Empowering Restaurants with Foodini: A Deep Dive into Allergen and Dietary Management

In this episode of Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, host Jeremy Julian sits down with Dylan and Erica, co-founders of Foodini, a groundbreaking tech solution aimed at addressing food allergies, dietary needs, and ingredient transparency in the restaurant industry. They delve into how Foodini's platform helps restaurants seamlessly document ingredients and recipes, ensuring safety for consumers with dietary restrictions while streamlining operations. Discussion includes real-world applications, the importance of meticulous documentation, and the increasing legislative push towards allergen transparency. Also covered are benefits such as increased consumer loyalty and operational advantages gained through integrated software solutions. This episode emphasizes the value of technology in making dining experiences safer and more inclusive.

00:00 Foodini

01:09 Introduction and Guest Backgrounds

01:46 Erica's Journey in Restaurant Tech

03:56 Dylan's Unique Perspective

05:31 Introducing Foodini: Solving Menu Transparency

06:35 Challenges in Menu Transparency

07:24 Consumer and Restaurant Perspectives

13:26 Leveraging AI for Ingredient Transparency

17:49 Future of Menu Transparency and Legislation

19:41 Leveraging Consumer Data for Marketing

19:59 European Allergen Labeling Practices

20:51 California's SB 68 Bill and Its Implications

22:18 The Value of Allergen Transparency for Restaurants

25:29 Consumer Experience with Allergen Information

26:56 Technological Solutions for Allergen Management

34:35 Benefits of Documenting Recipes for Restaurants

36:06 How to Get Started with Our Service

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:02

This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, helping you run your restaurant better.

0:14

In today's episode, we're going to dive into the game changing innovative, food technology by the founders of Food Dini, a tech solution that revolutionizes food, ingredients, allergens, diets, and all of the different things that over half of the US population, struggles with. These guys have built a. Amazing solution that I had no idea was such a huge challenge within the restaurant industry until these guys got in and shared all of the things that it can help. Not only a restaurant operator, but the technologists that are behind it, as well as your consumers. Lots of game changing advice that these guys give. And so if you're not already using a solution like theirs. You need to check it out. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I'm the Chief Revenue Officer for CBS Northstar. We wrote the North Star point of Sale solution for multi-units. Please check us out@cbsnorthstar.com and now onto the episode.

Jeremy Julian: 1:09

Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining, as I like to say each and every time. I know you guys have got lots of choices, so thank you guys for hanging out. Today is an episode that I'm excited for you guys to hear about because, Dylan and Erica have some really cool stuff that they've been doing in this space and it's become more and more prevalent, and so I'm excited to hear. Really their take on what it is that they're trying to solve for and then how they're solving it and why they think they're different. But, Erica, why don't you give us a little bit of an introduction, who's Erica, and pass it over to your co-founder. We'll talk a little bit about kind of your guys' background and how this came to be, and then we'll, we'll start to share with our audience what it looks like.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 1:44

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having us on. so my name's Erica. I've been in the restaurant tech world. For about 15 years now, I got my start, company called Campus Food. It was the first online ordering to come to college campuses at the time, we were sending faxes to restaurants, but going door to door, signing up a bunch of them, through that went to New York to their kind of sales floor. a bunch of people calling college campuses around the country. had that experience for a summer. And I met, some of the team, the founders of. Seamless in New York. they had just sold Seamless to Aramark and were starting a new company called Single Platform. so single platform, I was one of the, about number five, we basically built the plumbing for menu data on the internet. So prior, when you would look up a restaurant, you would see name, address, phone number, and if you were lucky, A PDF of the menu. and we basically built the menu schema that we would then syndicate out to all the search engines, Google, Yahoo, Bing, LP Foursquare, TripAdvisor, who later bought the business. But that was where I started going around to all the conferences, working with a lot of the big restaurant groups we worked with Darden, Brinker, and, just really good experience there. after that, missed the early days, the early kind of building days. and I met the founder of Slice, local pizza app. So joined Alliya and the Slice team also right around number five. grew that from about a million to 60 million in revenue to about 12,000 pizzerias throughout the country. worked with a lot of mom and pops. Premise there. Help local chains compete against the big, or help local pizzerias compete against the big chains, economies of scale, helping get better prices, better online ordering. and then yeah, from there, a few others. We were at seeded, one of the early players in dynamic pricing. and then ecco, which is similar to Slice, focused on coffee shops, more on the back of house supply side. but it was while I was there that I met Dylan. Dylan, why don't actually pass it over. Good. Good. Yeah.

Jeremy Julian: 3:28

Yeah, before, before you go, Dylan, I, there's probably some level of therapy. You're not only startup, but startup in restaurant tech. there's something there, Erica, that, that probably, I'm teasing just'cause I've been in restaurant space for, almost 30 years on the tech side and the people that keep going back to not only restaurants but restaurant startups there, they're a special breed.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 3:45

Ly, there's something wrong with, but at the same time,

Jeremy Julian: 3:48

like I said, I could probably be a multimillionaire if I was just a therapist for, for, restaurant people that tried to get out that couldn't get out. all Sorry, Dylan. you wanna introduce yourself to your audience?

