INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

Yum! Brands sells struggling Pizza Hut in $2.7 billion deal

Yum! Brands said Tuesday that it is selling Pizza Hut in a $2.7 billion deal that will split ownership of the restaurant chain between a U.S. private equity firm and a Chinese restaurant company.

Pizza Hut, excluding the mainland China business, will be sold to LongRange Capital for $1.5 billion, while Pizza Hut China will be sold by Yum China Holdings for $1.2 billion, the company said in a news release.

“Under LongRange and Yum China, Pizza Hut will be well positioned for future growth with ownership that brings deep expertise in the restaurant industry,” Yum Brands CEO Chris Turner said in a statement.

LongRange Capital was founded in 2019 by Bob Berlin, who led a turnaround at fast-food chain Arby’s. On Tuesday, he said he was looking forward to working with Pizza Hut’s executive team and franchisees “to drive its next phase of growth.”

Yum China was previously part of Yum! Brands but was spun off in 2016.

Lagging sales
The Pizza Hut sale follows years of underperformance. Yum’s latest earnings report shows Pizza Hut’s sales growth lagging that of its other major restaurant chains, such as KFC and Taco Bell. In February, Yum! Brands said it would close 250 Pizza Hut locations in the U.S. The pizza chain has over 6,000 locations nationwide.

“Pizza Hut has long been the weak link in Yum’s portfolio,” Neil Saunders, managing director and retail analyst at GlobalData, said in an email Tuesday. “Despite efforts to revitalize the brand and shut underperforming locations, it has become increasingly clear that pushing the division back into growth will require a level of investment and patience that Yum is just not prepared to commit to.”

Pizza Hut is losing market share to Domino’s, which has surpassed the chain in ordering, delivery, menu innovation and marketing, Saunders added. The company has also been squeezed in recent years by the growth of DoorDash, Uber Eats and other restaurant delivery companies as diners migrate from in-person dining to online orders.

Yum! Brands started exploring options for Pizza Hut in November, following declining sales. Pizza Hut’s U.S. sales were down 8.2% last year, according to restaurant consulting firm Technnomic.

Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, by two brothers, Frank and Dan Carney. They chose the name because their sign could fit only eight letters, according to the Associated Press. PepsiCo bought the chain in 1977 but spun off its restaurant division in 1997, which became Yum! Brands.

Source https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pizza-hut-sale-yum-brands/

 

Taco Bell offering free ’emotional support’ tacos for World Cup fans

Whether fans are celebrating a big World Cup victory or trying to cope with a heartbreaking loss, Taco Bell says it has them covered with free tacos.

The fast-food chain has launched L.O.C.O.S., short for Loss Or Celebration Outcome Support, an “emotional support taco” campaign timed to this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup.

The promotion runs through July 13 and is available to Taco Bell Rewards members through the Taco Bell app.

Fans can select either Celebration Mode or Support Mode, depending on how they’re feeling after a match, then complete in-app challenges to earn rewards. The first time users play the game, they’ll unlock a free taco with a qualifying purchase, and they can continue participating in weekly challenges for additional rewards and exclusive merchandise.

Several wrapped Taco Bell tacos featuring L.O.C.O.S. promotional stickers for the chain’s World Cup-themed “emotional support taco” campaign.
Taco Bell’s new L.O.C.O.S. (Loss Or Celebration Outcome Support) campaign offers rewards members free tacos and other prizes during the FIFA Club World Cup through July 13. (Taco Bell)
Taco Bell says the campaign is meant to embrace the emotional highs and lows that come with sports fandom.

“Fandom has a way of making every moment feel bigger — the wins feel sweeter, the stakes feel higher, and Taco Bell has always been there to support those moments,” Taylor Montgomery, Taco Bell’s global chief brand officer, said in a statement.As part of the campaign, Taco Bell is also hosting fan activations in Los Angeles and New York featuring free tacos, interactive experiences and giveaways.

The company says L.O.C.O.S. is designed to continue beyond this summer’s tournament, showing up during future sports rivalries and other major cultural moments when fans may need a little emotional support… and a taco.

Source https://ktla.com/news/consumer-business/taco-bell-offering-free-emotional-support-tacos-for-world-cup-fans/

 

Olive Garden’s smaller siblings take on a bigger role

LongHorn Steakhouse and Yard House are becoming major contributors for Darden Restaurants, which it attributes to the strength of its portfolio strategy.

In 2019, Olive Garden was the workhorse in the Darden Restaurant family of brands, accounting for half of the company’s total sales and 55% of its profits.

Fast-forward seven years, and it’s become more of a team effort at the Orlando-based company.

In Darden’s last fiscal year, which ended in May, Olive Garden made up 42% of sales and 47% of segment profits. The rest came from Darden’s eight other brands: LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, Ruth’s Chris, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, The Capital Grille, Chuy’s, Seasons 52, and Eddie V’s.

It’s not that Olive Garden is shrinking. The 949-unit Italian chain remains Darden’s largest brand, and a steady contributor, with revenue growth of more than 7% in fiscal 2026.

But its sibling brands, especially 618-unit LongHorn, are growing faster. Of the non-Olive Garden revenue and profit growth in the company’s fiscal 2026, LongHorn accounted for about half of it, with the rest of the brands contributing the remainder.

Darden executives shared these data points during an earnings call Thursday to highlight the success of the company’s portfolio strategy as it enters its 32nd fiscal year as a publicly traded company.

Over that time, the company has created or acquired an array of concepts with the goal of both reaching more customers and increasing its scale. This has given the company more buying power, and has helped defend it against changing tastes and economic trends. That, Darden says, is translating into companywide growth.

For Darden’s last fiscal year, which ended in May, consolidated same-store sales rose 4.5%, exceeding its long-term framework of 1.5% to 3.5% growth. That was driven by its largest brands — Olive Garden (4%), LongHorn (7.2%), and Yard House (5.6%) — despite a tough economic backdrop. And all of Darden’s segments, which are Olive Garden, LongHorn, fine dining, and “other business,” generated positive same-store sales for the year.

“That is the value of the portfolio that we have,” CEO Rick Cardenas said during the call. “We’re not relying on any one brand, and we’re not relying on any one cuisine.”

The portfolio approach has been part of Darden’s playbook since at least the early 1980s, when it developed Olive Garden to pair with its then-flagship concept, Red Lobster. It would go on to create Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52 before shifting to M&A, adding LongHorn and Capital Grille with the acquisition of Rare Hospitality in 2007.

It went on to buy Eddie V’s, Yard House, Cheddar’s, Ruth’s Chris, and, most recently, Chuy’s, en route to becoming the largest full-service restaurant company in the world, with more than 2,200 locations, $13 billion in annual revenue, and two of the 10 largest U.S. casual-dining chains in Olive Garden and LongHorn. Yard House is No. 11.

The approach has not always yielded success. An early creation, China Coast, failed within five years, and the company sold Red Lobster under pressure from investors in 2013. Earlier this year, Darden shut down the struggling Bahama Breeze, with plans to convert 11 locations into other concepts. Cheddar’s has grown total sales by just 5.7% since Darden bought it in 2017, per Technomic data.

Nonetheless, Darden argues that its scale enables its brands to do better together than they would on their own. Its in-house food distribution network helps keep costs down, for instance, and a proprietary POS system helps restaurants operate better. This has translated to strong unit economics: Olive Garden’s 24.3% restaurant-level margins are the best in the casual-dining industry.

Darden’s platform also allows all of its brands to share in its renowned operating philosophy, which is centered on food, service, and atmosphere, as well as its vast trove of customer data.

“Our smaller brands benefit from the learnings generated from our larger brands, and because of our platform, they can tailor sophisticated media plans to their specific business needs,” Cardenas said.

As an example, he pointed to data-driven menu upgrades at Yard House over the past three years. The tavern concept’s new burgers, pizza, and tacos are easier to execute and more popular with customers, he said, which has contributed to its success.

Darden expects fiscal 2027 to be another year of growth, projecting companywide same-store sales growth of 2.5% to 3.5%. That’s not as strong as 2026, but still within its long-term framework.

Darden will also ramp up its development activity, targeting 75 to 80 new openings, plus 11 Bahama Breeze conversions. All told, it could amount to up to 20 more openings than fiscal 2026, when it added 71 restaurants.

And though the company said it does not need to buy more brands to continue hitting its benchmarks, it has not ruled out doing so, either.

“We work with what we have in front of us, which is the brands we have today and converting those remaining Bahama Breezes,” Cardenas said. “That’s quite some work for our teams. It’s going to be very valuable to us. But we’re going to focus on the brands we have until there’s another brand.”

Source https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/olive-gardens-smaller-siblings-take-bigger-role

 

A Popular Burger Restaurant Faces Uncertainty At 49 Locations After Franchisee Bankruptcy

In April 2026, several subsidiaries of California-based Friendly Franchisees Corporation (FFC) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, with a number of brick-and-mortar restaurants likely to feel the effects. FFC owns 65 Carl’s Jr. locations in California — and the owner, Harshad Dharod, intends to sell off the vast majority of them as he undergoes the bankruptcy process. While 10 are slated to be closed, the fate of the others remains unknown.

With the court-supervised aid of a liquidation firm, FFC intends to sell 49 of its Carl’s Jr. stores. Per the LA Times, the firm reported it is already in touch with potential buyers to take over these restaurants. However, confirmed sales have yet to materialize, as of late June 2026. Since Carl’s Jr. has 610 locations in California — which isn’t even close to the chains with the most U.S. locations — this leaves both the staff and patrons of roughly 8% of the state’s Carl’s Jr. locations stuck in limbo.

With that said, the liquidation firm reported it was common for current employees of franchise locations to keep their jobs when stores change ownership. Similarly, Carl’s Jr. representatives have made it clear that these location sales, and closures, are isolated to FFC’s holdings specifically. So, while there may be a lot of fast food chains slowly disappearing throughout the U.S., Carl’s Jr. as a whole doesn’t appear to be crashing down just yet.

Why FFC is parting ways with so many Carl’s Jr. locations

Maksim Safaniuk/Getty Images

Reportedly, each of the FFC subsidiaries that filed for bankruptcy held less than $50,000 in assets and liabilities when they underwent Chapter 11 proceedings. Dharos cited California’s $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers — which went into effect in April 2024 — as a driving force behind his financial struggles, claiming that these added payroll costs inhibited the financial viability of his restaurant locations. However, per the LA Times, there’s a staff of roughly 1,000 people across all FFC-owned Carl’s Jr. locations, and the franchisee’s attempts to cut operational costs in response to increased overhead created hazardous working conditions for many of these employees.

It’s also worth mentioning that it’s not just Carl’s Jr. locations feeling the heat: Jack in the Box closed a ton of locations in 2025, and a Circana study found that Carl’s Jr. customers’ spending dropped 4% nationwide that year (via Restaurant Dive). Likewise, customers have caught on to the fact that prices have risen significantly at Carl’s Jr. and among many of its competitors in recent years, which could mean that other popular burger joints, and their franchisees, could wind up in similarly positions as FFC before long.

Source: https://www.moneydigest.com/2202091/carls-jr-popular-burger-restaurant-uncertainty-49-locations-franchisee-bankruptcy/

 

Red Lobster creditors say former owner used Endless Shrimp to enrich itself

A lawsuit claims that seafood supplier Thai Union steered the chain to buy more shrimp, culminating in the all-you-can-eat promotion that preceded its bankruptcy.

Red Lobster’s former controlling stakeholder steered the restaurant to buy more of its shrimp in order to line its own pockets, according to a lawsuit from creditors of the restaurant chain.

According to the suit, filed last month in Orange County, Florida, seafood supplier Thai Union Group treated Red Lobster as a distribution arm for its own products, even when that hurt Red Lobster, paving the way to its bankruptcy in May 2024.

The alleged self-dealing culminated with Red Lobster’s disastrous Ultimate Endless Shrimp promotion in 2023, which offered customers unlimited servings of shrimp for $20. The lawsuit says the deal generated tens of millions of dollars in overpriced shrimp orders for Thai Union while hammering Red Lobster’s operations and bottom line.

The lawsuit was filed by the Red Lobster GUC Trust, which was formed in September of 2024 in part to pursue litigation against Thai Union on behalf of Red Lobster’s lenders.

It names 13 defendants, including Thailand-based Thai Union and affiliates; the company’s CEO, Thiraphong Chansiri; and Paul Kenny, a Thai Union employee who also served as Red Lobster’s CEO for much of the period in question.

It calls for a jury trial to determine the damages owed by the defendants.

According to the lawsuit:

Thai Union had been supplying Red Lobster with seafood since the 1990s. In 2016, it took a 25% stake in the company with the goal of growing its direct-to-consumer business. Four years later, Thai Union and Paul Kenny created a new company, Seafood Alliance. Thai Union, Seafood Alliance, and affiliates then acquired a majority stake in Red Lobster from private-equity firm Golden Gate Capital.

Red Lobster was in the process of rebounding from COVID-19 and had hired a new CEO, Kelli Valade, in August 2021. But it faced challenges with inflation, rising labor costs, and consumer demand, and was struggling to generate a profit for its new owners.

This led several Thai Union executives, including Kenny, to take on a deeper role at Red Lobster, relocating to its Orlando headquarters. They were purportedly there to advise the company, but Kenny made it clear he was now in charge. Valade stepped down after just seven months on the job, and Kenny became interim CEO in August 2022. Valade said internally that Kenny’s interference was part of the reason she resigned.

Kenny, along with several other Thai Union employees named in the lawsuit, acted as Thai Union’s “boots on the ground” within Red Lobster. Their primary goal was to steer the restaurant chain to buy more shrimp from the company.

Under their leadership, “the emphasis on shrimp reached new heights” at Red Lobster, appearing in more dishes and promotions. Thai Union also took control of Red Lobster’s shrimp purchasing process, which had historically relied on multiple suppliers and a formal bidding process.

In mid-2023, Kenny banned one of Red Lobster’s longtime pre-breaded shrimp suppliers “due to minor infractions unrelated to food safety.” As a result, Thai Union won all of Red Lobster’s pre-breaded shrimp contracts from September 2023 to February 2024, giving the company control of 46% of Red Lobster’s total shrimp business.

