Food On Demand

10/19/2026

Join us for Off-Premises University!

Establishing a Presence in the Agentic Marketplace

As AI agents start placing food orders on behalf of consumers, this webinar will help operators understand how to get discovered and chosen by these systems.

Thursday, October 29 | 1:00pm CDT

10/19/2026

Shipt, the third-party delivery platform whose retail partners include Target and Sprouts Farmers Market, recently introduced a suite of tools to make the ordering process more personalized and convenient.

The retail-focused 3PD platform launched Ask Shipt in September, an AI-powered shopping assistant that turns customers’ prompts, recipes and photos into personalized shopping carts. At the start of the summer, the Alabama-based company announced Shipt Kits, a feature that suggests pre-filled carts designed to save customers time when shopping for specific events like watch parties and holiday parties.

“Our primary focus is not necessarily changing the customer behavior, but it’s about making the shopping for everyday essentials feel easier [and] feel more intuitive,” Alia Kemet, Shipt’s chief marketing officer, told Food On Demand. “If there’s one thing that we’d like customers to experience, it’s to lessen that fatigue, so we will continue to develop and to enhance both of these, and build upon them.

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/4s8JD5W

Inside Shipt’s AI Push by Hans Lammeman | Oct 14, 2026 | News Shipt, the third-party delivery platform whose retail partners include Target and Sprouts Farmers Market, recently introduced a suite of tools to make the ordering process more personalized and convenient. Alia Kemet is Shipt’s chief ...

10/16/2026

Wing added Denver and Seattle to the list of metro areas set to receive autonomous aerial delivery in 2027 through a partnership with Walmart, building on what was already slated to be a year of scaling for the Alphabet-owned drone delivery company.

Wing announced the expansion of drone delivery services to the most populous cities in Washington and Colorado on October 5. Those plans follow similar news from Wing and Walmart in June, when the partners announced seven additional markets for the planned 2027 expansion: Memphis, Tennessee, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area and Salt Lake City.

“Adding new metros to our expansion speaks to how quickly people across the country are adopting drone delivery,” Heather Rivera, Wing’s chief business officer, said in a release. “We’re excited to serve the needs of busy families in nearly 20 major markets spanning diverse communities and climates by delivering the everyday items these families need fast.”

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/4jKtscM

Walmart and Wing Add Seattle and Denver to 2027 Expansion Plans by Hans Lammeman | Oct 7, 2026 | News Briefs Wing added Denver and Seattle to the list of metro areas set to receive autonomous aerial delivery in 2027 through a partnership with Walmart, building on what was already slated to be a year...

10/15/2026

Uber Technologies’ $2.3 billion agreement to acquire third-party catering platform ezCater this week represents a significant push into the space for the parent company of third-party delivery giant Uber Eats.

The October 6 announcement extends the pattern of catering-focused initiatives from industry-leading 3PD platforms; DoorDash and Grubhub have both expanded catering offerings this year.

With the ezCater transaction expected to close in the coming months, the all-cash acquisition would add to Uber’s portfolio a platform that generated more than $2.5 billion in gross bookings over the past 12 months, according to the announcement.

The transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

“We’re thrilled to be joining forces with Uber. Our team is proud of what we’ve built — the leading platform for workplace catering, and a major growth channel for our restaurant partners,” said Nihad Rahman, CEO of ezCater. “We’re energized to bring our catering and B2B expertise to Uber’s global ecosystem of customers, merchants and couriers.”

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/4rUmDYm

Uber’s $2.3B ezCater Deal Continues Delivery Platforms’ Catering Push by Hans Lammeman | Oct 7, 2026 | News Uber Technologies’ $2.3 billion agreement to acquire third-party catering platform ezCater this week represents a significant push into the space for the parent company of third-party de...

10/14/2026

In the midst of a tech stack revamp that spanned point-of-sale system replacements and the rollout of a new inventory management tool, Jack in the Box deployed Harri, a workforce management platform, systemwide in five months.

Luke Fryer, CEO and founder of Harri, said that Jack in the Box, a chain with just over 2,100 locations, needed an updated workforce management system due in large part to “a perfect storm of conditions” in California: rising wages and a quickly changing labor compliance landscape. After all, the brand is headquartered in San Diego, with nearly 45 percent of its total units located in the Golden State.

“That created a ripple effect into managerial wages, so you had a lot of compression moving into manager wages,” Fryer told Food On Demand. “So, generally, the cost of labor went up tremendously, and Jack in the Box identified a need as a franchisor at a brand level to help their franchisees more precisely and more optimally deploy labor.”

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/4ARzWg2

Jack in the Box Rolls Out Workforce Tech as Labor Costs Climb by Hans Lammeman | Oct 6, 2026 | News In the midst of a tech stack revamp that spanned point-of-sale system replacements and the rollout of a new inventory management tool, Jack in the Box deployed Harri, a workforce management platform,....

10/13/2026

On October 20, Olo will launch its own consumer app. As of late September, around 220 brands have signed up, including Dave’s Hot Chicken, El Pollo Loco and Waffle House. Olo has long been part of the technology that powers digital ordering and delivery work for more than 800 U.S. restaurant brands by underpinning the connections between customers, restaurants and couriers.

Starting as a text-messaging order service, Olo had a customer-facing presence until 2010 when it became a B2B software company. Its newest move, the Olo App, restores it, at least in part, to a customer-facing business.

Restaurants pay no commission on orders placed through the app. They also get access to customer data from across Olo’s network, while actual delivery is handled by third-party couriers. CEO Noah Glass has referred to this as “second-party” ordering—a middle ground between a marketplace and a brand’s own app.

