Juici Patties, a fast food chain that operates over 70 locations in Florida, New York and Jamaica, began as an island nation in 1978 as a family kitchen.
The executives knew that a different strategy was needed. One is equipped with advanced technology to expand your business, manage your franchise, and sell thousands of putty every day.
Today, Juici Patties uses AI's predictive and aggressive capabilities to prevent confusion before it occurs.
“AI helps us keep sales centres stocked enough brand packaging to meet demand,” Levy said.
In fact, AI technology has stepped up to speedy service and fast restaurant operations. AI can use data to shape forecasts about customer orders and generate leadership insights on how to manage inventory and operations.
Domino's Pizza and Microsoft worked together to create a generation assistant that saves time for inventory management and ingredient order managers. Starbucks also signed a contract with Microsoft and used Genai in its product development. Yum Brands, the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and others, has partnered with NVIDIA on AI for internal tasks such as labor management and analytical processing.
At many quick service restaurants, “their whole brand is built on speed and efficiency,” said Spencer Michiel, restaurant technology advisor at Back of House, a restaurant tech solution resource. “If there's something that can help them with speed, efficiency, low cost, they'll jump over it.”
A rich restaurant layer with AI data
The restaurant is “very data-rich,” Michiel said. While major fast food chains already have standard operating procedures to buy based on demand, AI takes it to the next level with its predictive ability to more accurately predict demand and inform supply.
AI's predictive capabilities allow restaurants to predict what their customers will order and use this data to purchase materials, a notorious part of restaurant supply chain management.
“The biggest thing restaurants do badly is buying,” said Stephen Zagor, a consultant focusing on restaurants and food businesses and an auxiliary assistant professor at Columbia Business School.
AI pulls data from internal sale data from Quick Service Restaurants, including sales trends and products that customers tend to buy at the same time. The AI algorithm then combines this data with external factors such as weather and local events.
“The beauty of AI is that it takes predicted demand and turns it into a response all the time through the supply chain,” Zagor said.
For example, AI can provide detailed data for each location. For restaurants located right next to the interstate, AI can predict that travel will be slower on certain days. Seeing that forecast, restaurant managers can decide to drop stock levels and buy fewer items, Zagor said.
He named McDonald's one quick service restaurant that uses AI to maximize everything from points on sale to supply chains. The fast food giant has partnered with Google Cloud and IBM on a variety of AI solutions.
When it comes to data and AI, the level of standardization across major chains is advantageous over smaller franchises and independent restaurants.
Miciel said Mama and Pop's restaurants may not have the “time, bandwidth, skills and knowledge” to collect data and create action plans. Subscribing to the software costs hundreds of dollars each month, presenting economic barriers to small businesses. New back-of-house or supply chain software must be integrated with existing POS systems. If done incorrectly, the result could be data loss or delays, “and that would be frustrating,” Michelle said.
Provides efficiency and economic benefits
The predictive power of AI also helps minimize waste in restaurant supply chains. If the restaurant orders too many things, you will need to throw away unused or expired food. According to Michiel, this could require increased meal costs to make up for the loss.
“Food waste is just a murderer,” Michiel said. “Excessive orders are straightforward losses. There is no way to recover that cost.”
Control costs are especially important for fast food chains that order large and sell low-cost products. Zagor said making just five cents with items or making five cents less is a “big deal.”
AI can help drive cost savings by flagging certain ingredient swaps that can bring higher benefits without sacrificing taste or quality. Zagor said the technology “smoothly” the restaurant's ability to buy inventory while maintaining customer satisfaction.
“You can make good profits and your customers will be happy,” Zagor said. “It's a win-win.”
Levi said that the implementation of Juici Patties' AI was implemented in the sales points system, and the supply chain was time-consuming, with some pain, and caused fear of replacing the workforce with AI. He admitted that “AI is not perfect.”
But with the technology in place, Juici Patties is increasing operational efficiency, Levy said. In one example, AI revealed that customers wanted to buy food earlier in the day before the Juici Patties location was opened.
“There was a lack of potential sales early in the day,” Levy said. The restaurant chain acted on that information and adjusted its opening hours. Results: “Daily sales are consistently increasing,” Levy said.
