News Briefs

Foodtastic Inc., a franchisor of restaurant brands in Canada, announced its recent agreement to acquire QSR Noodlebox. This strategic acquisition marks a significant milestone for Foodtastic as it continues to expand its presence in the quick service restaurant segment. 

"We are delighted to welcome Noodlebox into the Foodtastic family," said Peter Mammas, President and CEO of Foodtastic. "Noodlebox's reputation as a top-tier Quick Service Restaurant brand aligns perfectly with our commitment to providing exceptional dining experiences to our customers. We look forward to working closely with all our new franchisees and driving the growth of the Noodlebox brand across Canada."

Dustin May, CEO of Noodlebox added, "it is with great pleasure that I announce the sale of Noodlebox, to Foodtastic. We believe that Foodtastic is the perfect home for Noodlebox, and that together we will continue to uphold the values and quality that Noodlebox is known for."

Noodlebox has 46 locations and a 50 in the development pipeline.

Domino's Pizza Inc. introduces its new and improved loyalty program. 

Domino's Rewards offers loyalty members even more opportunities to earn and redeem points across its corporate and franchise store locations. Domino's enhanced rewards program allows customers to:

• Earn points for less
  • Loyalty members will now earn 10 points on every order of $5 or more
• Redeem points for even more menu items – and earn free Domino's after just two orders
  • Members can redeem a variety of points for more menu items:
    • 20 points: A free dipping cup, a 16-piece order of Parmesan Bread Bites or a 20 oz. drink
    • 40 points: An order of Bread Twists or Stuffed Cheesy Bread
    • 60 points: A medium, two-topping pizza; pasta; Oven-Baked Sandwich; or a 3-piece order of Chocolate Lava Crunch Cakes
• Earn more rewards
  • Loyalty perks are now even better, as members will have exclusive access to member-only deals, special discounts and opportunities to earn bonus points!

"We are thrilled to give the brand's loyal customers additional ways to earn free Domino's items more often," said Mark Messing, Domino's vice president of digital experience and loyalty. "At a time when most brands are scaling back their loyalty programs and making it more difficult to earn and redeem points, Domino's is doing the opposite. We want to make it easier to reward our customers and give them more options so they can get rewarded faster."

Marketing a LTO 

From now until Oct. 22, 2023, rewards members can take advantage of a limited time offer to redeem 20 points for a free order of Domino's new Pepperoni Stuffed Cheesy Bread, which is normally a 40-point redemption, in celebration of the product's recent launch. 

Chipotle Mexican Grill is testing an automated digital makeline in collaboration with Hyphen, a foodservice platform designed to help restaurant owners, operators, and budding chefs move their business forward by automating kitchen operations. Bowls and salads are created by an automated system that moves the entrées through the bottom makeline where ingredients for the order are dispensed automatically. In tandem, a Chipotle team member can leverage the top makeline to create burritos, tacos, quesadillas, and kid's meals for the same digital order.

How It Works

1. Digital orders would be placed via the Chipotle app, Chipotle.com, or third-party platforms.  
2. If the order included a bowl or salad, those entrées would be routed to Hyphen's automated system. The bowl traverses along the bottom makeline and positions itself under the specified ingredient container. The intelligent dispensers dynamically portion each ingredient into the bowl. If the order included burritos, tacos, quesadillas, or kid's meals, a Chipotle team member would use the top of the same makeline to create those entrées.
3. The completed bowl or salad would be raised from the bottom makeline and revealed at the end of the makeline through an opening in the countertop. A Chipotle team member would place a lid on the entrée and add any final items such as chips, side salsas, or guacamole to the order.
4. Completed orders would be placed in their designated pick-up area: in-restaurant pickup shelves, walk-up window, or Chipotlane.

Employee & Guest Experience

Approximately 65% of all Chipotle digital orders are bowls or salads, so the cobotic digital makeline has the potential to free up more time for employees to service the front makeline and deliver exceptional hospitality, while simultaneously increasing capacity for digital orders during peak periods.

The new digital makeline could also help enhance digital order accuracy, improving the guest experience.

• 71% say the ability to integrate with other systems is driving their POS purchase decisions, according to HT’s2 2023 POS Software Trends Report.

"Chipotle's new digital makeline built by Hyphen embodies our commitment to leveraging robotics to unlock the human potential of our workforce, ensuring an elevated dining experience for our guests," said Curt Garner, Chief Customer and Technology Officer. "Our goal is to have the automated digital makeline be the centerpiece of all our restaurants' digital kitchens." 

Chipotle's Investment in Hyphen

Chipotle invested in Hyphen as part of Cultivate Next, the company's $50 million venture fund that intends to make early-stage investments into strategically aligned companies that further its mission to Cultivate a Better World and help accelerate its aggressive growth plans. As a people-first company, Chipotle is seeking opportunities that will elevate the human experience for its teams as well as increase access and convenience for its guests. Investments may include innovations in farming and supply chain, advanced robotics, alternative proteins, and more.

