News Briefs

Toast announced product and philanthropic investments in the fight against food waste. Toast is launching Food Waste Reduction (FWR), a set of features available to all Toast customers at no additional cost, designed to help restaurants measure and manage food waste in their operations—and save money doing so. Toast.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, will bolster its commitment to creating a more sustainable food ecosystem with a $1 million partnership with ReFED, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending food loss and waste, in support of their Catalytic Grant Fund to advance food waste solutions.

Whether at the farm level or on our dinner plates, inefficiencies in the U.S. food system result in nearly 40%1 of the country’s food supply going unsold or uneaten.  And with approximately 13 million tons of food waste generated across the food service industry in the United States, which mostly come from restaurants2, tackling food waste in restaurants is key to addressing this issue and reducing cost of goods sold (COGS). 

Toast’s Food Waste Reduction feature set is designed to equip restaurants with actionable tools to increase visibility into contributors to food waste and turn insights to action with cost-saving strategies, resale and diversion tactics, and more. Food Waste Reduction will allow restaurants to:

• Log, categorize, and quantify unsold items with a cloud-based Food Waste Tracker
• Use insights and data to optimize daily operations with Food Waste Reporting
• Learn and develop actionable cost-saving strategies with the Food Waste Educational Hub
   

“Toast’s Food Waste Reduction has been a great feature enhancement for our cafes. The tools have made for easy tracking of food waste, simplifying the previous manual tracking process and giving visibility to both production and cost savings opportunities to our franchise operators,” said Massimo Mallozzi, VP of Information Technology at Paris Baguette. “Individual team leaders and staff are all empowered to input and categorize waste, while also giving both franchise owners and management visibility into food waste trends and insights in one place on the Toast platform.”

$1M Partnership with ReFED

In addition to Toast’s launch of Food Waste Reduction, Toast.org also announced a $1M partnership with ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to ending food loss and waste in the US. The contribution will serve as anchor funding for the second open call of the ReFED Catalytic Grant Fund, which provides nonprofit and for-profit organizations with recoverable and nonrecoverable grants to de-risk and scale high-impact solutions to food waste across the food system. This partnership will allow Toast and ReFED to explore opportunities to make systems-level impact on the problem of food waste at restaurants with a multi-phased grants program, starting with an initial open call for food waste solution providers and organizations across the restaurant industry to apply for funding.

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

 Denny’s Corporation announced the hiring of Pankaj Patra as Chief Digital and Technology Officer (CDTO), effective October 30. This is a newly created enterprise role that will include support for Denny’s and Keke’s. Patra will be responsible for accelerating the company’s capabilities across all specialties within the Digital, Technology and Information functions.

Patra comes to Denny’s from Brinker International, Inc., where he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, responsible for overseeing information technology and data security for the company and its restaurants brands. Patra brings 25 years of experience as an innovative enterprise technology architect, digital strategist and information technology leader.

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

Patra earned his undergraduate degree from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela and went on to attain his MBA from Southern Methodist University. He is a member of the Dallas chapter of the International Food and Beverage Technology Association.

Patra is based in Dallas. 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. For more information, please visit dennys.com.

WorkJam has expanded its long-term partnership with Blue Yonder, a provider of  digital supply chain transformation and omni-channel commerce fulfillment. This expanded partnership will seamlessly bring together the best of Blue Yonder’s Workforce Management (WFM) solution and WorkJam’s digital frontline workplace to unlock value for joint customers.

Enterprise customers that use Blue Yonder’s WFM have long been able to access WorkJam’s Open Shift Marketplace, but now they will also be able to empower and fully orchestrate their frontline workforce with WorkJam’s integrated task management, two-way communications and frontline learning tools.

• Employee Training in a Post-Pandemic World

“We’ve worked successfully with Blue Yonder for more than five years and are thrilled to hit this new milestone to offer the best solution on the market,” “By extending the integration of our solutions, we expand Blue Yonder’s offering and provide better value for headquarters and their frontline teams around the world. Our complementary solutions ensure that enterprises across the retail, supply chain, manufacturing, distribution, and hospitality sectors can equip their frontline workers with tools and technology that improve productivity, engagement and retention,” said Rich Halbert, Chief Strategy Officer, WorkJam.

Blue Yonder is on a mission to reinvent and reenergize the workforce management industry through innovation through composable microservices. By extending their partnership, WorkJam and Blue Yonder are leveraging their platforms’ synergies and providing their growing enterprise customer base with best-in-class solutions across the four operational pillars of frontline work—scheduling, task management, communications, and training and learning. Such collaboration helps customers generate operational efficiencies and realize significant returns on their digital transformation investments.

Makeready, a Dallas-based experience hospitality, restaurant and retail management group, announces a new benefits initiative in partnership with PTO Exchange, a company which enables employees to transfer unused PTO to different benefits. This year, Makeready became the first hospitality group to join forces with PTO Exchange, giving all Makeready employees the opportunity to transfer their unused paid time off to financial, wellness and philanthropic benefits. 

“We are so pleased to be partnering with PTO Exchange to bring these unique benefits to our deserving employees,” said Christine Magrann, president and COO of Makeready. “We strive to create unique experiences for our guests while providing the best work environment for our rapidly growing team, and this partnership allows us to continue this work.”

• Retention: Give Employees Multiple Reasons to Stay

Makeready’s partnership with PTO Exchange offers employees benefits including travel, education, 401K contributions, HSA savings account and philanthropic donations, among others. Outside of this benefit, Makeready incorporates a variety of wellness initiatives including free counseling services and company-wide wellness programs including the upcoming April Stress Awareness Month, which provides employees the opportunity to participate in different ways to deal with stress. Makeready also offers a student loan repayment program and tuition assistance program to help with financial and intellectual wellness.

The partnership with PTO Exchange is a reflection of Makeready’s brand growth, with new properties on the horizon and streamlining processes in the form of a newly launched GDS system. 

Headquartered in Dallas, Makeready was founded in 2015 and develops unique experiences that are an essential part of each community, cultivating deep, emotional connections across guests, teams and local brands. Since its conception, the hospitality company has grown its portfolio to more than nine hotels and 24 restaurants, bars and coffee shops, in discerning locations such as Charleston, Dallas, Denver, Nashville, Savannah, Cape Neddick, Phoenix, and Columbus, with more exciting developments on the horizon for 2024.