HQs, and throughout the supply chain. Restaurants of every size and style are adopting apps, software, robotics, and artificial intelligence to take on the tasks that take up time, freeing teams to focus on their core purpose: delivering a great customer experience.

The Association’s month-long tech series covers the practical applications of technology in restaurants, from the basics and promise of AI to tech in the supply chain, customers’ tech preferences, and tech-enabled location-based marketing that personalizes operators’ engagement with customers.

Hospitality will always be the foundation of our industry. The right technology integrations can help us enhance the customer experience, improve operational efficiencies, and manage risks. Source: National Restaurant Association.

 

Chicago Votes to Remove Tipped Minimum Wage

The Chicago City Council recently voted to remove the tipped minimum wage, marking a major win for workers’ rights advocates in the market.

Currently, the city’s tipped minimum wage is $9.48, with gratuities making up the difference to the $15.80 minimum wage. As part of the new law, the tipped minimum wage will annually increase by 8 percent until 2028, meaning restaurant operators have five years to prep for its elimination.

The City Council approved the measure 36-10. Other places that have eliminated the tipped minimum wage are California, Alaska, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

“This ordinance embodies Chicago’s values of uplifting working people and addressing systemic inequities in the restaurant and hospitality industry, which in turn will create a better economic future for tipped workers and our city,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said after the vote, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

One Fair Wage—an organization that strongly advocated for the change—said the tipped minimum wage impacts nearly 100,000 Chicago-based workers. Forty-four percent of those are women and 55 percent are people of color.

A University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign study from last summer collected surveys from 1,024 tipped workers in Chicago and found that fewer than 7 percent earned more than the minimum wage of $15.40 before tips and just over 16 percent earned less than the tipped minimum wage of $9.24 before tips. Nearly 57 percent reported they were illegally required to “tip out” their managers in the week prior to survey participation.

“For anyone who’s worked in a restaurant, bar, or cafe, you have a pretty good idea of how the practice of tipping can lead to discriminatory practices—and how it oftentimes has much less to do with your ability to actually do your job well than your ability to withstand certain types of abusive behavior from customers,” Alison Dickson, the study’s lead author, said in a statement.

The Illinois Restaurant Association isn’t happy about the law but agreed to a compromise after the original bill proposed to eliminate the tipped minimum wage in two years. The Association surveyed 315 Chicago restaurant operators and found that 92 percent said menu prices would increase, 75 percent thought tipped employees would see less pay, 77 percent foresaw a “very negative” impact on operations, and 66 percent said they will have to reduce staff. As of now, the median full-service restaurant tipped worker in Illinois makes $28.48 per hour.

The Association also used research from Seattle and San Francisco—two other cities that removed the tipped minimum wage—and discovered that workers with higher tipped minimum wages do not make more in total hourly wages and that for every $1 the minimum wage went up in San Francisco, the likelihood of a median-rated restaurant closing increased 14 percent.

Association president Sam Toia described the law as imperfect but noted that it was the best way for the industry to move forward given the circumstances from both sides.

“While we wholeheartedly disagree with the decision to move forward with the elimination of the tip credit, we do believe the amended 5-year phase-in plan is a compromise we can accept and represents a middle ground between what our members want and the City’s legislative priorities,” Toia said in a statement. “Change is always difficult, and we have fought such proposals for years; however, negotiations require concessions by both sides to come to a resolution, and this ordinance is the result of an open dialogue between our organization, the Mayor’s office, and members of the Chicago City Council.” Source: BEN COLEY/FSR.

 

Brighter Outlook Seen for Global Poultry Market

While the global poultry industry has undergone several months of slow growth, according to a recent Rabobank report, improved demand and lower costs are expected to come in the fourth quarter of 2023 and in early 2024.

Global poultry market growth in 2023 will likely only improve by 1.2% — well below the 2.5% historical average per year — but Rabobank said the market will still be well positioned for the new year.

“After a period of slow poultry consumption growth due to a weak global economy and rising prices resulting from cost increases, global demand has room for some recovery,” said Nan-Dirk Mulder, senior analyst of animal protein at Rabobank. “This is driven mainly by lower feed costs and, therefore, lower chicken prices. Poultry should be able to benefit from its relatively competitive pricing in many markets compared to other proteins like beef, pork, and alternative proteins.”

Rabobank expects global trade to remain strong in the second half of the year after it reached a record high of 7.2 million tonnes in the first half. The amount was driven by increased trade of raw poultry meat, while processed poultry products saw a sharp decline in trade, down 18% compared to last year.

Brazil benefited the most from the bullish conditions, as it is the cost-price leader in raw chicken meat. The country’s exports grew by 16% in the first half of 2023 compared to last year. Meanwhile, China and Thailand will need to shift their focus to raw chicken trade if they want to maintain their value position, Rabobank noted.

The balance of the market is key to profitability, according to the report. Markets like the United States, South Africa, Indonesia, and Brazil have been struggling with oversupply. Others like Europe, Russia, Thailand, Mexico, Japan and Malaysia have remained relatively balanced. China, on the other hand, has experienced periods of both positive and negative margins.

Leading exporting countries to China are currently Brazil (50%), the United States (19%), Russia (10%) and Thailand (9%). The United States’ exports to China dropped 31% year-over-year. Overall, the United States’ year-to-date shipments are down 2% from this time last year.

Avian influenza (AI) continues to play a role in market conditions as well. Next to South America, Japan has sustained the most significant impact from the disease, culling nearly 10% of its layers. The most recent outbreaks in Europe and North America have mainly been in wild birds.

“As AI is now present in most regions, new outbreaks will occur frequently, which often means temporary restrictions on global trade and shifts in trade flows,” Mr. Mulder said.

He advised producers to focus on the operational side. Corn prices have dropped significantly since August due to a larger-than-expected harvest, and wheat prices have gone down as well.

