Trend Perspectives With Cynthia Maxwell

Food Tech

Technology’s influence on food and beverage is a broad subject spanning from cultured meat to robots preparing your favorite cocktail at your favorite bar. While there are numerous new food tech trends happening, I have chosen three that have or will be crossing our paths in the near future.

Virtual Restaurants

Thinking of delivery as a primary business model rather than an add-on service, new virtual restaurants are popping up. Because delivery service has become better thanks to UberEats, Postmates and Seamless, and real estate in large cities is pricier, these virtual concepts are a favorable option.

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UberEats, noticing a demand for cuisines that are not readily available in some areas, is approaching their affiliated restaurants and requesting that owners fill the void. Think, a pizza restaurant owner who now also does delivery of fried chicken.

Virtual restaurant owners can change cuisines based on trends and sales with less overhead cost because they are servicing from a “ghost kitchen.”

These virtual concepts are driving the quality and freshness of the food they deliver. Some concepts are more mindful of foods that transport better while providing fresh, delicious and sometimes organic options. Making delivery desirable to more consumers.

Reservations Through Instagram

Not only does Instagram promote and inspire food trends, their recent partnership with Quandoo will allow consumers to book dining reservations without ever leaving the Instagram environment.

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Via Quandoo you can search over 17,000 restaurants across Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Besides the convenience factor, customers can also accrue points for cash back and take advantage of restaurant specials specifically through Quandoo reservations.

Restaurants get a ton of benefits including increased customer exposure; custom websites that integrate with Quandoo reservations and Quandoo helps handle more bookings per table. All this equates to higher revenue.

Look for Instagram to partner with Open Table, Resy and Grubhub in the U.S. soon!

Heat Food And Drinks With Your Laptop

Huh? Yes it’s for real, with Inductive Intelligence, and it should be available to the Japanese market by mid-2019.

“Using highly controlled inductive power our technology allows the consumer within minutes to heat foods, drinks, household and personal care items in the package by simply placing it on a coaster-sized appliance that they can also use to wirelessly charge their mobile device. No trip to the kitchen, no dirty dishes, just conveniently heat the things you want when you want.”- Inductive Intelligence

This base unit device can recognize paper, plastic, glass, metal packaging and heats content more thoroughly and efficiently than the microwave. Of course the products require the special Inductive Intelligence metal receptor built into the packaging. Food companies that partner with Inductive Intelligence will be able to conduct market insights, create loyalty programs and connect with the customer on a higher level than ever before.

The Inductive Intelligence mobile application provides the consumer with the ease of heating food by controlling the temperature as well as reviewing and purchasing enabled products.

This is one of those contraptions that I see being a big hit in the U.S. Don’t forget it will charge your phone too!

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_{Images sourced from @quandoo_sg and inductiveintelligence.com.}