In May 2023, Kenny ordered Red Lobster to launch Ultimate Endless Shrimp for $20. Red Lobster had offered the deal in the past, but as a limited-time special. Under Kenny, it would be available every day. He also pushed the chain to include higher-quality shrimp in the offer without raising the price point. This was despite objections from Red Lobster employees, who told him the deal would lead to losses beyond whatever traffic it generated.

To help the restaurants meet the impending demand for shrimp, Kenny told Thai Union to begin ramping up production, side-stepping the chain’s typical supply chain process.

He also ordered the restaurants to promote the shrimp deal aggressively in restaurants, in addition to its normal practice of using out-of-store channels to advertise the deal.

The Ultimate Endless Shrimp went live in late June, and demand was double what the company had anticipated.

The result was chaos. Customers flocked to Red Lobster for cheap shrimp, camping out at tables and quickly depleting the chain’s shrimp supply, all while the chain lost money. Kenny again asked Thai Union to produce more shrimp to meet the shortfall and refused suggestions that Red Lobster re-engage with the banned supplier. Ultimate Endless Shrimp would ultimately cost Red Lobster tens of millions of dollars.

In September, Kenny decided to raise prices on Endless Shrimp, and demand began to ease. Red Lobster General Counsel Horace Dawson was named CEO.

Days later, Red Lobster defaulted on a $275 million loan from Fortress Investment Group. Fortress and Thai Union worked on an out-of-court restructuring of Red Lobster’s finances, but negotiations failed when Thai Union declined to invest additional capital, and Fortress declined to provide new loans.

In January 2024, with bankruptcy looming, Thai Union announced that it planned to divest from Red Lobster.

The chain filed for bankruptcy in May 2024, with about $300 million in debt, after closing dozens of restaurants across the country. It exited that September via a sale to a group led by Fortress.

In April, Red Lobster brought Endless Shrimp back for the first time since bankruptcy, but for a limited time, and starting at $24.99.

Nation’s Restaurant News has reached out to Thai Union for comment.

Source https://www.nrn.com/casual-dining/red-lobster-creditors-say-former-owner-used-endless-shrimp-to-enrich-itself

 

Starbucks will pilot employee-created content on TikTok

‘Green Apron Creators’ chosen for the program will receive compensation.

Starbucks will begin a pilot later this summer allowing select employees to create content for TikTok and share in ad revenue.

Starbucks announced it is the first brand to pilot custom Creator Networks in Content Suite, a new integrated offering that connects content creation and ad revenue-sharing on TikTok for employee content creators. The pilot builds on Starbucks Green Apron Creators program, which was introduced last year. For that program, Starbucks hired two full-time “global coffee creators” to capture their experiences at locations around the world.

“Every day, our partners bring Starbucks to life by creating moments of connection with our customers and with each other. And more than ever, they are sharing those moments with the world online in authentic, creative and unique ways.” Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Erin Silvoy said in a statement. “Collaborating with TikTok provided us with the opportunity to build a customized tool that allows us to celebrate and amplify our partners’ authentic storytelling.”

Related:Dunkin’ introduces a collectible cup to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary

The Creator Networks were built to allow advertisers to recruit employees or advocates to share creative briefs with and turn their content into ads. The goal is to turn user-generated content into paid ads and share a portion of that ad spend.

“As we continue to innovate in the employee creator space, we see this pilot as an opportunity to learn, test, and evolve what comes next,” Silvoy said.

According to the company, Starbucks employees post three times more than employees at similar-sized retailers, which was an impetus behind the Green Apron Creators launch, which spans social media channels. The TikTok pilot leverages the chain’s 3.2 million followers on that specific platform and will be used to inform the potential expansion of a revenue-sharing model.

“On TikTok, some of the most compelling brand stories come from the people who know a brand best,” Global Head of Creative and Brand Products Andy Yang said in a statement. “With custom Creator Networks within Content Suite, we’re creating new opportunities for employees, partners, and advocates to participate in the creator economy and share authentic stories that resonate with their community. By helping brands discover, activate, and scale this trusted content, we’re enabling a more authentic and impactful approach to marketing.”

The Starbucks/TikTok pilot also marks a continued shift toward leveraging employees as brand ambassadors. Not too long ago, employees were punished or even fired for posting from work, but now they’re part of the overall marketing strategy as they convey authentic moments from behind the counter. Other brands have started to embrace similar “internal influencer” programs featuring employee-created content, including Portillo’s and First Watch.

Source https://www.nrn.com/marketing-branding/starbucks-will-pilot-employee-created-content-on-tiktok

 

Mass closures became a lot more common last year

The number of Technomic Top 500 restaurant chains that closed 10% or more of their locations soared last year, but the same thing was happening before the pandemic.

We’ve written a lot about mass closures and systemwide shutdowns of late, certainly more than we’d like.

We’ve also unpacked, at length, the factors creating a macroeconomic environment driving many of these closures, from higher food costs to suffocating (and expensive) debt.

But is it worse today than it was before the pandemic? Or is this just recency bias?

The answer: Yes and no.

We gathered Technomic data showing the number of Top 500 chains that have closed 10% or more of their systemwide units on each of the past three years’ worth of lists. Last year, 33 restaurant chains closed 10% or more of their locations, nearly double the 17 that did so in 2023.

Go back further, however, and last year’s data looks a lot closer to the norm than the exception, despite recent headlines about significant retrenchments at legacy brands like TGI Fridays, Rubio’s, Hooters, Red Lobster, and Buca di Beppo.

Check out this graphic on the percentage of chains that closed 10% or more locations per year since 2015:

We chose 10% because it represents a significant rate of closures at a brand large enough to earn a spot on the ranking of the country’s largest restaurant chains.

The 33 chains that closed 10% or more of their system was actually lower than the 35 that did so in 2019.

If we remove 2020 from the graphic, when 75 chains went through mass closures, the graphic shows that both 2019 and 2025 were anomalous—but they were also on the upswing.

The two years after the pandemic, the industry stayed relatively afloat thanks to government relief loans like the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan. In 2021, 27 top 500 chains experienced a 10%-plus retrenchment, while that number dropped to 21 in 2022.

As those programs ran out, restaurants started to run out of cash and closures increased again. In 2024, 27 chains reported mass closures.

Yet the same trend was also evident before the pandemic, as chains averaged 25 mass closure events from 2016 to 2018 and then the number jumped to 35 in 2019.

What does this mean? This industry ebbs and flows. It’s always ebbed and flowed and in the few years leading up to the pandemic, it was flowing pretty heavily.

It’s easy to forget, but restaurants were having challenges before the pandemic. The industry was experiencing weak traffic in 2018 because it was simply too full. The space, fueled by hungry investors and the rapid emergence of the fast-casual category, overcorrected and oversaturated after downsizing during the Great Recession.

The pandemic was supposed to correct the industry’s oversaturation, and it did to some extent. But once sales returned, restaurant chains started building again, more than recovering units lost in 2020.

Yet new challenges emerged, like third-party delivery, massive inflation, and consumer cutbacks. And once again, a large sector of the chain restaurant industry finds itself having to retrench.

Source https://www.nrn.com/top-500-restaurants/mass-closures-became-a-lot-more-common-last-year

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FOODSERVICE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES

Equipment Trends on Tap at FER’s How To Spec Live

Attendees will gain access to panel discussions and equipment demos focused on how to select certain equipment at the FER event.

perators, design consultants and dealers who play a role in specifying equipment will gain the intel they need to get ahead at FER’s first-ever How To Spec Live, presented by California Foodservice Instant Rebates. Held in September, the event will take place at the new Frontier Energy Food Service Tech Center in Pleasanton, Calif.

Event highlights include the following:

Expert-Led Panel Discussions
A mix of operators, consultants, dealers and suppliers, plus FER editors, will lead the sessions, each focused on specifying certain equipment. Confirmed panelists include Dennis Clark, major projects kitchen designer, Pappas Restaurants; Peter Cryan, vice president, world class facilities, Chipotle Mexican Grill; Lara Hardcastle, senior vice president, Farmers Restaurant Group; Taylor Maertens, senior project manager, Bargreen Ellingson; Ed Powers, director of operations, Broken Yolk Cafe; and Michelle Wallroth, project manager, Ricca Design Studios.

Equipment Demos
After the panel discussions, attendees will see the equipment in action. The equipment categories covered in 2026 are fryers, high-speed ovens, ice machines, walk-ins, combi ovens, induction and ventilation. Suppliers will have reps on hand to answer any questions.

Networking Opportunities
In typical FER fashion, How To Spec Live will deliver plenty of chances to mix and mingle. With only limited space available, the event will provide meaningful face time typically not found at trade shows. Two hosted group dinners will offer a chance to unwind, relax and enjoy Pleasanton.

How To Spec Live will take place Sept. 23-25, 2026. To register, visit fermag.com/how-to-spec-live.

Source https://www.fermag.com/articles/equipment-trends-on-tap-at-fers-how-to-spec-live/

 

Thompson to Lead Convotherm in the U.S.

Welbilt, an Ali Group company, appointed Bill Thompson to serve as general manager of Convotherm U.S., effective July 1, 2026.

Bill Thompson
Thompson joined Welbilt in 2012 and since 2023 he served as vice president of global sales for Merrychef. Prior to that, Thompson held a variety of roles with increasing responsibility across both the Convotherm and Merrychef equipment lines. His previous positions at Convotherm include field marketing manager for North and South America, and director of product management.

“His deep understanding of the business, combined with his proven leadership and global perspective, position him well to lead the Convotherm US organization forward,” said Claus Pedersen, president of Convotherm in a statement.

Brand snapshot: Welbilt
Parent company: Ali Group
Business type: Multi-line foodservice equipment manufacturer
U.S. Headquarters: Vernon Hills, Ill.

Source https://fesmag.com/topics/the-latest-news/23739-thompson-to-lead-convotherm-in-the-u-s

 

Unox Expands North American Sales Team

Unox hired Jermaine Richardson to serve as regional sales manager for its South Central and Rocky Mountain regions.

Jermaine Richardson Headshot
Jermaine Richardson
In this role, Richardson will support customers, dealers, consultants, and distributors across Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Richardson’s foodservice industry experience spans more than 18 years, including “13 years in commercial food equipment and five years in food manufacturing sales,” per a release announcing his hiring.

Throughout his career, Richardson has worked with “foodservice operators ranging from restaurant chains, large and small, to institutional and K-12 operators,” the release added.

Richardson joins Unox shortly after the company opened it’s a manufacturing facility in North Carolina, its first such facility in the U.S.

Brand Snapshot: Unox

Business type: Manufacturer of cooking equipment used in commercial kitchens
U.S. headquarters: Denver, N.C.
Scope of service: Unox does business in more than 110 countries

Source https://fesmag.com/topics/the-latest-news/23722-unox-expands-north-american-sales-team

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TABLETOP & FRONT OF HOUSE

The ROI of Unboxing

With off-premises dining capturing a massive share of restaurant revenue, packaging has become a storefront marketing tool that brands must treat as a proxy for hospitality and intentionally design the unboxing experience.

“The real opportunity is less about how the box looks and more about how it makes the guest feel,” said Alexis Gillette, VP of Brand Management at Craveworthy Brands. “A package can do quiet work — a thank-you, an easy way to reorder, a perk for coming back to us directly — that turns a one-time delivery into a guest who comes back. Done right, it doesn’t feel like a hard sell; it feels like hospitality that happens to convert. That’s the headroom, and it’s where we’re leaning in.”

Packaging as a New Storefront
This matters most where there’s the least to fall back on as eight of Craveworthy’s 22 brands are virtual and delivery-first, with no dining room and no host, Gillette added. There, the package is the only touchpoint the guest gets, so it’s where they extend the experience and where the relationship has to start. The package is also important as much of Craveworthy’s delivery business comes through third-party partners, and on those orders the platform owns the guest along with the data and the relationship.

“The delivery package is the one piece we actually own: it lands in the guest’s home, gets full attention for the two or three minutes of unboxing, and no algorithm decides whether they see it,” said Gillette. “That makes it the single best tool we have to do the one thing third-party reach can’t — turn a borrowed customer into a direct, first-party guest we keep.”

To optimize packaging, brands should always start with the bite and then build around it, said Kristin Albert, Craveworthy’s SVP of Corporate Operations.

Food-First Focus
“The food is the product. Packaging exists to protect and present it, not the other way around. Brand efforts won’t make much of an impact if the fries arrive soggy or the lid pops in the bag. So before we talk about a logo, the specifications have to survive a real delivery journey — hold temperature, hold structure, no leaks — and let the food clear our Craveworthy standard when the container’s opened.”

Every packaging decision has to be an additive to the business and the brand with the best moves doing both jobs at once, noted Gillette.

“Never design in a vacuum. Take something as small as a cup — at our coffee brand, Gregorys Coffee, a simple design can deliver everything the current one does for the guest and the brand at a lower cost, with the savings landing right on the margin of every drink. That’s the test — save money but lower the brand, and it isn’t optimization, or look great but bleed margin, and it isn’t either. You want the change that earns both.”

On top of that, design for how the product actually gets seen, Gillette advised, because delivery orders get photographed whether you planned for it or not.

“Give the guest a frictionless reason to reorder direct and hold a consistent standard across all brands so each one reads like itself in every market.”

The Promise of Perceived Value
Effective packaging can drive perceived value and, once again, it starts with the food with the only question that matters is if it shows up the way it should, Gillette noted.

Napkins might be the most forgotten item in delivery, and the one there’s never enough of — get them right, and the guest feels taken care of, even if they couldn’t tell you why.

“If it’s been knocked around because the packaging didn’t preserve it, we’ve potentially lost the guest; no clever design saves a $10.00 sandwich that arrives crushed and cold. So, the packaging a dish genuinely needs isn’t a place to cut corners — it’s table stakes, cost of doing business. Get that right and the value takes care of itself: a solid, sealed container tells the guest the food was worth what they paid, and the wait, untouched from our kitchen to their door.”

