Latest / Choppin’ It Up by Bloomberg Intelligence / Foodini’s CEO, COO on Food-Allergen Disclosure

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Foodini’s CEO, COO on Food-Allergen Disclosure · Choppin’ It Up by Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Chopping It Up. I'm your host, Mike hallon
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the senior restaurant and food service analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Our research and that a bi's five hundred analysts around
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the globe can be found exclusively on the Bloomberg terminal.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: If you enjoy the PODDOMI a solid and give us
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: a five star review on Apple or Spotify. Today we're
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: joined by Dylan McDonald, founder and CEO, and Erica Anderman,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: co founder and COO at Foodini.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Foodini is a.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Dietary intelligence platform that leverages AI to create ingredient and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: transparency solutions for food service venues. Welcome to the pod.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having us.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Great to be here.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Sure things. So, I'm excited to talk about food allergiens today.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Not only is it a hot topic, but I've mentioned
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to you too that my nephew slash god son, suffers
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: from pretty terrible food allergies. So this one's close to
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: my heart. Yeah, looking forward to Yeah, man, what inspired
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you to start Foodini?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: So I come at this very much from the consumer angle,
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: not too dissimilar to your godson. So quick background. I
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: was born in Philly, grew up in Ireland. As the
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: accent probably betrays. I was in the legal world prior
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: to this as well, so worked in big law for
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: a few years with the kind of big tech companies.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: So this was definitely a bit of a pivot for
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: me to solve a problem that obviously I experienced myself
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: diagnosed as celiac when I was ten years old. And honestly,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: it was just the like twenty odd years of trying
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: to navigate dining out of home or like ordering online,
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: any scenario where I wasn't cooking food myself, and just
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: the amount of times I could not find the food
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: I was looking for, amount of times that I would
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: go out with friends or colleagues and end up sick
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: that night or the next day because I was given
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: incorrect food, even after you know, doing all the right things.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: And yeah, as time went on, I just got more
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: and more frustrated and thought that there had to be
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: a better way, and then started digging into just how
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: big this problem was and the reasons why it existed.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: And yeah, that's kind of a spouse where the inspiration
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: came from just trying to solve a problem that so
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: many people suffer from.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a growing problem, and we'll talk about
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the size of it as we get into it. Erica,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: how did you two meet and what strengths to each
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of you bring to the business.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so both came from literally different parts of the
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: world and industries. For me, I've been in the restaurant
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: take industry a long time. I got my start in school,
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: started a company called Campus Food back in the day,
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: so one of the first players in online ordering. And
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: then I met the founders of Seamless in New York
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: who were starting a new company called Single Platform. So
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: Single Platform we essentially built kind of the plumbing for
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: menu data on the internet prior, when you look up
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: a restaurant, it's name, address, phone number, and then a
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: PDF of the menu if you're lucky. And what we
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: did is we turned that into an actual menu schema
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: that we would syndicate out. All the major search engines,
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: review sites, all the different platforms that were listing restaurants
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: online now had actual menu data. And so after that,
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: I was at Slice, a local pizza app, and many
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: different online ordering platforms. And from being in that world
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: of menus and online ordering, you know, I knew a
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: lot about menus and so we got introduced through a
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: mutual friend. Dylan at the time had started the company
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: from a consumer lens and was actually struggling with working
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: with restaurants in terms of how to get this data
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: from restaurants. And once I met him and started really
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: talking through the problem, it became clear.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: To both of us, like this was just such a
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: huge gap.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: From my perspective, it's really on the restaurant industry, knowing
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: that online ordering today and menus still don't.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Actually have this data.
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: It's very manual, and so we realize there's a huge
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: opportunity to really help the industry to be able to
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: make it easier for restaurants.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: To document this and put it in front of consumers.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Very cool, Dylan, How big is the food allergy problem
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: here in the US and globally?
