Food delivery shoppers are becoming more price sensitive, indicating that platforms will have to get creative to ensure profits. One key growth lever for companies in 2025 is reinforcing their commitments to grocery, the often-overlooked food delivery service next to restaurants.
The Gulfood 2025 event in Dubai emphasized the urgent need for sustainable global food systems. The event also showcased innovative solutions and products aimed at enhancing food security, such as AI-based order processing.
Yum Brands’ new AI platform, Byte by Yum, illustrates the potential of proprietary tech for QSR giants, but independent restaurants can also leverage similar, customizable platforms. Experts advise starting small with AI for specific tasks and monitoring its outputs closely to ensure that it enhances efficiency.
In its quest to revolutionize retail, Amazon Go has faced significant hurdles, from customer confusion to technical difficulties. Amazon’s challenges in brick-and-mortar retail highlight the complexities of adopting cashierless technology.
Recent supply chain disruptions further prove that operators need to consider ways to integrate resilience into their approach. One key method is through integrating flexibility into shipment processes.
At the recent Retail’s Big Show event by the NRF, technology took center stage, showing the need for businesses to transform their operations with a digital future in mind. Here’s a look at three themes slated to take over retail in the new year.
The CPG category is undergoing a significant transformation, blending AI, retail media networks, and social shopping to create deeply personalized experiences. These innovations are reshaping shopping into a seamless experience for consumers.
The F&B industry is at a transformative crossroads, where AI-driven advancements, and the rise of functional foods, are reshaping how we think about nutrition. In 2025, the challenge will be balancing innovation with preserving the cultural essence of food.
The global food supply chain faces mounting challenges, with 30% of food lost or wasted annually. To combat these hurdles, industry leaders are leveraging real-time tracking, sustainable logistics, and AI-driven automation.
Grocers are upgrading their membership programs by combining retail media strategies with AI-driven personalization, offering targeted ads and perks based on shopping behaviors. This evolution integrates elements like first-party data to maximize ad value.
The latest Food Institute Fast Break news podcast touches on consumers’ growing demand for not just value, but also luxury offerings.
Coca-Cola’s AI-generated holiday ads sparked backlash for prioritizing spectacle over substance, highlighting a key lesson for food industry players: AI must deliver real-world value to resonate.
AI is revolutionizing the consumer journey for CPG brands. Yet, while AI enhances predictive insights, concerns about data privacy and the balance between automation and human connection remain key considerations for brands, according to industry insiders.
A new industry study suggests food and beverage suppliers simply can’t afford to ignore supply chain modernization.
The international restaurant-bakery chain recently debuted the cutting-edge AI tool Alain.AI to modernize their recipe database and standardize protocol across 214 locations in 19 countries.
While restaurant chains like McDonald’s have had notable swings and misses regarding AI, business leaders insist the technology offers invaluable uses to food companies, aiding personalized offers, sales forecasting, and more.
Restaurants can have a drive-up process even if they don’t have a traditional drive-thru setup.
A new study shows that hourly employees are demanding more recognition from their employers along with increasingly flexible schedules.
How do you sustain a business where customers are taken care of every step of the way? How do you deliver an end-to-end seamless and value-added experience for your customers, both direct and via digital …
CPG manufacturing platform Keychain has appointed Mitchell Madoff to Head of Retail Partnerships. The Foxtrot transplant and former Head of Whole Foods Private Label brings with him an extensive background in CPG and private label spanning over two decades.
Today’s retail workers are most eager to be equipped with tools that help them tackle inefficient tasks, particularly when interacting with customers.
Join The Food Institute at NRA’s 2024 Restaurant Show as we investigate the innovations of Raydiant, a company that provides digital tools for Restaurants. From digital menu boards to point-of-sale integration and even AI-triggered promotional …
Avocados From Mexico has made itself into a recognizable brand through things like numerous distribution deals to creative marketing. Join The Food Institute – on the ground at the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 restaurant show …
“The power of audio in retail goes beyond just music,” Elsley said. “Incorporating carefully crafted messaging and advertisements into the auditory experience can further enhance customer engagement and drive sales.”
In a few short years, retail will be a totally immersive and data-driven experience highlighted by personalized AI recommendations for health and home, smart carts to increase efficiency (and solve the traveling salesman’s dilemma in-store), and much more.
In an era defined by rapid technological advancement and environmental challenges, the concept of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is at the forefront of a profound transformation in the agricultural sector.
To further understand how inventory and supply chain will change, Jarvis said the end of data silos must be achieved “to create a holistic understanding of each shopper, their interactions, and the stream of information being shared with them.
“By 2030, visiting a Target, Walmart, or Costco won’t just be about shopping,” said Diana Zheng, head of marketing at Stallion Express, a leading e-commerce shipping company from Canada, “It will be an experience. An immersive experience. A personalized experience, even a social experience.”
“Tomorrow’s winners will vary how they generate demand across their portfolios, with mass activation for their biggest brands and more targeted treatment for niche and insurgent brands,” Kyle Weza, global co-lead and brand accelerator for Bain & Company, said in the report.
From number-crunching untold volumes of data to helping streamline inventory, supply chain, and predictive market trends, there is no digital limit to what AI can help operators achieve.
The latest Food Institute Fast Break news podcast touches on the trend of “AI washing” by some major businesses.
Critics and analysts alike are keen to understand who stands to benefit most from this technology – whether it will primarily serve Amazon’s interests by increasing sales and customer retention, or genuinely improve the consumer experience by offering more personalized and convenient shopping solutions.
As more distributors move to online ordering, organizing data is essential to providing operators with info like analytics. AI can help.