Much of perceived value is simply removing every reason to feel let down such the leak that didn’t happen, the dip that was actually in the bag and enough napkins, Gillette said, adding that, in fact, napkins might be the most forgotten item in delivery, and the one there’s never enough of — get them right, and the guest feels taken care of, even if they couldn’t tell you why.

“Those details are what people remember as ‘this brand has it together,’ and they trace straight back to a team that cares about the guest experience, no matter the form the order takes.”

Be Intentional
To avoid mistakes and capitalize on marketing opportunities, operators need to be intentional with package marketing instead of just filing it under cost of goods, Gillette advised.

One missed opportunity Albert noted was branding the bag instead of the box as the bag gets torn open and tossed while the container is what sits on the guest’s table.

“Put your money where the guest actually interacts. On a delivery order your team cannot greet the guest, engage with them or fix an issue on the spot. We’re a people-first company that values human interaction, and the packaging must carry the hospitality our team would have delivered in person. So, we built the system that lets a team member execute it exceptionally, no matter the day or time, because the packaging is only as good as the hands that pack it.”

Another mistake to avoid is using a less expensive material and finding out at the guest’s table that it didn’t hold up. Try to test under various conditions including drive time before you commit, Albert suggested.

It’s also vital to have consistency across the board because when every operator buys their own packaging, you don’t have a cohesive brand; you have 300 versions of one.

“Consolidated purchasing is important,” said Albert. “With our restaurant platform, we drive the cost down through scale.”

The Tech Factor
Technology must be an integral part of the delivery packaging experience for at least one operational reason that matters more on delivery than anything else, Albert pointed out.

“When an order comes through a third-party platform, it owns the customer data – not you as a brand. A smart code on the package is how you connect with that guest and build that relationship.”

Scan to join loyalty, scan to reorder in one tap, scan to leave feedback, scan to unlock the next offer. Make it worth the guest’s thumb.

It’s also an early-warning system for feedback on guest experience because a scan can catch a problem at the guest’s table and let you make it right before it becomes a public review that everyone can read, Albert said.

“Used in such a way, the packaging becomes a channel for data capture and service recovery that otherwise hands operators neither. That is real value flowing back to the operators.”

The package is a doorway and the simplest door is a QR code, but only if it does something intentional, Gillette added.

“Scan to join loyalty, scan to reorder in one tap, scan to leave feedback, scan to unlock the next offer. Make it worth the guest’s thumb.”

To keep packaging costs minimal, but still authentic to the brand, Albert suggests to spend where it’s seen and touched; cut where it isn’t.

“Right-size while you’re at it – most operators are paying to ship air and matching the container to the portion cuts material cost and improves how the food presents. Win-win.”

The greatest lever is scale, Albert said, as consolidating stock keeping units (SKUs) and buying across the portfolio is how you hold spec quality while costs climb. It’s a core reason Craveworthy centralizes the supply chain across every brand instead of letting each concept go at it alone.

Match the Material to the Concept
Lastly, authenticity doesn’t necessarily mean expensive, Albert noted.

“We don’t soul-strip brands to save costs; we match the material honestly to the concept, and for the right brand, simple can read as more genuine, not less. A great-looking container with a branded sleeve or stamp gets you most of the impact of a full custom print at a fraction of the cost and lets you change the creative on a dime.”

The cheapest packaging in the building is the one that doesn’t generate a refund,

The cheapest packaging in the building is the one that doesn’t generate a refund, Albert explained.

“A remake, a complimentary item or a one-star review from a leaked or cold order costs the operator far more than the few cents saved on the box. Protecting that margin is protecting the partner.”

The number one thing guests want and expect is that the order is correct, complete, and hot, Gillette said.

“It’s food-first, and it gets overlooked more than anyone wants to admit. Miss on any of those and no discount, coupon or personalization will help. At Gregorys, we’ll put a guest’s preferred name on the cup with a kind note; simple, real and human. There’s an affinity to earn, too.”

Quality Product and Quality Messaging
When the packaging is genuinely good quality, guests keep it and a recognizable cup becomes a brand symbol they carry around with them, Gillette added.

“On messaging, the evergreen play is loyalty: put the program and its benefits right where the guest is already looking.”

Seasonal is the other lever because a timely, relevant design gives brands a natural reason to re-engage without a hard sell. And if you do add an incentive, make it one that pulls them to order direct next time, Gillette noted.

“The discipline through all of its restraint is one thing done well beats packaging shouting five messages at once.”

The way to measure ROI of delivery packaging is to bet on our food, always being it’s the foundation, Albert and Gillette agree. Packaging has one job: get that food to the guest exactly the way it’s made and the returning customer rate is the reflection.

“It’s the simplest, truest signal there is, because guests don’t come back for a container. They come back for the food, and for the packaging that brought it to them right.

You can put numbers around it, of course — reorder rate, third-party orders that convert to direct; the remakes you stop paying for in food cost. But it all rolls up to the same question: do they come back?

Source https://modernrestaurantmanagement.com/the-roi-of-unboxing/

 

KFC unveils brand revamp with new menu, drinks and store formats

The brand overhaul includes a refreshed bucket logo, store design, and food and beverage line-up.

uick-service restaurant (QSR) chain KFC is rolling out a worldwide brand overhaul spanning food, beverages, restaurant design and visual identity.

The company is adding more boneless options, supported by a new global sauce “pantry” of more than 20 sauces.

These sauces will be paired with the extended range of boneless items and incorporated into an expanded “Dunked” line, which features tenders, wings and sandwiches already on offer in South Africa and India.

Its KWENCH by KFC beverage platform is also being scaled up, featuring Boba Refreshers and Krunch Shakes.

After trials in the UK and Ireland, these drinks will become permanent in Australia and Canada this year.

The phased rollout begins in the coming weeks in the UK and Ireland, before extending to Australia and the US.

Additional markets are expected to follow through this year.

KFC will also introduce updated branding, including a refreshed bucket logo and new treatment of Colonel Sanders across packaging, digital channels and advertising.

New restaurant concepts are planned to support different dayparts, starting with an open-concept site in McKinney, Texas, and a two-storey outlet in Dubai. Both are scheduled to open later this year.

KFC global CEO Scott Mezvinsky said: “In an increasingly crowded category, we have a clear opportunity to set the standard for modern chicken in QSR.

“This next chapter brings new energy and expression to what makes us iconic while doubling down on our chicken and reimagining how fans experience KFC around the world.”

Source https://www.verdictfoodservice.com/news/kfc-unveils-brand-revamp-with-new-menu-drinks-and-store-formats/?cf-view

 

The Design Psychology Behind a Speakeasy

The Watermark Hotel in Tysons, Virginia has a secret on its 25th floor.

Open an unassuming door in the fitness center’s sauna and you’ll be transported to the streets of Tokyo within The Naisho Room, a hidden speakeasy serving Japanese spirits and an Omakase dining experience by executive sushi chef Hobin Kim.

“We wanted to pay homage to Tokyo’s underground nightlife and neon lights, without creating an exact replica,” explained Meghan Scott, Senior Associate at //3877, the Washington, D.C.-based architecture and design team on the project. “We also wanted to create the illusion that the space was uncovered and repurposed, even though it’s in a new building. The rich, dark tones with gritty metal accents and eye-catching, custom artwork, create a truly ‘underground’ feel 25 stories in the sky.”

Named for the Japanese word for hidden, the bar features a “conceal and reveal” design that capitalizes on the emotional transition from discovery to reward.

“I love a ‘conceal and reveal’ experience,” said Scott. “I think the guest should be surprised and excited by the experience of visiting a restaurant, just like they are with the food on the plate. You don’t want the whole meal in one dish, you want multiple dishes to make the dining experience more engaging.”

A quirky entry sequence was part of the Naisho concept from the start. Everything from the cedar wood cladding and waiting bench to the doors are genuine components sourced from a Finnish sauna manufacturer. There’s even a fog machine for effect.

“The impact is made by the initial uncertainty, followed by the discovery that there’s something more,” said Scott. “This experience where discomfort turns into discovery cuts to the core of the speakeasy’s universal appeal.”

Consumers are seeking environments that are immersive, story-driven, and enable them to connect with others on a deeper level, she added, especially in today’s digital world, where so much is immediately visible and accessible, spaces that require a bit of effort to uncover feel inherently more valuable.

The overall design challenge was to seamlessly integrate a bar and dining destination within an active fitness center without disrupting either function, Scott noted.

“We wanted to create a true speakeasy moment where the faux entry sequence feels real enough to pass as a true sauna. Then once you’re inside the dining space, the footprint was incredibly compact, which forced us to be meticulous about spatial planning.”

The team worked closely with the hotel owner and staff to make sure they were equipped with the infrastructure they needed to be successful, resulting in a concealed back-of-house area complete with storage, prep stations, and equipment. Considering both the consumer experience and service requirements, the space incorporates efficient egress aisles, food delivery pathways, adequate waiting space, comfortable and accessible restrooms, and a fully functional kitchen, said Scott.

In order to recreate the energy of the jovial, casual atmosphere of Tokyo’s izakaya establishments—local spots with drinks and small bites that inspire late-night conversation, they layered the space with rich tones of red, plum, yellow, and blue alongside vibrant neon elements, she said. Towards the back, a custom mural mirrors graffiti found in the streets of Japan, with depictions of traditional Japanese icons such as tattoo-style waves and a paper crane.

The appeal of the speakeasy concept is rooted in the psychology of anticipation, curiosity, and reward, said Scott.

“Why do we all love a mystery series or a surprise party? The tension of not knowing heightens the payoff, making the experience more memorable. A bit of intentional discomfort transforms a routine night out into something far more memorable. That moment of uncertainty—of not quite knowing if you’re in the right place—activates the senses and heightens the payoff.”

The goal was to create moments worth talking about: the hidden entry, the unexpected transition, the immersive atmosphere.

“Overall, we hope that guests find the dining atmosphere experiential, intimate, and evocative, said Scott. “When an experience has a clear narrative arc—when it surprises you, engages you, and lingers after you leave—it naturally becomes something you want to share.”

Source https://modernrestaurantmanagement.com/the-design-psychology-behind-a-speakeasy/

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FOOD & BEVERAGE NEWS

PepsiCo, Coca-Cola to add QR codes for ingredients transparency

The beverage giants are joining an industrywide effort to connect consumers with government safety data as shoppers become increasingly concerned about what’s in their food and drinks.

Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Keurig Dr Pepper are among the major beverage companies rolling out QR codes across packaging to give consumers access to more information about ingredients in sodas, energy drinks and other offerings.

The packaging update is a major expansion of the American Beverage Association’s Good to Know initiative, a project started last July that connects consumers with easy-to-understand information about common beverage ingredients using data from global food safety agencies.

PepsiCo has already linked its product codes to the website. The remainder of the beverage industry has committed to adding Good to Know information across its portfolio by the end of 2027.

The Good to Know database contains information on 140 beverage ingredients. Consumers can learn more about an ingredient’s function and what type of products use it. The platform also connects users to government safety assessments so they can see why a regulator declared an ingredient safe for use.

Kevin Keane, president and CEO of the American Beverage Association, said the initiative responds to increased scrutiny from consumers around the ingredients that go into their food and beverages. Good to Know is unique in that it doesn’t rely on industry data, instead allowing users to directly access information from the FDA, European Food Safety Authority and Health Canada.

“Transparency means more than simply listing ingredients – it means providing relevant context that helps people understand where specific ingredients are used, what function they serve and how regulators in different countries view them,” Keane said in a statement.

The Good to Know Initiative is the latest effort from the food and beverage industry amid growing consumer concerns around ingredient safety. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. has put the issue further in the spotlight by claiming many ingredients escape thorough safety reviews by exploiting a loophole allowing manufacturers to self-affirm that certain chemicals or additives are Generally Recognized as Safe.

Food and beverage companies are now moving to show that their ingredients are indeed safe through more transparency.

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents some of the largest food manufacturers in the U.S., is preparing an expansion of its own ingredient database that consumers can access by scanning a QR code on more than 106,000 participating products from over 1,000 brands.

The American Beverage Association’s platform is meant to be a complement to the Consumer Brands’ initiative, known as SmartLabel. Some brands set to participate in Good to Know also are part of SmartLabel.

Companies expected to take part in Good to Know include Pepsi, Coke, Dr Pepper, Red Bull and Polar. As beverage giants commit to increased transparency, they have also thrown their support behind a modernized GRAS framework that would require notices to regulators for all new ingredient uses.

“Consumers want greater transparency and deserve to have confidence in the safety of their foods and beverages,” Keane said. “By integrating Good to Know into QR codes, we’re making it easier than ever for consumers to have clear and reliable information right at their fingertips.”

Source https://www.fooddive.com/news/coca-cola-pepsico-keurig-ingredient-transparency-qr-codes/823802/

 

Ingredient trends from the National Restaurant Association Show

CHICAGO – Menu innovation remains one of the restaurant industry’s most powerful growth tools, according to speakers at the National Restaurant Association Show, which took place in May in Chicago. But restaurant operators are challenged to develop on-trend menu innovations that pique consumer interest but also keep the end dish affordable.

Adding to the pressure is consumer purchasing patterns shifting at a rapid pace, said Lizzy Freier, senior director-menu research and insights, Technomic, Chicago. She spoke with Donna Hood Crecca, principal at Technomic, Chicago, on menu trends and innovation.

“There are some unprecedented and unexpected shifts that are happening,” Hood Crecca said. “These external forces — I guess, disruptors, if you will — are affecting the restaurant industry, and they are going to shape restaurant trends in 2026 and I think well beyond.

“There’s a very diverse group of new market dynamics that are upending kind of the typical, acceptable norms we see in the industry, and also redefining consumer behaviors and their preferences and expectations,” said Hood Crecca.

She identified regulatory and societal influences around new approaches to health as a dominant disruptor. This includes the rise in use of GLP-1 medications and the new dietary guidelines. All that comes with growing interest in global flavors and cravings for multisensory experiences.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), 2025-2030, which were issued in January, state “when cooking with or adding fats to meals, prioritize oils with essential fatty acids, such as olive oil. Other options can include butter or beef tallow.”