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: You know, when I first started looking into this, you
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: kind of assume you live in your own little bubble,
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: and you know, there's a few other people impacted, and
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: no one was kind of horse shocked than I was
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: when I started digging into the numbers. But in terms
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: of food energies, so just food energies, there's thirty three
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: million Americans have a diagnosed food energy, which is much
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: much larger than I expected.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And just another little stat.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: Within that, but forty percent of the children who fall
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: in that bracket have more than one food energy, so
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: it tends to be especially amongst kids if they've won,
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: they have multiple Over the top of that, then you've
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: bought another fifty million Americans who have a food intolerance,
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: which is something essentially that you react negatively to the food,
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: but it's not a diagnosed the allergy. Then you have
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: another seventy million Americans who fall into the bracklet of
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: a lifestyle diet. So think you're vegan, you're vegetarian, your keto,
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: you're paleo, your low thoughd map so many different I
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: suppose diets that continue to come out, and so we
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: usually have the tam in and around one hundred and
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: seventy three million, and so again, like in terms of
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: dietary needs, holistically, it's a massive consumer segment and it
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: just continues to grow year on your boat in terms
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: of prevalence, but also the complexity of the consumer diets
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: that people wish to follow.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And do you have any data about how big the
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: problem is globally? I'm just curious if this is a
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: bigger issue in certain parts of the world.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: It's funny it's different. Different regions seem to have different
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: prevalence to certain things. So for example, celiac disease, which
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: is gluten free, that's what affects me. Italy has the
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: number one highest rate of Celia act disease in the world.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: Arland is number two per head of capita. And side
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: story but that they say that's the back to the
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: potato famine and that when the pileato crop got wiped out,
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: they imported a load of we eat into Ireland and
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: that's kind of what the came down through the generations
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: and why there's such a high prevalence there. Australia, Melbourne
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: is the food allergy capital of the world. They have
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: the highest rate of food allergy of any city in
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: the world. A lot of Asian countries there's an extremely
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: high prevalence towards lactose. So it's one of these ones
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: where there's definitely definitely different regions have different propensities to
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: certain allergens, but it is a global problem. And the
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: only reason certain regions we don't have a lot of
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: data from is just aware like awareness and diagnosis, Like
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: not everyone has access to the medical requirements that they
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: need to actually figure out why am I getting sick
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: all the time and what food is causing that?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's really interesting and clearly difficult to track. Erica,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: how our food allergies currently handled in online ordering?
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so in the online ordering space, I think this
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: has become more and more of a growing problem. Right,
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: So it's it's you see it more prevalent in kids,
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: and I think over the past call it fifteen twenty years,
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: as online ordering has grown, most of it has been
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: done reactively. And so because menus have that same schema
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: you know we built back then it's menu title description.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: The way the industry has handled that is through adding tags,
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: and so the challenge with that is that when you
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: add tags, it's manual and not consistent. And so whether
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: it's first or third party ordering, it's the restaurant that
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: has to go and add those tags, and they're not consistent.
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: So on some platforms it might say add a tag
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: of gluten free, but on another it contains gluten. So
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: now it's confusing to the consumer of like, what exactly
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: does that GF? You know, what is exactly does it
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: mean because there's no consistency across the different online ordering platforms,
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: and then from an online ordering perspective, those companies also
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: because the data is consistent and you can't query based
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: off of it. So for online ordering, who want to,
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: you know, focus on personalization and being able to put
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: the right results in front of the right people. Without
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: that data, it's really difficult for them to be able
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: to deliver on.
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: That sounds like a mess pretty much exactly, Yeah, Dylan.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Regulations around alergen labeling vary across the globe. So which
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: countries right now are ahead of the curb curve and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: what are they requiring from restaurants?
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so Europe is probably the furthest ahead right There
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: was the EU brought in European wide regulation matt like
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: around food Atrogen's boat on package goods, but also in restaurants.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: The implementation on a country by country level can be
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: slightly nuanced.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: In Europe.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: The countries that are most ahead of of the curve
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: are Germany, Austria, Ireland. The UK is pretty is pretty
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: good as well. Australia has regulation around this as well.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: It's a little softer than the eure in regulation it's
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: more around everything has to be documented on premise, but
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: it doesn't necessarily have to be on every menu. But yeah,
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: it's the likes of Austria, Germany and Ireland for example,
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: that have the kind of most comprehensive allergen labeling laws
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: when it comes to restaurants and menus.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, and the US is behind the curve, but there
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: is some movement.
