How well do you know the origins of the food you serve? Restaurants are able to collect a growing amount of information about the items they order – and that can enable much more powerful buying decisions and better management of food supply risks. Beyond fine-tuning inventory needs based on how your guests are ordering and helping you minimize waste, restaurant operators and other companies in the food supply chain are starting to use artificial intelligence to track and contain supply chain risks – say, tracking a recalled product and mining reams of data to identify trends from it or determine whether a specific supplier, distributor, or environmental problem is to blame. The company FourKites, which helps fine-tune shipment tracking for food suppliers ranging from US Foods to Tyson Foods, is one company bringing greater visibility to the supply chain.

You know that technology can help you better identify countless areas of inefficiency in your restaurant – but where is the best place to start with it? Using tech to get a precise handle on your prime costs could be it. These expenses represent such a high percentage of your sales – about 61 percent, according to BDO’s “The Counter: Restaurant Industry Scorecard” from 2019. A new eBook from the financial software company Sage Intacct, “Best Practices for Data Driven Restaurants,” says operators should be able to view their cost of goods sold on their dashboard and drill down on specific parts of their inventory and menu categories. This can help them flag potential costs to renegotiate or problem areas to investigate, like an item that is costing too high compared to budget, an ingredient that isn’t being measured accurately, or a menu item that isn’t priced profitably. The eBook also advises the automation of invoice processing – not only to cut back on time-consuming tasks where errors are likely to occur, but also to get real-time insights into food costs.

Is your digital ordering platform up to the challenges this winter will bring? The season will be a test for restaurants everywhere: The days of generating only a small fraction of business from off-premise orders are over – perhaps permanently. So consider this winter an opportunity to get to know your data better than ever before. Andrew Robbins, the CEO of Paytronix, recently told Pyments.com that this winter would be a chance for brands to get to know their guests even better by exploring their customer relationship management systems and – with the help of artificial intelligence – analyzing customer purchasing patterns. “This can lead to long-term changes, like data-driven subscription programs that further cement the relationships between brands and their guests,” he said. Instead of looking at this winter as a period to survive, consider it a time when you can harness your systems to truly understand the data you’re collecting – and then turn it into offers that build the kind of loyal following that will carry you through times like this.

If there were ever a year to ditch the paper, this would be it. From your inventory management to your menu to your employee training, tech tools are helping operators eliminate paper processes and their inefficiencies. Perhaps the biggest benefit of making the switch is real-time management: Knowing your inventory shortfalls as they happen can help you adjust your digital menu to substitute an item or promote a new special on the spot. Being able to inform your staff of day-to-day changes in operating procedure electronically – and ensuring compliance in real time – is especially crucial now as COVID-19 infections affect how restaurants can serve guests. Ask Team Four how you can eliminate any paper processes that are holding you back this year.

Watch for digital inventory management systems to take a big step forward this year. Amid the push to reduce waste and simplify menus in an effort to ease labor costs, new digital systems – used in conjunction with point-of-sale systems – are bringing real-time accuracy to inventory management. These systems can track raw ingredients used in menu items based on the shipments arriving at the restaurant and the dishes actually sold in the restaurant, App Institute reports. By being able to access real-time data in that level of detail, restaurants can automate reorders and avoid running out of ingredients, making manual inventory systems an increasingly clear liability for a business.