Nine days after the guidelines were issued, Steak ‘n Shake, Indianapolis, said it would be using beef tallow in all its restaurants.

Chicago-based South Chicago Packing, a rendered fats and oils business, is making beef tallow more accessible to operators with its beef tallow spray in a foodservice-size can. It can be used for sautéing, finishing and back-of-house.

South Chicago Packing is making beef tallow more accessible to restaurant operators with its beef tallow spray in a foodservice-size can.

“We’re seeing operators large and small making the switch to tallow and never looking back,” said Pete Kolavo, research and development chef at South Chicago Packing. “Simply put, it offers unbeatable flavor, extended fry life and therefore notable cost savings, and superior performance you can immediately see.”

Addressing the rise in GLP-1 usage, restaurant operators are adding protein and fiber to menus. They also are reducing portion sizes, particularly for desserts.

Black Market Gelato & Sorbet, Boise, Idaho, made its NRA debut with the rollout of its mini gelato cakes.The menu item offers operators a dessert solution without the labor, preparation or inconsistency often associated with plated desserts.

Hot honey stole the global flavor spotlight, with numerous CPG brands putting their products to work in diverse applications. Hot honey has grown 197% on US menus over the past four years, according to Datassential, Chicago. It now appears on 11% of menus nationally, with another 148% growth projected over the next four years.

“Its versatility across dayparts and applications, from pizza and fried chicken to cocktails and charcuterie, makes it one of the most operator-friendly trend ingredients available right now,” according to Technomic.

Technomic recognized that guacamole also is having a moment in foodservice, especially among younger diners. Gen Z makes up 29% of guests purchasing guacamole appetizers, according to Technomic data. Thirty-one percent of guacamole purchasers cited “better for you” as their primary need stage.

Fresh guacamole can be challenging to work with in foodservice because of shelf-life issues. Wholly Guacamole, a brand of MegaMex Foods LLC, Orange, Calif., is hoping to capitalize on the opportunity. The company showcased its squeeze pouches that invite operators to offer it as an add-on topping or spread on burgers and sandwiches.

Source https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/30576-ingredient-trends-from-the-national-restaurant-association-show

 

Monster Beverage sees ‘gigantic opportunities’ in China and India

PARIS— Monster Beverage Corp. saw double-digit sales growth in each of its global operating segments during its 2026 fiscal first quarter, which was the first first quarter in the company’s history to cross the $2 billion net sales threshold.

Monster anticipates further future growth as its strategy in emerging regions takes hold. At the recent Deutsche Bank dbAccess Global Consumer Conference in Paris, Monster executives detailed plans to expand energy drinks in markets it sees as “gigantic opportunities,” particularly China and India.

The company’s net sales in China during the 2026 first quarter increased 95% in dollars compared with the prior first quarter, while net sales in India increased nearly 95% in dollars for the same period.

“If we look at South Asia, Southeast Asia, East China, you have more than 4 billion people in that part of the world,” said Philippe Wothke, chief commercial officer, Asia, Monster Beverage. “It’s half of the world’s population which is living over there and the (energy) category is underdeveloped.

“In the US, the (annual) per capita consumption (of energy drinks) is 54. In Europe, it’s 38. On average in Asia, it’s 12. We have half of the population that is only drinking 12 servings per person per year on average, which is showing the size of the opportunity, so the category is underdeveloped but now growing.”

In India, Wothke said the per capita consumption of energy drinks is five, “but it was less than one, five years ago.”

“It is showing that in all these (emerging) countries, when we find the right product at the right price in the right pack in the right channel for the right occasion, we are able to unlock the potential of the category,” he said. “… We see (China and India) as gigantic opportunities. You have more than one billion consumers in both. The category is underdeveloped in both. But they are two very different stories.”

China strategy

Wothke said Monster has been in China for about 10 years, and when it debuted, there wasn’t a sparkling energy drink category there. Instead, consumers drank flavored, non-carbonated, vitamin-fortified beverages already on the market for energy.

“We had to create a new category and build the brand nearly from scratch,” Wothke said. “We are much more focused on the universities where the Coke system (Monster’s distribution partner is Coca-Cola) has great access to the thousands of mega universities in China. We believe we have now built a very healthy foundation and our products are growing.”

Wothke said outside of the large cities and universities in China, there is another market consisting of factory workers in company towns, where Monster’s lower-priced brand Predator was introduced to compete with the traditional non-carbonated, vitamin-fortified drinks.

“We launched Predator in China two years ago, and we are learning because it’s a very different consumer,” he said. “It’s a consumer that is not speaking English, drinking the non-carbonated (beverages), and is living in factory villages.”

Monster China India retail embed.jpg
Monster offers its lower-priced Predator brand as an affordable option in China and India, while the company’s flagship Monster brand is aimed at higher-income consumers. The strategy is helping Monster increase overall sales in both countries.

Wothke added that he and Monster Co-CEO Hilton Schlosberg visited a Foxconn factory village two years ago, “and they had 120,000 people living at the plant, and that’s where the traditional energy drink is big. So, we are working on building Monster, where we believe we have a strong foundation (in cities and universities) and learning how to get into that more traditional factory, blue-collar segment in China. And we see both (markets) as a great opportunity.”

India inroads

In India, Wothke said it’s a different approach than what Monster is executing in China. Monster has been in India for nine years, and its main competitor Red Bull has been there for many years too, so there is familiarity with energy drinks among the population.

Wothke said a soft drink in India sells for about 20 rupees, which is the equivalent of 23¢. When Monster launched in India, it was priced 6x higher than a regular soft drink.

“You have 1.4 billion people,” he said. “Some people can afford a Monster, but we could not go everywhere. We have been able to cluster India to be very segmented, to say, ‘Where are the dozens of millions of people who can afford a Monster?’ Because trying to be available to people who cannot afford it is a waste of time. Once we did that, we created a price pack architecture that is unique to India, where we have Monster at 6x the price of a (carbonated soft drink).”

Wothke said the Monster brand occupies the upper-tier in that price pack architecture, while Predator is sold at 3x the price of a regular soft drink.

“We believe there is an emerging middle class and the people who are working in the call centers in Bangalore, all the tech parks, cannot afford a Monster but they can afford a Predator,” he said.

With its price pack architecture in place, Wothke said Monster can further target specific lifestyles and recreation demographics in India that reflect different levels of affordability.

“Monster, for instance, is very focused on gaming, and we have seen an association with people who can afford to spend on gaming, and people who can afford to spend on a Monster can,” Wothke said. “Predator is going more after the people who are following cricket, but we are going to street cricket to make sure that we build a lifestyle that is very close to what they are doing. So, we have now that price pack architecture with a very clear portfolio to help us unlock the opportunity of India. And again, we believe we have now a good foundation to go after that market.”

Source https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/30498-monster-beverage-sees-gigantic-opportunities-in-china-and-india

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HVAC & PLUMBING

The Thermostat Evolution: From Basic Control to Intelligent Comfort

Thermostats have steadily evolved from simple mercury dials to sophisticated, data-driven comfort hubs. Early programmable models helped homeowners save energy by scheduling setpoints, and later, WiFi thermostats introduced mobile control and basic usage insights.

Even within the “conventional” category, options vary widely from battery-powered models to smart thermostats that connect to WiFi yet still communicate with residential split systems using only traditional 24V on/off signals.

The next major step in that evolution has been the communicating thermostat, which exchanges real-time data with the split system. Instead of sending basic on/off calls, communicating thermostats serve as one integrated platform, enabling coordinated modulation of capacity, airflow, and comfort strategies.

Precision, Efficiency, and Smart Comfort for Homeowners
Communicating thermostats provide a level of system integration, real-time data exchange, and control precision that traditional 24V thermostats simply cannot achieve. By continuously sharing operating parameters such as indoor temperature, humidity, airflow rates, duct static pressure, and compressor speed, these thermostats enable variable-capacity systems to execute fine-tuned capacity modulation.

This allows the equipment to adjust blower RPM, compressor Hz, and airflow profiles with higher resolution, reducing cycling losses, improving partload efficiency, and maintaining steadier indoor conditions. Therefore, homeowners experience tighter temperature control and quieter operation due to fewer abrupt speed transitions, improved humidity stability, and more transparent diagnostic feedback.

When integrated with communicating zoning systems, the benefits expand significantly. Instead of relying on simple open/close damper logic, a communicating zoning controller synchronizes zone calls, sensor data, damper positions, and equipment capacity within a unified control loop. In this architecture, the system can be configured with one primary master communicating controller and multiple communicating secondary zone thermostats, each installed in different zones.

These secondary thermostats continuously send localized temperature, humidity, and demand signals to the master controller, enabling the system to modulate equipment capacity and airflow with zone-level precision. This hierarchical data exchange allows the system to prevent static pressure spikes, resolve conflicting demands across zones, and modulate dampers proportionally to deliver the exact airflow required in each space.

As a result, areas such as bonus rooms, basements, and rooms over garages maintain more stable conditions, and the system avoids the energy penalties associated with large temperature swings and aggressive recovery cycles. By conditioning each zone based on real usage patterns and real-time sensor feedback, both overall comfort uniformity and system operating efficiency increase. In short, homeowners can save on energy use, reduce utility bills, and improve comfort.

Communicating thermostats also play a critical role in grid-interactive performance. As utilities expand demand response incentive programs, variable speed split systems must meet increasingly specific control behaviors defined in AHRI 1380. Unlike traditional demand response, which simply allows a thermostat to receive a signal from the utility company, AHRI 1380 now requires equipment to not only respond but also report back that it has adjusted usage, creating a closed-loop system.

By enabling precise, automated load shedding and shifting, communicating controls help utilities stabilize the grid and reduce peak demand without impacting occupants. Variable capacity systems paired with communicating thermostats can finely modulate compressor output and airflow to achieve controlled load reductions while still maintaining comfort. This supports not only homeowners directly, but it also reduces load on the electric grid, supporting U.S. infrastructure as a whole.

For Contractors, A Faster Start-Up and Time-Saving Diagnostics
Communicating thermostats streamline installations by automatically identifying connected equipment and applying proper configuration settings. This reduces startup time, eliminates manual dipswitch adjustments, and ensures the system is commissioned correctly.

They also expose in-depth system data such as compressor capacity, airflow profiles, and sensor readings, allowing contractors to fine‑tune performance for comfort, efficiency, and reliability. By standardizing configuration and startup processes, communicating thermostats help reduce installation variability and callbacks, giving contractors greater confidence that equipment is operating as designed from day one.

As adoption of variable-capacity equipment increases across the industry, integrated communicating controls are becoming essential to achieving the comfort, efficiency, and grid-interactive performance these systems can deliver. In the field, communicating thermostats such as the Smart Home Control 510 (SHC510) from Bosch Home Comfort allows contractors to view real-time system data. While some thermostat platforms charge for similar capabilities, the SHC510 provides access to these insights at no additional cost.

Because of the access to system data and fault conditions in advance, contractors can arrive on-site with the correct parts already in hand, reducing multiple trips, minimizing system downtime, and improving overall service efficiency. These operational benefits ultimately flow to homeowners in the form of faster repairs and lower service costs — while also strengthening customer trust.

A Smart Pairing for High-Efficiency Systems
When paired with high-efficiency variable speed equipment, communicating thermostats help deliver the full performance these systems are engineered for. They unify equipment, zoning components, sensors, and grid-response requirements into a coordinated control architecture that maximizes comfort, efficiency, and operational intelligence.

Homeowners benefit from improved comfort and energy savings, while contractors gain a smoother installation experience supported by real-time system insights. As connected HVAC technologies continue to evolve, communicating thermostats are positioned to play an increasingly important role in enabling smarter, more responsive system performance.

Source https://www.achrnews.com/articles/166369-the-thermostat-evolution-from-basic-control-to-intelligent-comfort

 

Discover How Modular Air Handling Units Are Transforming HVAC Businesses

The Future of HVAC: IEC’s Modular Air Handling Units
In the fast-evolving landscape of HVAC technology, the debut of IEC’s advanced Modular Air Handling Units (AHU) marks a significant shift towards customizable and efficient solutions for commercial applications. Designed to meet the specific needs of business owners dealing with complex environments, these units are poised to redefine comfort and efficiency standards.

What Are Modular Air Handling Units?
Modular AHUs are intelligently designed systems that can be customized and scaled based on the building’s specific requirements. Whether it’s for schools, offices, or industrial spaces, modular units offer flexibility in configurations, allowing businesses to adapt to changing demands without overhauling their HVAC systems entirely. This adaptability is crucial for HVAC business owners looking to optimize performance while managing costs.

Highlighting Key Features
IEC’s Modular AHUs come packed with cutting-edge features aimed at enhancing energy efficiency, maintaining excellent air quality, and simplifying installation. Among the standout features are:

Adaptable Configurations: The modular design allows for easy assembly and disassembly, making them perfect for locations where space and layout can change.
Enhanced Efficiency: With components engineered for low air leakage and noise reduction, these units significantly contribute to lower operating costs while providing superior performance.
Durability and Quality: High-quality materials ensure a long lifespan even in demanding environments, a crucial factor for business owners aiming to minimize maintenance costs.
Market Relevance and Opportunities
The introduction of IEC’s Modular AHUs is particularly relevant in today’s market where businesses are increasingly prioritizing sustainability and energy efficiency. There is a growing awareness of how HVAC systems impact overall environmental footprints, and products like these align with eco-friendly initiatives.

Notably, the modularity of these AHUs allows HVAC business owners to offer tailored solutions that meet diverse client needs, opening up new revenue streams.

Comparative Insights: AAON’s M2 Series
When looking at other market players, like AAON and their M2 Series Modular Indoor Air Handling Units, a parallel can be drawn regarding quality and innovation. The M2 Series is known for its premium efficiency motors and low leakage designs, similar to IEC’s approach. This illustrates a healthy competitive push in the industry—an essential aspect for fostering innovation and improving offerings.