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: SB sixty eight in California has been passed by the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: state legislature and as a waiting Gavin Knew some signature.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: What does it mean for restaurants in the Golden State
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and how do you think it will influence dining trends
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in consumer behavior?
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is I suppose big for the allergy
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: community in terms of it's the first piece of allergen
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: legislation to come to the United States. As right, it's
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: to restaurants. Just I suppose quick bullet points on it.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: It applies initially to restaurants with twenty plus locations worldwide
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: that have at least one restaurant in California, So one
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: location in California twenty overall you're captured. The effect of
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: it is also one July twenty twenty six, so it's
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: not that far away. And it essentially applies also to
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: all menus physical and digital that are in that restaurant's ecosystem.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: And so the restaurants, in terms of becoming compliant, they
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: can do it in two main ways. On all of
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: their physical menus, so think PDF and menu boards. They
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: can label every individual menu item for the allergens that
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: are within that item, so chicken curry contains gluten eggs,
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: so et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Or they can
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: use a digital solution, so there's specific wording in there
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: that there can be a link out to QR code,
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: so a QRE code that links out to a digital
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: allergen menu. And again, are assumption is that the vast
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: majority of restaurants are going to go down that path
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: as opposed to having to you know, constantly reprint and
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: redo all of their physical.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Menus and menu boards.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: In terms of the impact, I suppose it will definitely
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: push restaurants to operate with a similar rigger around now
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: ingredient data to the same way they already kind of
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: treat food safety. You know, there'll have to be processes
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: in place, Recipes will need to be documented. Every substitution,
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: whether that's an internal substitution or a substitution met by supplier,
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: because you know they've swapped out whatever that that day
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: will need to be tracked, and the impact of that
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: swap on the allergens in every menu item will also
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: need to trace through all menus in that restaurant's ecosystem,
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: again physical and digital. And yeah, essentially menu items just
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: won't be able to be changed or added without the
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: menus being updated for that correspondent allergen. So there will
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: definitely be a pretty I think significant impact on how
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: restaurants think about their menus going forward.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, i'd imagine. So what states do you expect to
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: be fast followers of California and implement something like this.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: New York is already on train.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: So there's already a bill that's in the early stages
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: of going through the process that I think is even
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: potentially more onerous then the California one. Again, intent initially
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: of SB sixty it was to cover all restaurants, and
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: we know that the intent of the Senator got this
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: bill passed is also to go back and make sure
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: that this does capture all restaurants, not just twenty plus location.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: So New York is next up with that bill that's
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: already in train, and we believe I think Illinois and
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: Oregon are likely to be the next two that take
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: this up.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Erico, what are the biggest challenges restaurants face when they're
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: implementing allergen disclosure?
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean the challenge here is just all the
• 12:29
  Speaker 6: data does not live in one place, so you need
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: to maintain this information also across both your physical menus
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: as well as your digital menus.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: So I think one thing that.
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: We should probably also just state is like, most restaurant
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: operators want to do the right job here right, they
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: want to serve guests safely. What's holding them back is
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: more that the ingredient information is super fragmented and changing,
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: and the tracking on the supply chain is not where
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: it needs to be. So this is something that makes
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: it really difficult for them to be able to make
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: sure that from what the chefs are putting in that
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: dish in the kitchen is being update or first I
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: guess back that up what's coming off the truck, you know,
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: because there are things like substitutes that can happen and swaps,
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: So if that happens. How do we then know that
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: that's happening when you're now making that food in the
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: kitchen and then you're putting it on that plate and
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: the menus that are in front of consumers before they
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: come in or while they're sitting there. So while this
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: information is changing, the big challenge for the restaurant industry
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: is how do you make sure that you have it
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: accurate across in one place? Across you know both your
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: vendor spec sheets, your kitchen, your menus, and when you
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: add in things like limited time offers where your menu
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: is changing, you know, it gets tricky. So I'd say
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: from a how do we help right as I'm painting
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: a dark picture here, but really the goal here is
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: how do we make this easier? And this is a
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: place where technology can help the industry. While there are
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: still some advancements that will need to be made in
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: terms of better tracking across the supply chain for those
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: things that I talked about, as far as like products swaps,
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: when it comes to the restaurant industry, they can make
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: sure that they have their recipes documented, one single source
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: of truth that has what products are within those recipes
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: and what Fuudina does is we break those down. So
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: we take the menu, we then break it down to
