Today in Restaurant and Grocery Tech: Robots Serve Breakfast; Grocer Taps Conversational Commerce

Today in restaurant and grocery tech news, Denny’s turns to robotics, while India’s JioMart enables WhatsApp grocery ordering. Plus, PYMNTS research reveals how U.K. shoppers’ grocery habits have been changed by the pandemic.

44% of UK Grocery Shoppers Spend More at Stores With Loyalty Programs

In What U.K. Consumers Expect From Their Grocery Shopping Experiences, a PYMNTS and ACI collaboration, the second part of a two-part study about payments in the grocery industry, PYMNTS surveyed 2,501 U.K. consumers from Sept. 14 to Sept. 17 about their preferences for buying groceries both online and in-store. Check out some of the key findings here.

India’s JioMart Turns to WhatsApp in Grocery Wars

India’s JioMart will now let customers order groceries using WhatsApp, a move designed to carve out a space in a market dominated by Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart. As Bloomberg reported on Tuesday (Nov. 30), the service offers free delivery and no minimum order value, with products on offer including produce and cereal, as well as Indian cooking stables like chickpea flour and paneer cottage cheese.

With Pop-Ups and Digital Tech, Restaurants Follow in Retail’s Footsteps

From quick-service to fine dining, restaurants are turning to retail to get a sense of how to engage with consumers’ quick-changing habits and expectations. The New York Times recently reported on the creation of ADMO, a 100-day pop-up restaurant spearheaded by Alain Ducasse, Albert Adrià and Romain Meder, advertising views of the Eiffel Tower. The high-profile, fine-dining pop-up has the opportunity to leverage the sense of exclusivity and scarcity created by the limited timeframe to drive sales.

Restaurants Tapping Robot Servers Risk Repeating Mistakes of the Past

Table-service restaurants are turning to robotics to weather labor challenges, but it’s too soon to say whether these robots are the waitstaff of the future. A video posted to TikTok in late November showing a robotic server at a Denny’s location went viral, drawing mixed responses from viewers, many of whom were unhappy to see human servers replaced with a machine.