Future Predictions: Expectations from Modular Systems
As the HVAC industry continues to pivot towards more advanced technology, the expectation is that modular systems will become the norm rather than the exception. As building designs evolve, HVAC solutions that are easily adjustable, maintainable, and scalable will be at the forefront of business development.

Advice for HVAC Business Owners
For HVAC business owners, staying informed about innovations like IEC’s Modular AHUs is vital. Not only does this knowledge allow for better client consultations, but it also equips business owners with necessary insights to stay competitive in a rapidly changing marketplace. Emphasizing energy efficiency and customization will resonate with environmentally conscious consumers, urging HVAC professionals to adapt their strategies accordingly.

Conclusion: Embracing Innovation
As the HVAC industry is swiftly changing, the introduction of Modular AHUs reflects a broader trend towards efficiency and personalization. For HVAC business owners, keeping pace with such innovations will be crucial in maintaining relevance in an increasingly competitive field. Embrace these advancements, educate your teams, and ensure your business stands at the forefront of this transformative period in HVAC technology.

Source https://hvacindustryjournal.com/discover-how-modular-air-handling-units-are-transforming-hvac-businesses

 

SkillsUSA National Plumbing Competition Showcases Next Generation of Plumbing Talent

Top plumbing students from across the country compete in Atlanta as industry leaders spotlight workforce development and skilled trades careers.

ATLANTA, GA — The nation’s top plumbing students gathered in Atlanta for the 2026 SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference (NLSC), where 48 competitors tested their skills in the annual National Plumbing Competition at the Georgia World Congress Center.

Representing high schools, vocational programs, technical schools and post-secondary institutions from across the country, competitors earned their place on the national stage by advancing through local and state-level competitions.

National Competition Challenges Students With Real-World Plumbing Skills
Over a day and a half of competition, students completed a demanding hands-on plumbing project that required them to rough-in a bathroom using copper, PVC and cast-iron piping systems.

The timed challenge tested practical installation skills, knowledge of plumbing systems, proficiency with cutting and assembly tools, and the ability to work accurately under pressure. Nearly all participants successfully completed the project, demonstrating the high level of preparation and technical knowledge required to reach the national competition.

Top Competitors Earn National Recognition
The 2026 National Plumbing Competition winners were:

Secondary Division

Gold: Beckham Dickson, Davis Technical College, Kaysville, Utah
Silver: Joseph Grzegorczyk, Bay Arenac ISD Career Center, Bay City, Michigan
Bronze: Parker Haydt, Bethlehem AVTS, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Post-Secondary Division

Gold: Anton Allen, Western Dakota Technical College, Rapid City, South Dakota
Silver: Agustin Gonzalez-Lopez, Erwin Technical College, Tampa, Florida
Bronze: David Thompson, Davis Technical College, Kaysville, Utah
Industry Workforce Needs Continue To Drive Interest In Skilled Trades

The competition comes as the plumbing-heating-cooling industry continues to face a growing need for skilled workers.

According to projections from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the p-h-c industry will require approximately 114,500 new workers by 2028. Industry leaders view events such as the SkillsUSA Championships as a critical pipeline for developing the next generation of plumbing professionals.

The PHCC Educational Foundation has supported the National Plumbing Competition for decades through its partnership with SkillsUSA and other industry organizations focused on workforce development and skilled trades education.

“The National Plumbing Competition shines a light on one of the fastest-growing and most in-demand jobs in America that doesn’t require a four-year degree,” said Dan Quinonez, Executive Director of the PHCC Educational Foundation. “The level of talent that is demonstrated on this floor is truly inspiring. Each year, we see a surge of interest from students across the country eager to participate in local competitions just to get a shot at competing here in Atlanta. Our hope is that events like this one will inspire people of all backgrounds to enter the trades, make it a career and help us close that skills gap.”

Industry Partners Help Support Plumbing Workforce Development
The 2026 National Plumbing Competition was made possible through support from numerous industry organizations and manufacturers, including the American Supply Association (ASA), Bernzomatic, Bradford White, BrassCraft, the Cast Iron Soil Pipe Institute (CISPI), Charlotte Pipe & Foundry, Copper Development Association Inc., Delta Faucet, Home Depot Pro, IAPMO, Kohler, McWane, Milwaukee Tool, MrPEX Systems, Oatey, Rheem, Sioux Chief, Tyler Pipe and Coupling, Viega and Zoeller.

Their contributions helped provide the materials, equipment and resources needed to conduct the competition and expose students to products and technologies used throughout the plumbing industry.

SkillsUSA Continues To Build The Future Skilled Trades Workforce
The SkillsUSA Championships remain one of the largest hands-on workforce development events in the world, bringing together the nation’s top career and technical education students to compete across a wide range of skilled trade and leadership disciplines.

This year’s conference attracted nearly 20,000 attendees and featured 7,002 state champions competing in 115 different contests.

The 2027 SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference is scheduled for June 21-25 in Atlanta.

To learn more about the PHCC Educational Foundation visit www.phccfoundation.org. To learn more about SkillsUSA visitwww.skillsusa.org.

Source https://www.contractormag.com/industry-event-news/news/55383723/skillsusa-national-plumbing-competition-showcases-next-generation-of-plumbing-talent

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ENGINEERING, AUTOMATION, & IOT

What the 2026 National Restaurant Association Show Revealed About the Future of Restaurant Technology

The restaurant technology industry arrived at McCormick Place last month with a message that was hard to miss: the next phase of restaurant innovation is becoming more operational, more automated and more closely tied to the everyday economics of running a restaurant.

At the 2026 National Restaurant Association Show, the industry’s largest annual gathering once again became a working map of where foodservice is headed. More than 55,000 foodservice professionals from 112 countries came to Chicago for the four-day event, where approximately 2,300 exhibiting companies from 44 countries filled 720,000 square feet of exhibit space across more than 900 product categories. The scale made it possible to see the full restaurant operating model in one place: food and beverage trends, commercial kitchen equipment, packaging, workforce solutions, off-premise tools, payments, robotics, AI, back-office systems, guest engagement platforms and the infrastructure that connects all of it.

The Show has always been a place to taste, touch and compare. Operators walk the aisles looking for flavor ideas, equipment upgrades, packaging solutions and vendor relationships that can make an immediate difference. But the 2026 edition felt especially focused on business pressure. Conversations on the floor repeatedly came back to the same practical problems: labor remains expensive and unpredictable, food costs are difficult to manage, guest expectations are rising, digital ordering has made operations more complex, and operators are being asked to grow revenue without adding much more overhead.

That context gave the technology conversations a different tone. Artificial intelligence was visible across the floor, but not mainly as a futuristic talking point. The strongest examples were tied to specific workflows: answering phones, taking drive-thru orders, forecasting demand, optimizing labor, identifying waste in P&L statements, managing menus across delivery channels, automating repetitive kitchen tasks, improving throughput and giving operators a clearer view of where profit is being lost. The Show suggested that restaurant technology is moving beyond the era of digital tools and into an era of operational intelligence.

That shift was visible in the North Hall technology aisles, where major platform providers were competing less on individual features than on the breadth and connectedness of their ecosystems. Toast, Square, SpotOn, PAR Technology, NCR Voyix, Oracle Food and Beverage, Shift4, Clover, Lightspeed, TouchBistro, GoTab, Heartland and Chowbus all fit into the larger story of restaurant platforms becoming broader operating systems.

The POS is still the transaction hub, but that definition feels too narrow now. Operators are asking it to connect ordering, payments, labor, loyalty, kitchen production, inventory, marketing, reporting and third-party delivery. That is why the most relevant POS conversations at the Show were less about cash drawers and terminals and more about how quickly operators can see performance, act on data and reduce the number of disconnected systems that staff have to manage during service.

The pressure to connect fragmented systems was especially clear in off-premise and digital ordering. The industry has spent years adding delivery channels, direct-ordering websites, marketplace integrations, menu tools and branded apps. The result has been growth, but also complexity. Operators now have to manage menus, pricing, availability, order flow and guest data across many channels that were never designed to work together. That is the problem addressed by companies such as Olo, Deliverect, Chowly, ItsaCheckmate, Otter, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Sauce, Lunchbox, Owner.com, Popmenu, BentoBox and Tacit.

Here too, the industry seems to be moving from connectivity to automation. It is no longer enough for orders to flow into the POS. Operators want systems that can detect menu errors, adjust digital merchandising, prevent lost orders, optimize pricing, protect margins and make direct ordering more competitive with third-party marketplaces. Deliverect’s AI agents and smart assistants are one example of that shift, applying automation to the digital revenue layer that increasingly shapes restaurant economics.

Guest engagement is undergoing a similar change. Reservations, waitlists, loyalty, reviews, digital menus and marketing are no longer separate conversations. Restaurants want to recognize guests, fill seats, personalize offers and build repeat relationships across channels. SevenRooms, OpenTable, Resy, Yelp Guest Manager, Tock, Paytronix, Thanx, Punchh, Ovation, Bikky, Spendgo, Incentivio, Fishbowl and Uptown Network’s Artuzan all speak to different parts of that relationship.

The guest engagement story is also becoming more operational. A loyalty platform that does not connect to ordering, reservations, payments, guest feedback or menu strategy is less useful than it once was. A reservation platform that cannot manage channel complexity creates another burden at the host stand. A digital menu that cannot support merchandising, storytelling and guest memory leaves revenue on the table. The most interesting guest-facing technology at the Show was not simply about communication. It was about creating a more complete operating model around the guest.

Artificial intelligence was most visible in the voice ordering and drive-thru categories. SoundHound AI used the Show to demonstrate its OASYS agentic AI platform and real-time restaurant automation, including AI drive-thru, kiosk and TV food ordering, along with enterprise AI agents for guest and IT services. Presto, ConverseNow, Valyant AI, Kea, PolyAI, Hi Auto and other voice and conversational AI providers are part of the same broader movement toward AI-assisted ordering and communication.

The best AI conversations were not about replacing hospitality. They were about absorbing the work that prevents staff from delivering it. A phone that rings unanswered, a drive-thru lane that backs up, a guest question that goes unresolved, a missed upsell, a misheard order and a delayed response all have real economic consequences. Voice AI has appeal because the operational pain is obvious and the measurable outcomes are relatively clear: higher answer rates, faster ordering, better consistency, fewer missed opportunities and less pressure on already stretched teams.

The same practical orientation showed up in financial and back-office technology. Restaurant365 introduced R365 AI, including AI dashboards and a labor management suite, and demonstrated the platform at Booth #6027. MarginEdge, MarketMan, Crunchtime, Craftable, Altametrics, RASI, meez, Galley Solutions, Jamix and xtraCHEF by Toast all reflect a category that has moved from recordkeeping to decision support.

Back-office technology does not always attract the same show-floor attention as robots or AI ordering, but it may be where some of the most immediate value is found. If an operator can identify waste earlier, reconcile invoices faster, manage recipes more accurately, forecast purchases more intelligently or understand theoretical versus actual food cost in near real time, the impact flows directly to margin. SpotOn brought that cost-control theme into the POS conversation with Profit Assist, an AI-powered P&L analysis tool designed to surface anomalies and savings opportunities that operators might otherwise miss.

Labor technology followed the same pattern. Operators are not only trying to schedule more efficiently. They are trying to forecast demand, reduce turnover, simplify hiring, manage compliance, improve training and keep employees engaged. Fourth/HotSchedules, 7shifts, Harri, Nesto, Workstream, Homebase, Axial Shift, Kickfin, TipPay and Opus are all responding to the same labor reality: restaurants need better tools not only to fill shifts, but to make each shift more productive.

That point matters because restaurant technology is often discussed from the customer’s perspective. But for operators, staff experience is now part of the technology equation. If a system makes a manager’s job harder, adds another login, slows down training or requires employees to perform more manual reconciliation, it becomes part of the problem. The tools that stood out were those that made the job easier while also improving accountability and visibility.

Hardware and in-store experience providers added another layer to the conversation. Samsung, LG Business Solutions, Elo, Custom America, Epson, Star Micronics, GRUBBRR, Bite, Acrelec, The Howard Company, Coates Group, Peerless-AV and Advantech occupy the important space where software becomes visible to guests and staff. Kiosks, menu boards, self-service terminals, printers, payment devices and kitchen display hardware may not always drive the strategy, but they determine whether the strategy works during a rush.

Self-service remained a major theme, but the more interesting question is no longer whether guests will use kiosks. Many already do. The question is how self-service connects to kitchen capacity, loyalty, upselling, labor planning and order accuracy. A kiosk that simply shifts labor from one place to another is less valuable than a self-service system that increases average check, personalizes ordering, reduces bottlenecks and feeds clean data into the rest of the operation.

The kitchen itself was one of the most important technology stories of the Show. The South Hall and Kitchen Innovations area made clear that restaurant technology is not only software. It is also equipment that senses, adjusts, automates, connects and improves execution. RATIONAL, Alto-Shaam, Hatco, Prática, Atosa, Waring, Unox, Aniai, Richtech Robotics, Bridge Appliances, Urschel, Oil Solutions Group, Filtrox, DayMark Safety Systems, Metafoodx, Next Robot and Replenish showed how equipment innovation is converging with the same pressures driving software adoption.

Connected cooking systems, ventless ovens, automated grills, intelligent food preparation, oil filtration, holding technology, digital safety workflows and task-specific automation all address the same operational question: how can restaurants produce consistent food with fewer variables? The answer increasingly involves equipment that is more programmable, more efficient and more responsive to the realities of smaller footprints, leaner teams and multi-channel demand.

Robotics drew crowds because it is visual, but the more meaningful robotics story was practical. Richtech Robotics demonstrated ADAM preparing fresh noodles at Booth #3885, while also working with SoundHound AI on a voice-enabled robotic beverage experience. Bear Robotics used the Show to unveil a broader hospitality automation ecosystem, including the compact Servi Q robot. Pudu Robotics brought service automation to the floor. Aniai focused on grill automation for high-volume kitchens. Miso Robotics framed its restaurant AI and kitchen automation around the practical realities of safer, smarter and more efficient kitchens. Next Robot was part of the Show’s AI-powered cooking conversation with Al Dente, a Kitchen Innovations Award recipient.