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: the recipe. We break that down to the specific products
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: and ingredients used within that recipe, and even further to
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: the sub recipe of those products, so what ingredients are
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: used there, and that's where we tag it on the
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: back end for one hundred and fifty plus different diets
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: and allergens. So while the legislation is covering the top nine,
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: we know that you know in Europe it's fourteen Canada like,
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: these things continue to change and so our thought is,
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: let's tackle this from the ingredient level, so that no
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: matter what the guests allergen or dietary need is, you
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: have that covered and you can make sure that that
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: is communicated clearly to them in a digital format. And
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: we do that through personalized menu use. So we believe
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: that's a much better experience than these matrixes where you
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: can document it and make sure that it's updated. But
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: what we do is we create personalized menus for that
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: guess that tells them exactly what they can eat, what
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: they can modify, and what's not suitable for them, so
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: that it's really easy and convenient for them to know
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: what they can order before they died it.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like the restaurants need a lot
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: of help from their food service distributors, and the food
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: service distributors need help from their suppliers right up and
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: down the chain to get this done, right. Can you
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: speak to how Fuudini gathers, verifies, updates their ingredient data.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: So we design this to make it, you know, manageable,
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: something that can be managed ongoing instead of this one
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: time compliance project, which I think is a mistake that
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: some restaurant operators have made, is they treat it like
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: we need to hire someone to just put together this
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: allergy matrix. Well, ultimately, this is as you said, it's
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: it's maintenance that needs to happen, and we need to
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: make sure that information is updated as you update menus,
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: because we also want restaurants to be restaurants. We want
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: new menu items, we want seasonal items, right like, we
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: don't want to create a world where we're scared to
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: change a recipe. So what we do is we integrate
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: with back of house systems and the vendor databases. So
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: what the restaurants are buying from the major food suppliers
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: we'll go in there. We have those product databases documented
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: so that we can gather the recipe and ingredient data
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: automatically from them, so they just tell us, basically, here's
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: our recipe and a lot of especially once you get
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: to the larger chains, this is more difficult for the
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: small business restaurants where a lot of this is offline,
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: but for most mid market and chains, they're using an
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: inventory management recipe management system, so we'll pull that from there,
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: we pull the product data, and from there our engine
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: basically standardizes and tags every item against those major allergens
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: and dietary needs and so on the restaurant side, it's
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: really just giving us access to the data and we
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: take it from there so that they're not needing to do,
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: you know, these massive projects.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I'd imagine it's helping create safer kitchens exactly.
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: I think the biggest thing that IRIS tell restaurants is
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: it's just or what I hear. I guess also when
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: we talk to restaurants is having that single source of
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: truth for everyone, both the guests, sure, you know that's
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: the guests love getting access to this information, but also
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: your staff. I think that's one thing that we hear consistently.
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: Is the staff is so relieved to have this documented,
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: both the kitchen staff and the wait staff, because now
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: there is a place to refer to that everyone is
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: consistent on. So if you have someone that started two
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: weeks ago, they don't have to be an expert at
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: every single ingredient on the menu, and the chef knows,
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: and it's a system that everyone is using so that
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: we know if we're changing a recipe, if we're swapping
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: an ingredient. We're all going to keep this information updated
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: together in this one place, so it's safer for ever
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: everyone involved where information doesn't get lost through you know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: word of mouth. We're not holding up, disrupting service, answering questions,
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: but we really have this one source of truth should
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: refer to.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great and it's uh, you know, we'll go
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: create more opportunities for people like my nephew to actually
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: eat and not have to bring food with them wherever
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: he goes. Right, Dylan, what other benefits are your customers
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: seeing outside of of, you know, easing pressure on the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: wait staff.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's interesting.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: On the just to double down on the point, Derek committed,
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: it's culture, right, it's like up to nown a lot
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: of white stuff, and I suppose organized like there's not
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: that people don't necessarily understand the potential consequences of one
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: slip up by forgetting that there's sesame and the whatever.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: And so, again just doubling down what Erica said, the
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: cultural shift of having, you know, technology that's in front
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: of consumers, that everyone knows is in front of consumers,
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: It just shifts the mindset in terms of what we
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: can't take a shortcut here, We do need to do
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: this the way because the consequences could be terrible.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: But in terms of your question.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: I think one of the big ones is the ability
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: to attract more loyal customers, Like you'll know right, I
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: can guarantee your nephew in his area has a handful
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: of restaurants when they do eat out that they'll always