“Although we believe feed prices will drop slightly, operational costs are still at historic highs, and risks of further volatility exist in grain prices, due to El Niño, and in energy prices and availability,” he said. “Ongoing leadership in terms of costs and procurement will remain key.” Source: Food Business News/ By Rachael Oatman

 

Chicken N Pickle Keeps its Lead in Pickleball Social Entertainment Segment

THE BRAND, WITH INVESTMENTS FROM NFL SUPERSTARS, PLANS TO NEARLY TRIPLE IN SIZE BY 2025.

Chicken N Pickle—a social venue combining food, entertainment, and pickleball—averages about 3.5 acres with parking and 32,000 square feet. Each facility attracts more than 650,000 customers per year and staffs around 180 positions.

But at the end of the day, it’s a pretty simple concept, says president Kelli Alldredge.

“We talk about it a lot—we’re a plastic ball and a paddle,” she notes. “We try to just not complicate things, especially as we now just get back to the basics.”

Chicken N Pickle is involved in one of America’s most rapidly expanding sports—pickleball. According to the 2022 Single Sport Report by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), the sport has seen an average yearly growth rate in the double digits over the last five years. In 2021 alone, the game attracted 4.8 million players. The sport is primarily associated with older generations who step down from competitive tennis, but the average age keeps declining. In 2021 it was 38.1 years old, down 2.9 years compared to 2020.

The primary attraction at Chicken N Pickle is several indoor and outdoor pickleball courts. Courts can be reserved online and pickleballs/paddles are available to rent onsite. Additionally, there are several lawn games available, such as cornhole, ping pong, battleship, and Jenga. The brand’s entertainment/pickleball concept was first to market in 2017, landing in Kansas City, Missouri. Since then, seven more have been built in Wichita, Kansas; San Antonio, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Overland Park, Kansas; Grand Prairie and Grapevine, Texas; and Glendale, Arizona.

Chicken N Pickle’s momentum gained fuel this year with $10 million in capital from family and friends, including Kansas City Chiefs superstars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Jack Sock, a former professional tennis player who now plays in the Professional Pickleball Association, is also a minority investor.

The plan is to nearly double in size to 15 venues by 2025—making Chicken N Pickle the fastest-growing pickleball eatertainment brand in the U.S. Of those seven future facilities, one will come this year (St. Charles, Missouri), four will be in 2024 (Allen, Texas; Fishers, Indiana; Henderson, Nevada; and Webster, Texas), and two will be in early 2025 (Thornton and Parker, Colorado).

“We start really early marketing in that area outreach,” Alldredge explains. “We just opened Glendale in August, but we actually started in February going to Glendale—coming soon, hiring, marketing collaterals. So we put a lot of effort into getting the word out prior to when we would start hiring or interviewing. So it takes a lot of effort, manpower per se. But each store we open, we notice we’re getting more and more applicants. So I just feel like our brand growth is healthy. We had over 700 applicants in Glendale and that was the biggest by far.”

The St. Charles, Missouri, location will be the first to display Chicken N Pickle’s new prototype, which was formulated in partnership with Populous, a Kansas City-based global design firm that’s been involved with Yankee Stadium, the Olympics, the Super Bowl, Camden Yards (home of the Baltimore Orioles), and Climate Pledge Arena (home of the Seattle Kraken and Seattle Storm).

The revised layout serves as a tangible expression of the brand’s dedication to community engagement and locally sourced food. The setting evokes the feel of a communal plaza, featuring various activities surrounding a central courtyard adorned with trees. This multifunctional core area can accommodate live concerts, viewing events, ice skating, and more. Complementing this expansive open space are six indoor and four outdoor pickleball courts, as well as a compact kitchen equipped with an exterior grill.

Alldredge says the menu is “one of the biggest surprises that our property offers.” True to its name, the brand offers antibiotic- and hormone-free chicken, pulled pork, grass-fed beef sandwiches, a variety of salads, and more. At the Glendale location in particular, there’s Country Fried Chicken, Double Smashed Burgers, Chicken N Waffles, and a BBQ Mac N Cheese Bowl. There are also several cocktails, like the Mango Jalapeño Margarita and Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade.

Indoor and outdoor dining areas are open seating. Customers pay at a cashier and then grab a GPS-enabled table tent so the server knows where to find them.

“We’re never opposed to adding, but we have those staples and we plan to keep it very consistent, says Alldredge, describing the brand’s menu offerings. “We do have good food. We are a scratch kitchen, and it’s super fun.”

To shake things up, Chicken N Pickle locations seasonally host pop-up bars. One is Tiki-themed (May to September) with tropical favorites. Another is Snowbound, a holiday bar that runs from November to December.

“I mean, we always want to give you multiple reasons to come in, right?” Alldredge says. “Not just the pickleball or not just great food. We like to give people reasons to come back and come back and come back. So they’re just a unique experience. We love to create experiences on our property and build memories and they really foster that. But I think it drives more business. Our people know it. And we might not get that visit during December if we didn’t have [the pop-up bar].”

The pickleball social entertainment scene is a quickly growing segment overall. Iowa-based Smash Park, which has four locations, announced in June that it received a “significant” minority investment from DCA Partners to help build units in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Omaha, Nebraska. Also, Punch Bowl Social founder Robert Thompson revealed he’s working on Camp Pickle, an upcoming venue that will have 100,000 square feet of outdoor and 60,000 square feet of indoor space.

Alldredge says she’s all for competition. In the meantime, Chicken N Pickle will keep focusing on its greatest strength—everyday customers.

“It’s the way we’re able to impact communities and give people a place together and set their technology down,” she says. “It’s just the energy that we feel every day on property that drives us to get many of the people.”  Source: BEN COLEY

 

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