Today In Food: Lines Blur Between Grocery And Restaurant, Content And Commerce

Today in restaurant and grocery news, POS companies aim to meet more of restaurants’ tech needs, while sandwich chain Quiznos announced that some Denver locations will soon accept bitcoin. Plus, contextual commerce platform Chicory’s president talks about making content fully shoppable.

POS Providers Compete To Be Restaurants’ One-Stop Shop

The name point of sale (POS) may suggest a single step of the process, but restaurant POS providers are going well beyond the moment of payment. On Tuesday (Aug. 3), FinTech and payments company Fiserv’s Clover POS system announced the launch of Clover Station Solo, while cloud-based POS system Appetize announced its Appetize Plus subscription program.

Quiznos, Bakkt Debut Pay With Bitcoin In Some Restaurants

Digital asset marketplace Bakkt’s parent company Bakkt Holdings has partnered with sandwich chain Quiznos to roll out a physical location and let Quiznos customers pay with cryptocurrency, a press release says. This will make the capability available in the Denver market, which will include the highly populated airport.

16 Pct Of Restaurant Customers Will Spend More If They’re Rewarded More

The 2021 edition of the Restaurant Readiness Index, a PYMNTS and Paytronix collaboration, surveyed over 500 managers of quick-service restaurants (QSRs) and full-service restaurants from across the U.S. in Q2 2021 to discern the evolution of mobile order-ahead (MOA) trends, as part of a larger ongoing 25,000-consumer survey undertaken in Q3 2020. This excerpt focuses on digital features that restaurants of different types are incorporating, and the impact that feature sets are having on consumer preference, order size, revenue and more.

Kroger Brings Ghost Kitchens To Stores With Kitchen United Partnership

On Wednesday (Aug. 4), top U.S. grocer Kroger announced a partnership with Kitchen United, one of the leading companies bringing ghost kitchens, which are off-premises-only restaurants, available through online ordering. Through the partnership, Kitchen United will bring up to six restaurant brands — a combination of local establishments and national chains — to the grocer’s stores, with orders prepared by restaurant staff and fulfilled by third-party digital ordering and delivery services.

All Content Will Soon Be Shoppable, Says Contextual Commerce Platform Chicory

Shoppable features are being built into more and more of the digital spaces that consumers frequent. Jason Young, president of contextual commerce platform Chicory, predicts that commerce and content will be fully integrated within the next five years.