The most convincing robotics demonstrations did not promise a fully automated restaurant. They focused on bottlenecks. Frying, grilling, delivery running, beverage preparation, noodle production, cleaning and other repeatable tasks can strain teams and create inconsistency. Robotics becomes easier for operators to evaluate when it is tied to a specific work cell, measurable throughput, clear labor savings or improved consistency.

That distinction was one of the most important lessons from the Show. Restaurant operators are not short on innovation claims. They are short on time, staff and margin. The technology that earns attention is the technology that can explain exactly what it improves, where it fits, how it integrates and how quickly it pays back. The strongest conversations at the National Restaurant Association Show were grounded in operations rather than futurism.

Payments and financial infrastructure were also central to the floor. Adyen, FreedomPay, Shift4, Fiserv, Clover, Toast, Square, Heartland, Stripe and Paytronix all sit in a category that has moved well beyond processing. Payments now intersect with loyalty, data, fraud prevention, mobile ordering, delivery, chargebacks, tipping, guest identity and operational reporting. The payment layer is becoming one of the connective tissues of the restaurant technology stack.

Security and loss prevention had a quieter but important role. Solink, DTiQ, Interface Systems, Verkada and related providers are addressing a risk surface that now includes physical security, cash handling, delivery disputes, employee safety, transaction verification and digital system access. As restaurants connect more systems, the security conversation becomes broader. It is no longer only about cameras or alarms. It is about operational visibility across the restaurant.

The education program and show-floor features reinforced the same themes. The Innovation Theater gave attendees a place to evaluate emerging ideas in the context of real operator needs. The Kitchen Innovations Showroom spotlighted 20 award-winning equipment solutions focused on automation, efficiency, safety and sustainability. The FABI Awards, celebrating their 15th year, highlighted 28 food and beverage products, including 10 FABI Favorites, designed to help operators refresh menus and respond to evolving consumer demand. The keynote program, culinary demonstrations and beverage sessions added another layer of practical content around leadership, menu strategy, limited-time offers and profitable guest experiences.

That is what made the 2026 Show feel different. Technology was not separated from culinary innovation, labor strategy or equipment investment. It was part of all of them. A new beverage platform needs operational discipline. A global flavor LTO needs supply chain control and kitchen execution. A self-ordering kiosk needs menu engineering. A robotic grill needs throughput modeling. A loyalty campaign needs clean guest data. A smarter oven needs recipes, training and production planning. The restaurant of the future is not being built in one category. It is being assembled across the entire operation.

The National Restaurant Association Show has always been a place where the industry reveals what it is worried about and what it is willing to invest in next. In 2026, the answer was clear. Operators are investing in tools that help them do more with leaner teams, protect margins, connect fragmented workflows, improve consistency and meet guests wherever demand appears. The technology providers that understand those pressures are speaking less about transformation and more about execution.

For restaurant technology leaders, the takeaway from Chicago is that the next phase of innovation will favor connected operating models. POS, payments, digital ordering, loyalty, reservations, labor, inventory, kitchen equipment, robotics, security and analytics all need to work together more intelligently. That does not mean every restaurant needs the same stack. A quick-service chain, an independent full-service restaurant, a hotel restaurant, a convenience-store foodservice program and a contract dining operation will each make different choices. But every operator is facing the same basic challenge: technology has to simplify the business, not add another layer of complexity.

That is why the best products on display were not necessarily the flashiest. They were the ones that made work easier to coordinate, decisions easier to make and results easier to measure. AI will play a major role in that shift, but AI alone is not the story. The story is restaurant technology moving closer to the work itself.

By the time the industry returns to McCormick Place for the 2027 Show, many of the systems demonstrated this year will have had time to prove whether they can move from booth demos to measurable operating value. For now, the 2026 National Restaurant Association Show offered a clear view of where the market is headed. Restaurant technology is becoming the operating fabric of the modern foodservice business. The question for operators is no longer whether technology will shape the restaurant model. It is how quickly they can put the right technology to work in ways that improve profitability, strengthen teams and make hospitality easier to deliver.

Source https://restauranttechnologynews.com/2026/06/what-the-2026-national-restaurant-association-show-revealed-about-the-future-of-restaurant-technology/

 

The Skills AI Can’t Steal, and Why Restaurants Matter More Than Ever

In a future increasingly shaped by technology, the most valuable skills may turn out to be profoundly human ones.

Over a career spent in hospitality, I had a hand in developing hundreds of leaders—people who started as hosts, servers, line cooks, or dishwashers and eventually ran restaurants with large teams and millions in annual sales. Watching that transformation never got old. And right now, it matters more than most people outside this industry realize.

For decades, a quiet narrative shaped how families talked about restaurant work. It was a starting point, they said. A temporary stop. Something to do before a real career began.

That narrative is aging poorly.

At the same moment artificial intelligence is reshaping entry-level white-collar work—the research, the scheduling, the coordination, the first drafts—restaurants are quietly emerging as one of the strongest environments in the economy for building the skills technology cannot replicate. What was long underestimated may now be one of the most future-ready career paths available.

The timing deserves attention.

According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2026 State of the Industry report, restaurant and foodservice employment is projected to reach 15.8 million jobs this year, with nearly three-quarters of operators planning to hire despite ongoing difficulty finding experienced managers and culinary talent. At the same time, across industries, artificial intelligence is steadily absorbing many of the routine tasks that once gave young professionals their first foothold—basic research, administrative work, early-stage content, and customer communication. Those traditional entry points are narrowing.

The concern is not simply job displacement. It is something more fundamental: if traditional early-career roles evolve faster than new ones emerge, where do young people learn how to work alongside others, manage pressure, communicate under stress, and lead before a title says they can?

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon acknowledged in June 2026 that artificial intelligence will likely reduce some entry-level hiring over time, while emphasizing the growing importance of judgment, critical thinking, and interpersonal communication. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs research points to the same reality: empathy, collaboration, conflict resolution, adaptability, and leadership under uncertainty are becoming more valuable, not less.

Restaurants have been building exactly these capabilities all along. Quietly, shift by shift, for decades.

There is no environment quite like a busy restaurant for immersing someone quickly and completely in human interaction. When a dining room suddenly fills, tickets start stacking up, a guest is upset, and a new host freezes under pressure, restaurant teams learn very quickly how to solve problems together. A service shift teaches urgency and accountability in a way that cannot be simulated. A kitchen line builds discipline and composure when the pressure is real and the margin for error is small. A difficult guest interaction builds emotional intelligence that no classroom can fully replicate. And a well-run closing shift develops the kind of quiet confidence that carries into every leadership role that follows.

What operators know—and what outsiders consistently underestimate—is how quickly this development happens. A young person who arrives uncertain and overwhelmed can, within months, become someone their team genuinely depends on. Shy hosts become confident communicators. Overwhelmed line cooks become mentors. People discover capabilities they did not know they had.

This is not accidental. It is what hospitality does when leadership takes development seriously.

Restaurants also teach something increasingly rare: how to work with people who are nothing like you. Real collaboration across generations, backgrounds, personalities, and perspectives—under real pressure, every shift. A team member cannot simply close their messaging app when tension rises. They have to navigate it, work through it, and still take care of their guests. That skill—unglamorous, difficult, deeply human—is exactly what employers increasingly say they struggle to find.

The industry is evolving, and operators are right to embrace that. Technology is already improving forecasting, scheduling, and inventory management. Artificial intelligence will continue helping leaders make faster, better-informed decisions. That is good for the business and good for the people running it.

But technology is not replacing what hospitality actually does.

No system reads the energy of a table that needs more time. No algorithm comforts a guest whose anniversary dinner went sideways, mentors a struggling line cook through a shift that matters to them, or builds the trust required to lead a team through a chaotic Saturday night and bring everyone out the other side still proud of what they accomplished together.

That is worth saying plainly at a moment when traditional education is being questioned, early-career pathways are narrowing in many fields, and employers are speaking more openly about what they actually need from the people they hire.

This industry transforms people. It always has. A teenager who starts washing dishes at seventeen and eventually runs a multi-million-dollar operation did not simply find a job. They received an education in leadership, resilience, teamwork, accountability, and human connection that many traditional career paths struggle to replicate.

The rest of the world may finally be catching up to what restaurant leaders have long understood: in a future increasingly shaped by technology, the most valuable skills may turn out to be profoundly human ones.

Restaurants have been building them all along.

Laura Darrell is an author, speaker, and leadership strategist with more than 25 years of executive and operational leadership experience in the restaurant, retail, and franchise industries. A Doctor of Executive Leadership candidate, she writes and speaks on the future of work, leadership development, and how hospitality builds the deeply human skills needed in a rapidly changing world. Learn more at www.lauradarrellleadership.com

Source https://www.qsrmagazine.com/story/the-skills-ai-cant-steal-and-why-restaurants-matter-more-than-ever/

 

Miso Robotics Acquires Zume Pizza Technology and IP to Expand Restaurant Automation Platform

Miso Robotics, the Pasadena, California-based company behind the Flippy automated fry station, has acquired the technology and intellectual property of Zume Pizza, one of the most heavily funded and closely watched food robotics startups of the past decade. The transaction includes Zume’s hardware, software and patent portfolio, which spans robotic food preparation, delivery, packaging and sustainability. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

For Miso Robotics, the deal provides a way to extend its automation platform beyond frying and into pizza, while also expanding the company’s intellectual property position at a time when restaurant robotics providers are increasingly competing not only on hardware, but also on software, workflow integration, data, support infrastructure and patent protection.

The acquisition also brings one of restaurant technology’s best-known cautionary tales back into the conversation. Founded in 2015, Zume Pizza was once one of the most visible names in food robotics. Its original concept combined robotic pizza production with a highly ambitious delivery model in which pizzas would be baked in trucks while en route to customers. The idea captured the imagination of Silicon Valley because it seemed to combine multiple high-growth themes at once: automation, food delivery, predictive logistics, mobile kitchens and vertically integrated restaurant operations.

It also proved extremely difficult to execute. Pizza is repetitive in theory, but fresh pizza production involves dough handling, sauce distribution, cheese and topping placement, baking variability, timing, packaging and quality control. Adding a moving vehicle to that process made the system even more complex. Zume later moved away from the pizza business and into compostable food packaging before ultimately shutting down. Zume’s shutdown came after the company had raised hundreds of millions of dollars, including a major investment from SoftBank, before becoming one of the most prominent examples of first-wave food robotics overreach.

Miso is not acquiring Zume to revive the original mobile pizza delivery model. The more relevant question is whether the underlying technology can be separated from the business model that failed around it. That appears to be the strategic logic behind the deal. The mobile baking concept may have been too ambitious, but many of the components Zume developed around robotic preparation, food handling, workflow sequencing and packaging may still have value when applied to fixed-location kitchens.

Zume’s history also includes useful examples of technology that extended beyond robotics. In 2019, Pizza Hut’s tested a round, compostable pizza box developed with Zume. That effort was separate from Zume’s robot pizza delivery ambitions, but it showed the company’s broader interest in rethinking foodservice packaging, delivery logistics and operational design. Miso’s acquisition of Zume’s IP therefore gives it access not only to pizza robotics concepts, but also to a wider portfolio of patents and engineering work connected to food preparation, packaging and restaurant automation.

Restaurant automation has often failed when companies tried to automate an entire restaurant concept before proving the economics of a single workflow. Miso’s own evolution reflects a different path. The company built its public identity around Flippy, a robotic fry station designed to automate one of the most repetitive, physically demanding and difficult-to-staff jobs in quick-service restaurants. Rather than asking operators to rethink the entire restaurant, Flippy focuses on a specific station where labor pressure, safety concerns, consistency needs and throughput demands are easy to understand.

Miso has spent the past several years refining that narrower approach. White Castle’s early partnership with Miso Robotics put autonomous frying to work as a way to improve production speed, labor allocation and safety in the cooking process. Later, CaliExpress by Flippy brought the technology into a fully robotic restaurant concept, combining kitchen automation, self-ordering and biometric payment technology in a format designed to showcase what AI and robotics could eventually mean for fast food operations.

The company’s own positioning has also shifted. Miso’s latest generation of Flippy has been redesigned for scale, with a smaller footprint and faster performance than earlier versions. That refinement is important because the restaurant automation market has become less forgiving of technologies that look impressive in demonstrations but fail to fit within existing kitchen constraints. Footprint, installation complexity, service support, reliability and maintenance all matter as much as robotic capability.

The Zume acquisition follows Miso’s recent acquisition of Zignyl, an operations software company focused on restaurant insights and employee incentives. Miso is combining that technology with Zippy, its AI-powered restaurant operations product. The Zignyl deal gives Miso a software and operations intelligence layer. The Zume deal adds pizza-related robotics technology and a substantial IP portfolio. Flippy remains the production anchor. Together, these pieces point toward a company trying to own more of the automation stack, from machine execution to workflow intelligence.

Pizza is a logical target, but it is also one of the most unforgiving categories in food robotics. Pizza’s appeal as an automation target also reflects the category’s broader role as one of the restaurant industry’s most active environments for technology experimentation. Pizza’s appeal as an automation target also reflects the category’s broader role as one of the restaurant industry’s most active environments for technology experimentation. Recent analysis of the pizza sector has pointed to the category’s early adoption of AI ordering, predictive analytics, automated phone systems, robotics, digital loyalty and delivery optimization. The reasons are structural: pizza restaurants rely heavily on takeout and delivery, operate with relatively repeatable kitchen workflows and compete in a category where speed, convenience and consistency can directly influence market share.

The market has also been moving beyond traditional restaurant formats. Coverage of pizza vending and unattended automation has shown how operators are using automated machines to extend hours, create satellite distribution points and serve high-traffic locations such as campuses, malls and transportation hubs without adding staff. That shift is relevant to Miso’s acquisition because it shows that pizza automation is not limited to robotic makelines inside conventional kitchens. Operators are also exploring new ways to produce, hold, dispense and sell pizza wherever demand exists, provided the technology can protect quality, safety and brand standards.

