How we eat is getting smarter. From processing orders to working out what our bodies don’t agree with, Irish companies are at the forefront of how technology is influencing the digital shift in food.
The speed with which we get served is where the biggest shift is being felt. While fine dining is at no risk of turning into fast food, businesses such as Nory are improving efficiency behind the scenes.
The Dublin-based company, which has raised $25.7 million (€23.75 million) in funding to date, has developed a platform aimed at giving greater visibility of the entire restaurant process to staff, helping them to better manage orders.
“It’s a single operating system for restaurant groups, particularly places with multiple restaurants,” says Conor Sheridan, founder of Nory. “It does everything from sales to supply chain, through cost of goods sold to people management.
“It’s one command centre for everything in the business. We plug in algorithms to learn all about the business. This shows how many people are expected to come through the door, how many people will be needed in the kitchen, and [it] makes running a restaurant more intelligent and data driven.”
Nory has traded on its use of artificial intelligence (AI) from when it started in 2021. That was slightly before the hype around AI truly got going. Sheridan has noticed a shift in how he discusses the platform with customers as a result.
“It’s been like a 180 [degree turn] in terms of reaction to it. Previously, the reactions to AI were that people felt it wasn’t needed. Ever since the launch of ChatGPT and the like, everyone wants to know how they can use AI in their business,” says Sheridan.
“A lot of our inbound approaches are from people who want to know how they can use AI to make their business more profitable. It also means that it’s harder to differentiate because so many companies are pushing AI now.”
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The idea for the business grew out of issues he had encountered with his other business, Mad Egg. Sheridan, who cofounded the restaurant with Stephen O’Reilly, recognised issues with efficiency and decided to develop a solution that would make it easier to run Mad Egg.
“I had previously worked in finance where everything was based around predictive algorithms. When I went into the restaurant business, it was different and everything just sort of happened. That made me uncomfortable and I wanted to see if there were tools out there to help people use data in their decisions,” he says.
“There wasn’t really. It’s an industry that’s slow to incorporate technology traditionally. I decided to build my own technology initially and it snowballed from there.”
There are now thousands of restaurants using Nory’s platform across Ireland, Britain, the US and the Middle East.
The speed at which Nory has spread is among the reasons so many Irish businesses are examining the food tech sector. Like Nory, RocketBox is an AI business focused on improving efficiency but it is targeted at the delivery sector.
“We focus on kitchens that deal with high volumes of orders. The traditional first-come, first-served approach doesn’t work with massive volume. We prioritise order management through geolocation,” says Sadiq Daniel, head of operations at RocketBox.
“It works out which order to prioritise first. It cuts down wait time. One of the biggest complaints is food being cold. The main factor is down to delivery driver availability and working out which order comes first.”
The platform prioritises essentially based on three factors – the location of the customer, the time it takes to make an order, and whether a delivery driver has been assigned. That last part is crucial: if a driver isn’t assigned then the food shouldn’t be made.
“If it gets made too early, it gets cold and left on a counter. Then someone else might come in to collect and their order isn’t ready yet because the chef hasn’t even started making the food yet,” says Daniel.
“If drivers don’t get the food on time, they’ll just cancel the run. Eventually customers will get annoyed too. It’s not down to the restaurant, it’s down to operational approaches.”
The business was cofounded by spouses Ross and Mel Cronin. The idea grew out of issues Ross Cronin’s Uno Pizza restaurant had dealing with bottlenecks in deliveries and the couple set about creating a solution.
“By addressing the bottlenecks, we’re also boosting staff retention at restaurants. When staff get stressed, especially chefs, they are more likely to leave. If a problem is ongoing and there’s no sign of a solution, they leave out of frustration,” says Daniel.
The business is still in its beta phase and is working with Deliveroo as part of that. RocketBox is also targeting the Middle East, where it has already had some discussions with delivery companies Snoonu and Talabat.
Getting food to customers faster is nice but there’s still the issue of customers finding that their meal disagrees with them. FoodMarble, another Dublin-based company, is addressing that issue. The business has developed a device aimed at finding intolerances and related issues in what we eat.
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“We have a breath analysis device that helps you understand how you’re digesting food and where you’re not digesting certain foods or identify certain issues in your digestive system,” says Aonghus Shortt, co-founder of FoodMarble.
“The user breathes into the device and it measures certain molecules that are produced when [they are] not digesting food fully. These are produced by the microbes in your guts.
Like Nory and RocketBox, the inspiration for the company came close to home.
“My now wife, Grace, and I moved in together. I knew she had some digestive issues but I didn’t really appreciate how much of an impact they had on her life. I come from an engineering background and I dug into the research available to help her,” says Shortt.
“I found out about breath testing and made a prototype device. I figured out what was being measured and she found it helpful. We’d cook up one particular food at a time, she’d eat it, and she’d breathe into the device while digesting.”
Even with that basic prototype, Shortt was able to find usable results including what foods seemed problematic but were not actually the source of the problem.
“If you eat something from a restaurant or a takeaway and blow into the device, the device will show you. It will often be just one element. The carbohydrates in onions or garlic might be the problem for some people, while for others is could be the lactose in a cream-based sauce,” says Shortt.
“The staggering thing is that it’s hard to judge just based on when someone feels bad. Symptoms might happen later and you just blame what you ate most recently. Digestion happens over a long time.”
The business has grown into a multichannel company, after raising €8 million in funding. Having begun as a direct to consumer business, FoodMarble has now expanded to deliver a medical device used by doctors.
“Some of the customers we have in the US are large health systems or groups of clinical practices. There’s a big need because so many people have these issues,” says Shortt.
“We’re in the process of launching some generative AI features. This will interpret the data for the customer and give more feedback to them.”