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: go to. I'm the exact same. I know the ones
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: in my area. I know they can cater for me.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: I go there every day for lunch, same thing, right,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: And so just giving that clarity to someone with an
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: allergy that they can eat there is going to attract
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: that new customer and they're going to stay with you.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: The other big point there is the veto vote. Right.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: It's if you're organizing the friend group dinner or the
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: work Christmas party, if you can't clearly see that there's
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: an option for the people in your group that have
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: anot allergy or that are grouten free or whatever, you
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: can't go there, right, that person becomes the veto, and
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden, you take your business to the
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: place down the road that can cater for the group
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: of ten with the two celiacs.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: In terms of the you mentioned the staff questions, we're
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: seeing about a sixty percent reduction in the number of
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: questions being asked to staff by just putting this information
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: back and front customers. So that's pretty pretty significant. And additionally,
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: it's in tandem with that is the reduction in the
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: number of mistakes fifty three point nine percent to be specific,
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: of allergy incidents that our current restaurants occur after the
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: staff have been notified of the allergen. And so that
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: just tells you that the system as it is today,
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: for the most part, is broken and not working. And
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: again coming back to just having that single source of
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: truth takes that largely out of play and The last
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: piece then, is around consumer data. Right now, every time
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: a conversation happens between a member of staff and a
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: consumer or someone clicks into that PDF, that's a last
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: data point. You don't know that there was a gluten
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: free customer or a not allergy customer. You can't connect,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: can't tie us together. You can't use that data to
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: optimize your menu. You don't have the ability to potentially
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: personalize your marketing effort's towards that consumer knowing that they
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: have X allergen. So there is the consumer data we
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: believe and our customers are telling us is extremely valuable
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: to them in a multitude of different ways.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you mentioned the veto vote, which you know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: with ten percent of the population with documented allergies and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: way more people with sensitivities, that veto vote is growing
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: larger and larger by the day.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I know some restaurant tours that are pretty
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: careful about the allergens on their menus, but they don't
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: want to promote themselves as allergen free because you know,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: they don't want to be at risk of cross contamination
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: or an ingredient swap. What would you say to those
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: restaurant owners.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, well, there's two points around that. I suppose.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: One there's the compliance the legal aspect now, which kind
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: of takes a little bit of that out of their
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: hands in terms of, you know, the groups that are called.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: By SB six D.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: I will have to label for allergens now, But I
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: think there's an in between, right. It's like you don't
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: need to go around and shout from the rooftops that
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: everything on your menu is free from X allergens or
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: gluten free or vegan or whatever it might be. But
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: it's funny like people who have these problems will pick
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: the words out very quickly. Like every time I see
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: gluten free anywhere on the menu, it's like my eyes
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: just go straight to instantly, because it's that is what
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: I'm looking for as that consumer. And similarly, you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: if you have your allergen menu, which is separate to
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: your to your regular menu, consumers that have an allergen
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: will spot that straight away and they will go there.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: The consumers that don't have the problem don't even see
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: it on the page. They just glay straight over it
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: because they never have to think about that in their lives.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: But you know, it doesn't impact their experience. So that's
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: the way we've always looked at it is having to
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: kind of keep your regular experience for the guests that
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: don't have any of these issues, but then have a bespoke,
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: personalized experience for those that do that still makes them
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: feel included and not you know, like a priya and
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: a nuisance.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: For sure, Erica, how do you help restaurants manage the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: balance between being transparent and then the operational complexities of
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: running a restaurant like being you know, out of stock,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: like the food service distributor being out of stock on
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: an item and that causing a last minute ingredient switch.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think the reality is this is already
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: happening today, right, and so it's it's something that when
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: we talk to you know, different restaurants and food safety
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: teams right now, they're managing this all manually, and the
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: challenge is they're updating their systems manually and rarely updating
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: any menus, and so the information isn't getting to the consumer.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: So I think the big thing that's also you know,
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: the elephant in the room, we'll call it, and this
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: is the fear of liability right where restaurants are just
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: so scared of if I put it in writing, then
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: if there's a swap or there's a mistake, then they're
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: going to come out for me with the pitchforks. But
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: I think if we wait for this to be perfect
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: in terms of tracking from when the you know, lettuce
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: leaf is picked from the farm to when it's mixed
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: in with the salad, and you know we're going to
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: be it's we're at least probably five to ten.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: Years out at least.