On paper, pizza looks ideal for automation. It has standardized ingredients, repetitive assembly steps, high order volume, broad consumer demand and significant labor exposure during peak periods. In practice, the category has been difficult for startups to commercialize. Picnic’s automated pizza assembly platform once appeared to be part of a promising new generation of high-volume pizza automation. However, the category has proved far more difficult than many early entrants expected, with multiple companies struggling to turn pilot systems and prototypes into sustainable businesses.

The problem has rarely been the appeal of pizza automation. The problem has been aligning machine capability, kitchen footprint, service model, cost structure and operator willingness to change established workflows. A robotic pizza system must do more than produce a technically acceptable pizza. It has to fit into existing kitchens, support different dough types and topping configurations, integrate with order flow, avoid slowing down the line, be easy to clean, justify its price and keep working during peak periods. That is a much harder challenge than a demo video can convey.

This is where Miso’s Zume acquisition could be interesting. Miso is not entering the category as a pizza startup trying to build a consumer restaurant brand, a ghost kitchen network or a mobile cooking fleet. It is entering as a restaurant automation company with an existing focus on station-level kitchen labor. If Miso can apply Zume’s technology to a narrower, operator-driven pizza workflow, the result could be more practical than Zume’s original model.

The competitive landscape around restaurant robotics has also changed in ways that make the timing notable. Sweetgreen’s sale of its Spyce robotics subsidiary to Wonder, in a deal valued at roughly $186 million, reinforced the idea that food robotics assets may have more value when integrated into larger operating platforms than when they stand alone as independent hardware startups. Sweetgreen retained access to the automated Infinite Kitchen technology through a supply and licensing arrangement, while Wonder gained a robotic makeline platform that fits its broader prepared-food and delivery model.

That transaction speaks to a broader industry realization: building robotics internally is expensive, complex and operationally demanding. Even successful restaurant brands may prefer to work with specialized automation providers rather than carry the full engineering and manufacturing burden themselves. For robotics companies, the lesson is equally clear. Technology has to be packaged in a way that makes sense for operators, not simply engineers.

Other competitors are attacking different parts of the market. Bear Robotics has built its reputation around service robots that assist with food running, bussing and front-of-house workflows. Pudu Robotics and Keenon Robotics have become prominent in service and delivery robotics. Richtech Robotics is focused on guest-facing automation, including ADAM, an AI-powered humanoid service robot capable of preparing beverages and food items in visible hospitality environments. Hyphen has targeted automated makelines for digital-order-heavy restaurant formats. Botrista has built a beverage automation platform aimed at helping restaurants add profitable specialty drinks without adopting a full barista labor model. Aniai is focused on automated grilling for high-volume burger and broader grill-station operations.

Aniai offers a useful point of comparison because it illustrates where the restaurant robotics market appears to be heading. Aniai is not trying to automate an entire kitchen. It is focused on a specific station where consistency, speed and labor availability have a direct impact on performance. Its Alpha Grill platform combines automated cooking equipment with AI-powered monitoring and cloud-based management tools. That type of station-level approach is increasingly becoming the model for practical restaurant automation.

Miso’s advantage, if it can execute, may be a similar focus. The company has chosen high-friction kitchen stations where automation can be evaluated against clear operational metrics: labor savings, throughput, food quality, waste reduction and worker safety. Adding pizza could expand that addressable market, but only if Miso resists the temptation to make the same mistake earlier pizza robotics companies made. The opportunity is not to automate pizza as a spectacle. It is to automate the parts of pizza production that create measurable pain for operators.

The patent portfolio may prove just as important as the hardware. Zume’s more than 300 patents give Miso a larger defensive and strategic position in food robotics. Patents can support product development, create barriers for competitors, provide licensing opportunities and give potential brand partners more confidence that the company has a deeper technology base than a single robotic station. In a market where many startups have struggled to move from prototype to scale, IP can also become a consolidation asset.

Still, the acquisition does not remove the central challenge facing restaurant robotics. Operators do not buy automation because it is impressive. They buy it when it solves a real operating problem at an acceptable cost with minimal disruption. Robots must survive heat, grease, spills, human workarounds, menu changes, peak rushes, maintenance demands and the realities of restaurant turnover. They must also integrate with the broader restaurant technology stack, including POS systems, kitchen display systems, digital ordering channels, inventory tools and labor platforms.

That is why Miso’s broader platform strategy matters. A robot that performs one task is useful. A robot that also feeds performance data into an operating system, supports forecasting, improves labor planning, tracks throughput and helps managers identify bottlenecks is more valuable. The future of restaurant robotics is unlikely to be defined by isolated machines. It will be defined by connected systems that combine physical automation with operational intelligence.

Robots have repeatedly drawn attention because they make automation visible. But the more important story has been the shift from novelty toward practical applications. The industry is increasingly weighing the benefits of humanoid robots versus functional robots, with many operators focused less on showmanship and more on whether a system can reliably perform a specific task, improve consistency and reduce friction in daily operations.

The Zume acquisition should therefore be viewed less as a bet on robotic pizza alone and more as part of the industry’s second wave of automation. The first wave produced bold concepts, large funding rounds and important technical breakthroughs, but it often underestimated the complexity of restaurant operations. The second wave is likely to be more pragmatic. It will favor companies that can commercialize narrow workflows, build support infrastructure, integrate software and show operators a believable return on investment.

For restaurant operators, the deal is worth watching because pizza remains one of the clearest categories where automation could eventually matter at scale. Large pizza chains, campus dining programs, stadiums, convenience-store foodservice, ghost kitchens and high-volume entertainment venues all face the same basic problem: how to produce a consistent product quickly with less dependence on scarce labor. A reliable pizza automation platform would have obvious appeal in those environments.

But the history of the category argues for caution. Pizza robots have repeatedly looked easier to commercialize than they turned out to be. Miso now has the opportunity to prove that the failure of Zume’s original business model was not a verdict on every underlying technology Zume developed. It was a warning about timing, complexity and go-to-market discipline.

If Miso can convert Zume’s IP into practical products that fit real kitchens, the acquisition could help accelerate restaurant robotics beyond the fry station and into a broader range of food preparation workflows. If not, it will join a long list of pizza automation experiments that were more compelling in concept than in deployment.

The difference this time is that Miso is not starting with the dream of a fully automated pizza company. It is starting with an existing restaurant automation platform, a narrower understanding of operational pain points and a market that is more receptive to automation than it was during Zume’s first rise. That does not guarantee success. But it does make the Zume acquisition one of the more interesting tests of whether restaurant robotics has finally matured enough to turn first-wave invention into second-wave adoption.

Source https://restauranttechnologynews.com/2026/06/miso-robotics-acquires-zume-pizza-technology-and-ip-to-expand-restaurant-automation-platform/

 

How IoT-Powered Sensors, Smart Dispensers, and More Improve Workloads

Key Takeaways

Data-driven cleaning uses real-time data to improve efficiency and results.
Workloading software helps managers optimize staffing and control labor costs.
Smart sensors and cleaning robots improve service, tracking, and consistency.
By Keith Schneringer

If you are a facility cleaning manager, there are probably some common questions you ask yourself each day regarding building cleanliness.

“Has my facility been cleaned?”

“Does my facility need to be cleaned?”

“How clean is my facility?”

“Is my facility clean enough?”

“Are my restrooms stocked with enough supplies?”

Sound familiar?

Ultimately, these questions, amongst many others, are asked and answered by every facility across the country every day.

For the most part, facility cleaning managers have always answered these types of questions and managed the cleaning process through an assorted collection of schedules, checklists, spreadsheets, inspection reports, and in some extreme cases, in response to building occupant complaints.

While these approaches incorporate some of the best available tools facility cleaning managers have had at their disposal to manage the cleaning process, times have changed and now a combination of increasing building occupant expectations, rising operational costs, and ongoing labor shortages have highlighted the need for smarter and more efficient cleaning strategies.

Fortunately, advances in technology have led to 21st century tools such as workloading programs, smart sensors and dispensers enabled with Internet of Things (IoT), and autonomous cleaning equipment that can empower facility cleaning managers to make data-driven decisions to transform the act of cleaning facilities from a reactive activity to a more strategic, measurable, and repeatable process tied to desired outcomes.

Evolving Beyond Cleaning Schedules
Historically, the schedules used to clean facilities have been based upon a series of assumptions of what someone thinks is going to happen as opposed to the actual cleanliness of a facility or conditions in a building at any given moment.

And in many cases, that cleaning schedule and its associated scope of work have merely been inherited from someone else who might have occupied the facility cleaning manager position at some point in time previously. That pre-existing cleaning schedule may reflect how those assumptions have been perpetuated over the years, as opposed to reflecting more up to date information based upon current building conditions.

For example, restrooms may have been earmarked to be serviced every two hours because supplies ran out that one time instead of being based upon current actual usage. Or floors may have been scheduled to be stripped out and refinished regardless of actual need.

Unfortunately, these misinformed approaches can lead to inefficiencies for a facility cleaning manager who has used existing tools to create a cleaning plan that provides either “too little” and “too much” service.

In some instances, high-traffic areas may become dirty, and supplies run out of stock between scheduled cleanings, while in other instances, low-traffic areas may receive unnecessary services at the expense of other more “used” spaces. The end results could be wasted labor, inconsistent cleaning levels, increased building occupant complaints, and higher operational costs instead of a clean, well-supplied building.

Data-driven cleaning replaces these historical assumptions, inherited scopes of work, and guestimates with current and actionable information for today’s facility cleaning manager.

By using current technology to gather and analyze data in real time, facility cleaning managers can gain visibility and insights into how building spaces are currently being used and where cleaning resources are needed the most.

Optimizing Labor
And when we think about the “cleaning resources” that are needed the most, labor is at the top of the list. As a matter of fact, labor is the single largest component of a cleaning budget, typically responsible for 90 to 95 percent of the total cost to clean a building. Since labor is the largest single part of the budget, having a firm understanding of how labor is being allocated is critical to a facility cleaning manager focused on managing costs.

One of the first questions a facility cleaning manager or cleaning service provider must answer when establishing their cleaning budget is, “How many people do I need to clean this building?” The answer to this question will be a big portion of the foundation upon which the cleaning budget is built.

That is where workloading can play a significant role.

Workloading a building is the process of determining how much time, labor, and resources are required to complete a specific scope of work. Workloading involves establishing cleanable square footage for all of the building areas, determining the list of cleaning tasks for each area, assigning the desired frequencies for each of the cleaning tasks, applying cleaning time standards for each cleaning task, and then using all of that information for the purpose of calculating total labor hours and costs.

Rather than relying on inherited historical staffing levels or subjective guestimates, workloading software provides objective data that supports staffing decisions and operational planning.

In addition to providing defensible data and valuable documentation to help justify staffing levels and support budget requests, workloading programs can also offer facility cleaning managers the opportunity to manage productivity expectations, balance employee workloads, and deploy cleaning teams where they can deliver the greatest impact.

And as facilities evolve and occupancy and building usage patterns change, workloading programs can be updated to better reflect current building conditions, ensuring labor resources remain best aligned with actual needs.

Using a workloading program, a facility cleaning manager can answer many other questions that are critical to managing a cleaning operation such as:

“How long should it take to perform a cleaning task according to industry standards?”

“How does changing cleaning task frequency impact overall cleaning labor costs?”

“How does adding or subtracting cleanable square footage impact overall cleaning labor costs?”

“How does a change in cleaning process impact overall cleaning labor costs?”

“How does mechanizing cleaning tasks impact overall cleaning labor costs?”

For facility cleaning management professionals, workloading is the best available tool to strike a balance between cost and quality, and to ensure the cleaning plan fits current needs and doesn’t include “too much” or “too little” service.

Optimizing Labor Through IoT
If the first phase of the internet served to connect people to computing devices (think static webpages that communicate information but don’t provide the opportunity to interact), and if the second phase of the internet served to connect people to people (think social media sites), then the third phase of the internet has served to connect computing devices with other computing devices—think “smart” appliances that have the ability to communicate their status to other connected devices to provide updates and information.

For the cleaning industry, some of those connected devices and systems include restroom dispensers, occupancy sensors, managed inventory supply, waste and recycling receptacles, and equipment fleet management.

IoT-connected restroom dispensers such as paper towels, hand soap, and toilet paper dispensers report fullness levels in real-time to help prevent runouts. Using these tools, facility cleaning managers can look at the fullness status of all their dispensers, identify dispensers that need service soon, and receive alerts for dispensers that have run out.

In addition, these smart dispensers also collect and display historical usage data to help identify trends for planning purposes. A facility cleaning manager can determine the average usage for each dispenser in each restroom and plan out supplies and associated service accordingly.

IoT-connected occupancy sensors are frequently pared with dispenser sensors to be able to track and monitor building occupancy and traffic. Since it stands to reason that if the number of people visiting the restroom goes up, then the usage of supplies is also going to go up.

Some sensors also track occupancy as it relates to indoor air quality, with a metric of CO2 levels being used to determine if a room has become overcrowded. These sensors can also measure particulate count and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the air as well, which can alert a cleaning team that there is a need to dust and vacuum in the space.

Some sensors can assist with inventory management and order control where product is scanned into inventory when it is received and then scanned out as it is leaving the supply room to be used. Usage patterns are tracked, and par levels are established to assist with demand forecasting and prevent having too much or too little inventory on hand.

IoT-connected sensors can also be used for waste and recyclable collections, with some waste and recycling receptacles equipped with sensors to communicate fullness levels. In addition to providing real-time status of fullness levels for all receptacles, these systems also track historical fullness levels so that staff can be allocated to empty receptacles when they are almost full each time, as opposed to emptying partially full receptacles just because they are making their rounds.

IoT-connected sensors can also be used for equipment fleet management, allowing a facility cleaning manager to ascertain the location, usage history, and current performance status of their equipment fleet. Some sensors are even able to alert the facility cleaning manager that a proactive repair is needed before the equipment goes out of service.

