FUTURE OF FOODSERVICE
The foodservice industry is constantly evolving in the never-ending cycle to please consumer
demands. While soups, sandwiches and pasta dishes continue to be served, the ever-changing
landscape of this industry continues to evolve and not only provide new dishes, but innovative
practices to cultivate products and introduce technological advances that ultimately enhance the
consumer experience. The industry currently in the midst of a fourth Industrial Revolution, one
that’s bringing together digital, biological, and physical systems. The future of foodservice, as
cliché as this might sound, is here and now.
The videos are discussing on technology trends and how if affect foodservice industry. The notion
of robots running entire restaurants is no longer science fiction. What’s more is that recent
technological advances are not just making it easier to do business but they are completely
changing the way consumers interact with brands, the way people eat, and how guests interact with
a restaurant. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is impacting a wide range of industries, and the food
service and restaurant industry is certainly a good example. AI technologies are enhancing and
changing the entire restaurant experience, from the ways in which we order food, to the way in
which food is prepared and served, and how customers interact with brands.
AI-enabled bots are helping do a variety of things such as manage reservations, respond to
customer inquiries, or help customize orders. Some national chains such as Dominos, Starbucks,
and Pizza Hut are using voice ordering assistants to make it easier for customers to order from
their establishment. With a few simple voice commands customers are able to re-order food or
navigate through voice-only menus without ever interacting with a human.
Increasingly, robots are becoming more common in restaurants for both front-of-house and backof-house jobs. Robots are being used in the kitchen to help with consistency in both food prep and
cooking. Example are burger flipping robots that are used in the kitchen of the restaurant. Using
on-board sensors and cameras, it prepares, cooks and plates up food. It can see when a burger
needs to be flipped and detect the temperature of the food it is cooking.
Robots are also stepping into front-of-house operations assisting the hostess with various tasks
such as managing reservations. Some restaurants are even having robots interact with customers.
Smart bots are able to assume the role of waiter suggesting meal recommendations, take food and
drink orders and even process payments at the end of the meal. Example of the robots known as
Pepper, a waiter and meet-and-greet robot for the food service and retail sectors. It interacts with
customers via voice recognition and an integrated tablet, and in a restaurant setting can answer
questions, make recommendations and take diners’ orders. Developed by Japanese technology
firm SoftBank in partnership with Mastercard, it also takes payments.
Another example is Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) that is working in collaboration with Chinese
search engine giant called as Baidu. KFC is developing a restaurant that uses AI face recognition
technology to infer what a customer may be interested in ordering based on their sex, facial
expressions, and other visual features. KFC’s face-scanning technology appears to still be in the
early phase.
KFC has selected one of its Chinese restaurant locations to debut implementation of the Kiosk
technology. Customers faces are scanned in an effort to identify personal characteristics that may
influence food choices such as age, gender and current mood. The system is designed to process
these customer’s characteristics and offer a menu item before the customer makes a selection. The
technology that the system utilizes will retain its scan of each customer’s face so that returning
customers will be provided with recommendations based on their previous order history. Data
security will be an important consideration for the companies as they advance this collaboration.
In conclusion, across the foodservice sector, efforts are underway to capture and retain customer
interest and business through AI-driven technologies. Chatbots tend to be one of the simpler
applications for brands to launch across industries, so it’s no surprise that restaurants are
employing these bots to engage customers. Robots are an attractive emerging technology in the
food service sector with the ability to entice customers. However, this is a technology which will
require more fine tuning and improvement before widespread implementation can be expected.
Robot dexterity in handling food and navigating between customers is a difficult challenge, and
present applications in Asia have struggled. The example of KFC’s emerging facial recognition
kiosk could, if successful, quickly become a major disruptor of traditional self-service kiosks in
the fast-food sector.