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: So where we are today is this population is so
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: so large, and this group of people is so frustrated,
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: and does they want basic tracking of what is meant
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: to be in the dish. We protect the restaurants with disclaimers.
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: We do make sure that we say that this is
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: what is meant to be, but there are product swaps
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: and that this is to the best knowledge, and there
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: are ingredients that can change. We're not trying to dissway.
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: If you are someone with a food allergy, if your
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: nephew is going out to eat, he's still going to
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: let them know he has a food allergy, because that's important.
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: But what we are trying to do is at least
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: make sure that he knows before he goes that this
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: restaurant has some options for him, so that he doesn't
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: skip them and keep going to those same few places,
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: or not go out to eat because he's too nervous.
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: So I think we just need to be a little
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: bit more comfortable with getting it out there that it's
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: not perfect, but we're all doing our best effort to
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: at least document it so that we have that transparency
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: for both their staff as well as the guests.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: And to add to that, the SB sixty eight legislation
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: also had had a few amendments to kind of capture
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: that they added in the wording around when it comes
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: to a liability for restaurants around knows or reasonably should know,
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: And that I think is to cover off those edge
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: case instances which Erica referred to we all know happen
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: all the time, where again a supply at the last
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: minute swap something out there was you know, no one
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: was really notified. It found its way into the dishes,
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: and this had soybean oil, whereas the thing yesterday didn't.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: And so again it's I don't think the intent of
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: the bill is that there is a twenty four to
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: seven you know, someone monitoring every single thing that comes
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: into the kitchen. It's you know, once you have a
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: robust process, to the best of your ability, within a
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: pragmatic manner, capture these changes. If this these edge crazy
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: edge cases do occur, that you should be protected in
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: terms of SB sixty eight in any case.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Very cool, Dylan does Sfordini, Well, that not does, but
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: for Deani's working on helping customers find restaurants that will
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: work for the allergies they have. Correct, can talk a
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: little bit about what you're doing there.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I suppose there's a few ways.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: One is, as we kind of alluded to, if anyone
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: with food outergies planning on going out to eat, the
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: first thing they're going to do is check that restaurant
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: menu to see is there something they can eat there.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: So currently a lot of the big enterprise groups who
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: are the kind of only ones really who have these
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: allergen matrixes out. It's a twenty page PDF that's unreadable
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: on your phone, semi readable with zoom on your desktop,
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: and still not clear and still you know, just not
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: a very easy experienced to navigate, especially if you have
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: more than one.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Right, if you know, it just becomes trickier and trickier.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: So by building this into your website, which is where
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: we primarily live, it again just gives that consumer. When
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: someone suggests, let's go to X VENU for lunch, two seconds,
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: they can figure out, yeah, great, I have fifteen items
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: i'd need here done, let's book it. So we're driving
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: consumers to restaurants that way. We do have another product
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: which we haven't rolled out across the board yet, which
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: is more on consumer discovery, so that all of the
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: restaurants that are in our ecosystem are listed there and
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: at the community that we're building, which again is a
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: community that are constantly looking for these things, can discover
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: other restaurants in their vicinity that also have all their
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: allergy and information there and again go through that same
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: personalized menu experience. So like ultimately objective is to continue
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: to drive these consumers who are fearful to go out
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: to restaurants that can cater for them and ultimately drive
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: more restaurants revenue to those restaurants.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you two are doing important work. I love it,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: love to see it. We should both luck and thanks
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: for doing this.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Not at all our pleasure, and thank you very much
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: for having us on.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, and I want to thank the audience
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. If you liked our conversation, please share
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: with your friends and colleagues. Check back soon for another
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: interview on chopping it Up.