The Future of Data-Driven Cleaning
And speaking of “smart” data-driven cleaning management, there are now autonomous cleaning equipment or “cleaning robots” available to not only perform cleaning functions to complement the work of existing cleaning staff but also to provide performance data to verify cleaning tasks that have been completed for the facility cleaning manager.

Of course, there is also the associated benefits of labor-savings, increased cleaning coverage, more consistent results, and the reliability of having autonomous cleaning equipment do the cleaning but imagine having a fleet of cleaning robots that not only completes the work of cleaning their assigned spaces as programmed but also provides a report confirming all of the areas that have been cleaned.

Facility cleaning managers who choose to embrace elements of data-driven cleaning today are positioning themselves to more effectively meet the challenges of tomorrow. As technologies continue to evolve, facility cleaning managers will gain even greater capabilities to predict needs, allocate resources, and improve cleaning outcomes.

By combining workloading tools, smart technology, and autonomous cleaning, facility cleaning managers can use data to achieve better results and hopefully work smarter, not harder.

Keith Schneringer has been in the sanitary supply industry since 1990 and is currently the Senior Director of Marketing Jan/San + Sustainability for Imperial Brady. In his current role, Keith is responsible for marketing to the jan/san and facility care industry, for developing vertical-market-specific programs to better assist customers, and for leading the company’s sustainability initiatives. He is a LEED AP O+M, CIMS-GB ISSA Certification Expert, former President of San Diego Green Building Council, stakeholder in the standard development process for ISSA CIMS-GB as well as the Green Seal GS-1, GS-37, and GS-52 standards, and has been recognized as Advocate of the Year by ISSA. Before assuming his current responsibilities, he worked as an account consultant, sales manager, marketing manager, and director of channel marketing + sustainability for WAXIE Sanitary Supply.

Source https://www.cleanlink.com/cleanlinkminute/details/How-IoTPowered-Sensors-Smart-Dispensers-and-More%C2%A0Improve%C2%A0Workloads–66574

 

Bevi Reimagines Beverage Service Through Smart Dispensing, Customization and Connected Operations

For decades, beverage service in restaurants and foodservice environments has followed a familiar model. Operators purchase bottled water, canned beverages and packaged drinks, store inventory, replenish coolers, manage deliveries and absorb the costs associated with transportation, storage and waste. While that approach has remained deeply embedded in foodservice operations, changing consumer preferences, sustainability initiatives and rising operating costs are encouraging operators to rethink how beverages are sourced, served and managed.

That shift was evident at this year’s National Restaurant Association Show, where exhibitors showcased technologies designed to improve operational efficiency while reducing environmental impact. Among them was Bevi, which highlighted its connected smart beverage dispensing platform and its broader vision for replacing packaged beverage logistics with customizable, on-demand drink experiences. Rather than viewing water and flavored beverages as bottled inventory, Bevi is helping commercial operators treat beverage service as a connected, data-driven and more sustainable operating model.

Bevi’s systems are designed to support intuitive beverage creation while reducing friction at the point of use.
The Bevi story is about far more than water. It is about modernizing beverage operations through intelligent dispensing, guest customization, real-time connectivity and operational visibility. As restaurants, hospitality venues and foodservice operators seek new ways to reduce costs, improve sustainability and enhance customer experiences, beverage service has become another opportunity for meaningful innovation.

Consumers increasingly expect more choice and greater personalization. Guests who once selected between bottled water and fountain drinks now look for still or sparkling water, natural flavors, functional enhancements and healthier alternatives. Meeting those expectations traditionally required operators to stock a growing assortment of bottled or canned products, increasing inventory requirements while consuming valuable storage and refrigeration space.

Bevi approaches the challenge differently. Its smart water cooler and beverage dispensing systems produce filtered still and sparkling beverages on demand, allowing users to customize drinks with flavors, carbonation levels, temperature options and functional enhancements. For foodservice operators, the value proposition is not simply beverage variety. It is the ability to offer more choice while reducing the operational burden associated with packaged beverage inventory.

The company’s product portfolio includes the Standup 2.0 flavored and sparkling water dispenser and Countertop water dispensers, giving operators flexibility based on available space, traffic volume and service environment. Standup systems can support high-traffic areas, while Countertop configurations are designed for smaller footprints where operators still want to provide customizable still and sparkling beverage options.

This flexibility matters because beverage service is increasingly being deployed across a wider range of environments. In addition to traditional restaurants, Bevi systems can be relevant for cafés, corporate dining, campuses, hotels, airports, breweries, fitness centers, healthcare facilities and other commercial or hospitality spaces where operators want to reduce packaged beverage dependency while improving convenience and choice.

Customization is one of the company’s most visible differentiators. Through its flavors and enhancements, Bevi allows users to create beverages that reflect their own preferences rather than choosing from a fixed menu of bottled products. The platform supports flavored still and sparkling beverages as well as functional enhancements such as electrolytes, caffeine and vitamin-oriented options. For operators, this can help meet growing demand for healthier, lower-calorie and more personalized beverage experiences without expanding the number of packaged SKUs they must purchase and manage.

Bevi has also expanded flavor and enhancement mixing across its machine portfolio, reinforcing the company’s positioning around personalization. The ability to combine multiple flavor and enhancement selections creates a more flexible beverage experience than traditional packaged drink programs, where variety typically requires additional inventory, storage and waste management. This distinction is particularly relevant for operators seeking to increase guest choice without adding operational complexity.

Another important aspect of the platform is touchless dispensing and machine-level software functionality. Bevi’s systems are designed to support intuitive beverage creation while reducing friction at the point of use. For foodservice and hospitality environments where speed, cleanliness and convenience all matter, touchless functionality adds another layer of operational and guest-experience value.

One of the most compelling aspects of the platform is its connected intelligence. Unlike traditional beverage dispensers, Bevi machines are internet-connected, giving operators and service partners visibility into machine status, usage patterns, flavor and CO2 refill needs, and service requirements. This connectivity changes the operational model from reactive maintenance to more proactive service management.

These capabilities reflect a broader transformation occurring throughout restaurant and hospitality technology. Increasingly, operators are seeking connected equipment that provides actionable operational intelligence rather than simply performing a single function. Remote monitoring, refill visibility and service diagnostics help operators identify needs before they affect guests, while reducing unnecessary service visits and equipment downtime.

For multi-location operators, connected beverage dispensing can provide a more scalable way to manage beverage programs across locations. Usage data can help identify popular flavors, monitor consumption trends and support smarter replenishment decisions. Over time, these insights can help operators better understand what guests actually want while reducing the guesswork associated with packaged beverage purchasing.

Sustainability remains central to the Bevi value proposition, but the business case extends well beyond environmental responsibility. By replacing bottled and canned beverages with on-demand dispensing, operators can reduce packaging waste, decrease delivery frequency, lower storage requirements and simplify inventory management. These operational improvements can create measurable efficiencies while supporting broader sustainability initiatives.

The company has reported that its machines have eliminated the need for more than one billion single-use plastic bottles, a milestone that underscores the scale of demand for alternatives to packaged beverage models. For restaurants and foodservice operators seeking practical sustainability initiatives, reducing dependence on bottled beverages can be particularly attractive because it connects environmental impact directly to operational efficiency.

Storage utilization represents another meaningful benefit. Restaurant back-of-house space remains one of the industry’s most valuable resources. Cases of bottled water, sparkling beverages and flavored drinks can occupy significant storage capacity while requiring ongoing receiving, stocking and inventory management. Connected dispensing systems reduce much of that logistical burden, allowing operators to dedicate space and labor to other priorities.

The platform also supports a more flexible guest experience. Consumers increasingly expect personalization across nearly every aspect of foodservice. Bevi allows users to customize beverages by selecting still or sparkling water and choosing from a variety of natural flavors and functional enhancements without requiring operators to stock a wide array of individual packaged beverages. The result is greater choice with less operational complexity.

Maintenance and service also become more proactive. Because machines communicate operational status, refill needs and service-related information, many potential issues can be identified before they create a poor guest experience. This model aligns with the industry’s broader movement toward equipment that supports uptime, predictive service and more efficient operations.

The competitive landscape includes traditional beverage dispensers, bottled beverage suppliers, fountain beverage systems and emerging connected beverage technologies. Bevi differentiates itself by combining intelligent dispensing, customization, connected service visibility, sustainability tracking and a beverage experience that is designed around choice. Rather than simply replacing bottled water, the company is helping operators rethink beverage service as an integrated part of modern foodservice operations.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Bevi story is what it reveals about the future of restaurant and hospitality technology. Equipment is increasingly becoming intelligent infrastructure rather than standalone hardware. Beverage systems, kitchen equipment, refrigeration, POS platforms and operational technologies are all generating data that can help operators improve efficiency, reduce waste and make better business decisions.

That evolution reflects a larger industry trend. Restaurant technology is increasingly focused on operational optimization rather than isolated automation. Connected platforms that reduce waste, simplify operations, improve sustainability and provide actionable insights are becoming strategic assets rather than convenience features.

As restaurants and foodservice operators continue searching for ways to improve margins while meeting evolving guest expectations, beverage operations represent an opportunity for meaningful innovation. By combining smart dispensing, customization, connected operations and sustainability, Bevi is helping modernize one of the industry’s most traditional operating models.

In an environment where efficiency, sustainability and guest experience increasingly go hand in hand, the future of beverage service may depend less on packaged products and more on intelligent, connected dispensing platforms. Bevi is helping operators move toward that future, demonstrating how thoughtful technology can improve both operational performance and the customer experience.

Source https://restauranttechnologynews.com/2026/06/bevi-reimagines-beverage-service-through-smart-dispensing-customization-and-connected-operations/

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JAN/SAN AND DISPOSABLES

Imperial Brady Appoints Willis Weirich as Senior Vice President, Operations

Imperial Brady today announced that Willis Weirich has joined the company as Senior Vice President, Operations.

In this role, Weirich leads the company’s logistics, warehouse operations, inventory management, safety, and operational integration efforts. He reports directly to Chief Executive Officer Jason Tillis.

“We are excited to welcome Willis to Imperial Brady,” said Jason Tillis, Chief Executive Officer of Imperial Brady. “He is a proven operations leader with extensive experience building high-performing teams, optimizing complex supply chains, and supporting scalable growth. Willis brings the expertise and leadership that will help us continue strengthening our operations and delivering exceptional service to our customers.”

Weirich brings more than two decades of leadership experience in supply chain, operations, and distribution. Most recently, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at SRS Distribution, where he led a nationwide supply chain organization supporting significant growth and operational expansion. Prior to SRS, he held senior leadership positions with Neiman Marcus, Target, and Airgas.

“I’m excited to join Imperial Brady and work alongside such a talented team,” said Weirich. “The organization has built a strong reputation and a customer-focused culture. I look forward to advancing operational excellence, supporting our customers, and helping drive continued growth.”

About Imperial Brady
Imperial Brady is a leading North American distributor and solutions provider for cleaning and facility care, foodservice, and packaging. With more than 13,000 employees and a broad supply chain network, the company delivers national scale with local expertise. Built on strong customer relationships and deep industry knowledge, Imperial Brady goes beyond distribution. It delivers Supplies + Support, bringing expertise, service, and a commitment to making every customer touchpoint a plus.

Contacts
Media Contact
Jennifer Figueiredo
Vice President, Corporate Communications
jfigueiredo@imperialdade.com

Source https://www.issa.com/industry-news/imperial-brady-appoints-willis-weirich-as-senior-vice-president-operations/

 

Cleanliness A Top Factor in Hospitality Reviews

Cleanliness remains a top priority for travelers seeking accommodations around the world. A recent study found that prospective guests use online cleanliness ratings to determine which hotel they choose to stay at. In fact, 85 percent of visitors cite the quality of clean as a core contributor to their overall experience, highlighting how commercial cleaning executives should weigh client feedback in their company’s service models.

The report found Washington, D.C., and New York City are the cities with the world’s cleanest hotels, ranking third and sixth, respectively. On the other hand, Honolulu hotels were the dirtiest and received one of the lowest ratings (97 out of 100 cities). Although five-star rated hotels were cleaner than others, when comparing luxury and non-luxury hotels, there was no statistical difference.

These findings illustrate a trend driving cleanliness standards in the hospitality industry: Five-star service is no longer the goal but a baseline. Customer impressions are equally as important as a consistent clean, with travelers looking at odors, restroom care, building entrances, and linens as signs of a safe and hygienic facility. Moreover, in the digital age, an online review can attract or deter future occupants, which all comes down to the overall experience. Cleanliness is an important factor in an individual’s stay and can build confidence in other services offered.

Read more about the study and how guest experience is based off how clean a facility is here.

Source https://www.cleanlink.com/news/article/Cleanliness-A-Top-Factor-in-Hospitality-Reviews–32850

 

Vectair Joins United Nations Global Compact

Vectair has joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.

The UNGC brings together organizations committed to aligning their operations and strategies with universal principles related to human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption. Participation reflects Vectair’s ongoing commitment to responsible business practices and continuous improvement across its global operations.

As the commercial hygiene and facility management industries continue to evolve, expectations of manufacturers are changing. Customers and business partners increasingly seek accountability and transparency from the organizations they choose to work with. Participation in the UNGC reinforces Vectair’s commitment to these principles while providing a framework for continued progress across the business.

For Vectair, responsible business practices extend beyond products alone. They also influence how the company approaches long-term growth. Participation in the UNGC further strengthens Vectair’s commitment to conducting business in a way that creates lasting value while contributing positively to the communities and industries it serves.

“We are proud of our participation in the UN Global Compact and our commitment to the core principles and standards regarding people and the planet. It’s not just about what we do, it’s about how we do it,” says Chris Wakefield, Managing Director.

As Vectair continues to grow globally through its expanding network of distribution partners and international operations, participation in the UNGC represents another step in the company’s commitment to responsible business practices and building a stronger future in the commercial cleaning industry.

Source https://www.cleanlink.com/news/article/Vectair-Joins-United-Nations-Global-Compact–32839

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