 Research from Recycle Track Systems found that the restaurant industry spends an estimated $162 billion every year in costs related to wasted food. That’s money that can fund critical tech investment, new hires, or other areas of your business. While tech tools to help restaurant operators manage restaurant waste have been on the rise, food waste continues to be a costly challenge for many oeprators. When Nation’s Restaurant News surveyed 600 operators as part of their second annual Restaurant Technology Outlook this year, they asked what features are most important when considering tech upgrades for the back of house. The top answer, for 35 percent of respondents, was reducing food waste. So what can be done? Assess how well your business understands the sources of loss. There could be many, including inventory over-ordering or other mismanagement, inconsistency in portioning, coupon abuse, or problems with food spoilage along the supply chain. A recent Forbes report advises operators to create prescriptive models to avoid over-preparing food items. For instance, could you provide your staff with workflows that incorporate waste reduction practices as part of your efforts at continuous improvement? Doing so could not only cut waste but also boost staff productivity. Improving your view of the supply chain through Internet of Things-connected sensors can help too, as well as ensuring you and your suppliers have a shared commitment to transparency.
 Shake Shack recently made headlines with a tech-related success story: Its kiosks are now the brand’s largest and most profitable ordering channel – and by a long shot. During the company’s Q1 earnings call, Shake Shack CFO Katie Forgerty said guest orders made via kiosk are “a high teens percentage” larger than orders made in other in-store channels. Restaurant Dive reports that the brand had made enhancements to set the stage for stronger upsells – like being able to add an extra burger patty or bacon while ordering. At the same time, they managed to use their tech to reduce wait times, effectively generating larger checks in a smaller window of time. In your restaurant, is there opportunity for you to use your tech – whether it be kiosk, website, mobile app or something else – to deliver a more customized, premium experience to your guests? What does your data say about the ingredients and options your guests crave? Where might you insert options that not only appeal to guests, but which also boost the profitability of each check?
 Whether you call it fast-fine or fine-casual, technology is making fine dining look different now. As Food & Wine reports, there are a number of high-end restaurants around the country where guests are asked to order via QR code or line up at a counter to place their order, then take their seats, at which point the experience begins to feel more like a traditional fine dining experience. Service in these restaurants feels a bit different than it once did: There might be a sommelier on hand who is cross-trained as a server, bartender, cashier and host. If guests go for the changes, they could well be signs of what’s to come in the fine-dining space. When Nation’s Restaurant News surveyed 600 operators for their second annual Restaurant Technology Outlook this year, they found several business areas where restaurant operators are looking to tech to improve their operations – and all have the potential to improve the sustainability of the fine dining segment. Nearly one-third of respondents said that they already get the best return on investment when they adopt tech in the front of the house – other parts of the business scored lower. Further, when asked about their desired potential return on investment for restaurant tech, most respondents mentioned increased productivity and efficiency, as well as time savings for staff and managers. These are all changes on plain display in this new breed of fine dining restaurants, which is likely cutting waste in a range of ways.
 In a recent restaurant technology podcast from Fast Casual, participants compared restaurant technology to an iceberg: Only some of it is visible on the surface right now – the invisible majority lingers underneath. Considering how tech advancements have transformed other industries over many years, the imminent growth of restaurant tech makes sense, particularly as tech natives in Gen Y and Gen Z represent a growing portion of the workforce. And if most restaurant tech is yet to come, it’s important for today’s tech to leave space for what’s in the pipeline. Looking at the platform you have now, how readily and smoothly can additional technology plug into it? Consider where you’d like to take your business in the next five to 10 years and how well your current system would allow you to adapt to that growth. Where do you expect to make your money? Look to integrate tech that can bring greater efficiencies around cost, labor and real estate to those areas of your business – then you will have a solid foundation from which to branch out into new channels, day parts or service models. When assessing potential providers, collect references, review case studies of the technology in practice, ensure the company has been in business long enough to have worked out kinks in its core products, and be aware of any long-term contracts that could make it difficult for you to swap out a product (or vendor) down the line if needed. When you’re ready to roll out new tools, incorporate a period of time for the change to happen so your team has space to digest it and make it part of how they work. This is especially important if you have operated in a different way for a long time and your new technology represents a significant departure from that. If you can, run any new functionality in a test environment that leaves room for you to make mistakes and try new approaches as part of the tech adoption process.
 The demand for online food delivery has surged in the past few years and is poised for continued growth, according to Statista research. The National Restaurant Association has reported that for the first time, drive-through and delivery orders account for a larger share of guest traffic than on-premises dining. While this presents new opportunities for restaurants, it also gives threat actors an appealing target for fraud – particularly because frequent, low-volume transactions can make it easier for fraud to go undetected. You can take some steps to make your business a more difficult target for these scams, however. Beyond some basic protections such as enforcing strong passwords on your website and app, prompting password changes, and having people use multifactor authentication to access their account, Security Boulevard advises businesses to use a few safety precautions to prevent unauthorized access. For example, you can limit the number of login attempts within a certain time frame, or set up alerts whenever changes have been made to an account/password. Your fraud prevention software can also help by identifying the location of login attempts and flagging locations that seem off-base or which use a VPN to disguise their IP address – common signs that a threat actor is trying to breach a network. It’s also important to keep your security software current by installing patches and updates promptly – unfortunately, fraudsters often take advantage of security vulnerabilities due to delays in installing up-to-date security measures.
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