Is the model new? Versions of it have been running for several years in Asia, Europe and Australasia, and among independent restaurants in the U.S. Their experience shows what the approach can do for restaurants, and where the hard work lies: persuading diners to switch.

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/3UemKS3

Second-Party Ordering: Lessons from Around the World by Peter Backman | Oct 6, 2026 | News Contributing editor, Peter Backman, is a long-term foodservice sector guru and founder of theDelivery.World, a platform that connects the delivery sector and makes sense of the myriad changes and challenges th...

10/12/2026

Kutlerri AI, a Houston-based artificial intelligence startup offering a lineup of off-premises-focused agents alongside other AI assistants tailored for restaurant management use cases, secured a $4 million funding round aimed at fueling expansion.

The round will finance the rollout of Kutlerri AI’s catering sales agent and other products. The firm’s agents in beta or development stages include assistants built for third-party sales, online sales, third-party marketing spend optimization, prime cost optimization, and daily prep and waste control.

“Ask an operator which off-premise channel is underperforming and they will name it in a second,” Payal Tripathy, co-founder and chief operating officer of Kutlerri AI, said in a September 30 press release . “Ask who is working on it and there is usually no answer. We put an agent on that channel and run it ourselves. Our fee comes out of the orders it books or the money it saves. No orders and no savings, no fee.”

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/4y5cpFK

Off-Prem-Focused AI Agent Startup Raises $4M by Hans Lammeman | Oct 6, 2026 | News Briefs Kutlerri.ai, a Houston-based artificial intelligence startup offering a lineup of off-premises-focused agents alongside other AI assistants tailored for restaurant management use cases, secured a $4 million fun...

10/08/2026

Sixteen years after a trio of childhood friends opened the first Cava location in the Washington, D.C., area, the same group of cofounders gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the chain’s 500th restaurant on September 23 at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus.

Despite noting the significance of the milestone, which marked a decade and a half of growth for the Greek- and Mediterranean-inspired fast-casual chain, Chief Development Officer Jeff Gaul said the brand already has its sights set on reaching 1,000 units by 2032.

“As we continue to scale and create a more sustainable business, we just get smarter and better. It’s all about our people,” Gaul said, noting that team member training and the brand’s general manager pipeline program represented a critical area of growth that allowed for the recent scaling. “That’s really what we’ve just gotten better at doing from 250 to now 500, and we’ll get better from 750 to 1,000, just making sure that when our team serves that very first bowl on the opening day, they feel super confident.”

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/4dc5V0y

Cava Executives Celebrate 500th Location—and They’re Already Eyeing the 1,000th by Hans Lammeman | Oct 1, 2026 | News   Sixteen years after a trio of childhood friends opened the first Cava location in the Washington, D.C., area, the original group of cofounders gathered for a ribbon-cutting ce...

10/07/2026

McDonald’s is pledging to spend $8.5 billion through 2036 to help its franchisees accelerate restaurant modernization, technology deployment and operational improvements as part of its companywide plan to add market share, expand margins and improve hospitality.

About $5 billion of that will be allocated by 2030 through a combination of rent relief and capital support.

The investments are part of the new “McDonald’s Next” strategy, which aims to make the burger chain the first choice for more customers, while building upon the capabilities established through “Accelerating the Arches,” its global corporate growth strategy launched in late 2020.

“McDonald’s has the unmatched scale, customer insights, brand loyalty, and operational capabilities to not only adapt to the next wave of change in our industry, but to turn it into an advantage,” McDonald’s Chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a press release. “We are confident that executing across the key components of Next will unlock stronger restaurant economics, generate attractive returns for the company, our franchisees and shareholders, and increase capacity to keep investing in growth.”

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/4yt7Whn

McDonald’s Plans to Spend $8.5B to Accelerate Franchisee Restaurant Modernization. by Andy Tellijohn | Oct 1, 2026 | News Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published on Franchise Times, a sibling publication of Food On Demand. McDonald’s is pledging to spend $8.5 billion ...

10/06/2026

When delivery surged into the restaurant space, many brands struggled to get their high-margin drinks to homebound diners. The ubiquitous fountain drink lids failed and spilled soda all over drivers’ cars. The ice melted, the fizz faded and nobody got a straw when they wanted one.

Back then, some of the smartest operators I spoke with had simple guidance: Raise the price and deliver bottled soda. Ten-plus years later, does that advice hold true? In short, yes.

In a great discussion with Coca-Cola executive Josh Gurley, Franchise Times sibling publication Food On Demand explored why beverages still lag and offered ideas to boost beverage sales in digital channels.

Gurley spoke about ways to drive “beverage incidence.” (Dibs on that band name.) He sees potential in playing up personalization to all the special Gen Z butterflies who love the Coke Freestyle machines and taking advantage of the discovery behavior of ordering digitally versus a speed-focused drive-thru. Some of it works, and the soda supplier is working closely with third-party delivery companies to push it further.

Still, across digital channels, the percentage of orders that include beverages is about 14 percent lower for digital orders than offline. While that has gotten better in the last several years thanks to highly incentivized players like Coca-Cola, it’s still a distinct difference.

Read more here 👇
https://bit.ly/4ypBgFg

Want to Push Drink Delivery? Unless You’re Prepared for Headaches, Don’t. by Nicholas Upton | Oct 1, 2026 | News Editor’s Note: A version of this column was originally published on Franchise Times, a sibling publication of Food On Demand. When delivery surged into the restaurant space, many br...