Through Cultivate Next, Chipotle also invested in Vebu, a product development company that works with food industry leaders to co-create intelligent automation and technology solutions. Earlier this year, Chipotle and Vebu unveiled the Autocado, an avocado processing cobotic prototype that cuts, cores, and peels avocados before they are hand mashed to create the restaurant's famous guacamole. 

image courtesy of Chipotle

Palmer Digital Group, a full-service supplier and installer of custom indoor and outdoor digital kiosks, display enclosures, and drive-thru digital menu boards, has successfully completed a pilot program with a major QSR that confirms interoperability between its outdoor digital menu board systems (PDG QSRDMB155) and third-party voice AI technology built into its network infrastructure. The eight-month pilot program was tested at six of the QSR’s flagship stores, and the new voice AI-enabled systems will begin deploying to stores early in 2024. Deployments are expected to continue into 2025.

PDG has recently adjusted design characteristics to ensure protection and reliable operability for the new Voice AI technology across the entire PDG ODMB product line. This includes a camera enclosure with swivel to track customers as they order, special speaker and mic enclosures, and electronic component enclosures, all of which protect against weather-related intrusions, vandalism and other damage. PDG’s ODMB series offers single, double, and triple display configurations, with display sizes of 46, 49, and 55 inches.

• 62% of restaurant drive-thru customers prefer to order using either mobile, chatbot, voice, or have no preference as long as their order is correct, according to HTs 12^th annual 2023 Customer Engagement Technology Study.     

AI can provide a range of benefits for restaurant owners, from gaining insights into customer behaviors to automating tasks and improving efficiency. This customer was particularly interested in how Voice AI technology could bring additional layers of confidence to the customer, and shorten conversational flows to expedite the ordering process and reduce the time of each customer journey.

PDG is also working with two large property developers to design custom AI-enabled outdoor touchscreen kiosks at large premium outlet malls. In this case, AI will be used to gather demographics for suggestive selling based primarily on age and gender. “The camera will play an important role here in gathering demographics once the customer initiates the Voice AI application through a query,” he said. “We worked very closely with this customer as well as our QSR customer to understanding the exact hardware and network infrastructure needed to support their AI visions.”

Guesty, a hospitality operations platform, is proud to announce the expansion of its accounting solution – Guesty Accounting – which now enables hospitality businesses to comply with North Carolina Trust Accounting (NCTA) regulations. With this announcement and a slew of innovative product transformations, Guesty is redefining financial management for property managers and setting a new industry standard for hospitality accounting solutions.

By facilitating strict compliance with North Carolina Trust Accounting regulations, Guesty gives customers the confidence they need in their operations to ensure they are meeting the highest legal standards. Additionally, Guesty Accounting fosters stronger, more transparent relationships with property owners.

“With our recent product innovations in accounting, Guesty has truly achieved an industry gold standard. Guesty’s customers can rely on our platform to effortlessly navigate the complexities of financial management, ensuring peace of mind and enabling them to focus on optimizing their rental operations and fostering owner trust,”  says Nadav Ravid, Guesty’s Director of Product Management.

In addition to enabling NCTA compliance, Guesty Accounting has been redesigned with an intuitive interface that simplifies complex accounting tasks and automates processes in order to reduce the potential for human error. The result is pristine financial records, and time and resources saved. Another stand-apart innovation in the expanded product is that it enables end-to-end cash management control, offering comprehensive oversight of cash flow, from initial guest payment to final owner payout. Enhanced financial security measures, including locking accounting periods and systematic fund disbursement, ensure accuracy and integrity in financial reporting.

“Guesty is committed to continuous innovation, ensuring that users have access to the fastest rate of feature releases in the industry so they can compete in a tough market and stay ahead of the curve,” says Amiad Soto, Guesty’s CEO and co-founder. “At Guesty, we invest every resource we have back into developing advanced technology and the result is solutions, like Accounting, that ensure businesses of every inventory type and every size stay relevant and are able to adapt in the fast-paced hospitality sector.” 

Guesty Accounting's dynamic scalability supports businesses of all sizes, adapting to varying financial needs and evolving alongside company growth. Personalized reporting capabilities allow businesses to reflect their unique financial journeys and strategies, providing insights aligned with specific goals and practices.

"Guesty Accounting is not only a game-changer for vacation rental and property managers, but also a glimpse into the future of financial management in the hospitality industry," adds Amiad Soto. "The platform's commitment to compliance, automation, user empowerment, and continuous innovation positions Guesty as the indispensable solution for the next generation of hospitality financial management."