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 3:56

Yeah, sure. my background is quite different to Erica's in that I wasn't in restaurant tech at all before. I before this endeavor and my, as you can tell from accent Irish, corporate lawyer by trade. So I worked for a top tier corporate law firm. Had, the apples, Googles, Facebooks of the world as my clients initially, ended up specializing in investment funds. And then that took me to Australia, which is actually where I initially started the business. My angle and where I came at, it was the consumer side. So Celiac diagnosed when I was 10. And so experienced a consumer problem of trying to navigate dining out for most of my life. And just over time was getting more and more frustrated with how is it still so difficult to understand what is in a menu item in a restaurant? Like why is that so hard? Why is that information not available? and Initially started it, the company, through that consumer lens in terms of trying to solve the problem, purely for the consumer, but then over time realized that you can't solve for the consumer without solving it for the restaurant, because the data just doesn't exist. And that's when I suppose when I connect with Erica, we that puzzle together and realize, okay, we think we understand how we can actually solve this properly at scale. and yeah, that's my whistle stop background.

Jeremy Julian: 5:07

I love it. I guess share what did, I don't think either one of you guys during that brief intro, shared the name of the product and kind of what is it? So why don't we, why don't we take a step back? I love that background. I love the history and I know what, why don't we clear our listeners in, that's great. they're now, sleuthing out. Okay. He's. Celiac, she's in restaurant tech. Tell me more. what exactly have you guys created and what is it? What is the big problem that we're trying to solve for?

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 5:31

Do you wanna take that or? I, the company's called Foodini, like Foodini, but food, and so we essentially are powering ingredient level transparency across the entire food ecosystem. So we have a multitude of different solutions. We work directly with restaurants, hotels, to take their menu data. Tag it with the correct ingredients and then allergens and dietaries, and then power a digital personalized menu for consumers across over a hundred different diets and allergens. So a consumer can scan a QR code in on the menu, or they can click a button on the website and say, gluten-free, peanut allergy vegan. Shellfish allergy save, and it instantly will be told, here are the 10 items you can eat. Here are the 10 items you can eat with a modifier and what that modifier is, and here are the 10 items you can't eat and why. So personalized menu experience. We also can work with, and we do work with stadiums and broader environments. We call them micro environments. Schools, universities, that kind of, vertical. And also we have APIs that can power personalization for online ordering as well. so those are the three main segments that we work in.

Jeremy Julian: 6:35

I love it. and I know we talked prior to hitting the record button, it's, it feels like a burgeoning space that, that more and more people are coming into. I guess I'd love for you to walk our listeners through, what do you guys traditionally see when you guys engage with a restaurant brand? Last night I happened to be having dinner with a partner. He just went through this whole like food thing where. he's trying to, migrate his diet to something that's healthier for him. And he was struggling to figure out what was in, because he had certain, they weren't quite allergies that were gonna make him sick, but they were gonna make him not feel good the next day type of thing. And so we were talking through that and, literally it was just a conversation over dinner last night and he's unfortunately I can't really tell. And so I'd love for you guys to walk through, Most of our listeners out there are gonna be restaurant owners or people that are in the restaurant leadership space. How do people do it today? And then let's talk about how FINI can help bridge that gap to where people are at.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 7:24

Let me, I'll just mention on the re on the consumer side first and then I'll pass to you on the restaurant, but just to on that point, when we started this, initially we were had just the big nine allergens and the initial hypothesis was that will cover, that will cover nearly everything. Jeremy, the amount of emails we were getting from like day one in terms of, but I have a strawberry allergy. I have a kiwi allergy. What about, I'm trying to go on, take keto diet. I'm actually doing low FODMAP now because I've got health issues, like how do you help me do that? that was the trigger to realize. It's not just about people with food allergies that are the big nine. It is, it's about half the population that has some form of dietary requirement, be that an allergen be that an intolerance be that a lifestyle diet that they want to follow. The TAM is just so much bigger than most people realize. And there is a malt, like food is medicine movement. Like all these different reasons why people just want to understand what is in their food. And so the consumer problem has just continued to grow and grow even, since we started this day one. So that's the consumer side. I'll pass you on the restaurant side. And on the restaurant side, I think ultimately this problem has been something that, continues to grow and continues to just be handled, mainly through manual. So training your staff and or labeling your menu. And not just physical menus, but also online ordering, right? So most of the major online ordering platforms have you have the ability to tag your menu. But what restaurant with everything else going on has the time to go in and manually tag every single one of your menu dishes. And not to mention, it's actually very limited because not only is it limited to, let's say the top eight allergens, but it's also limited from a how this actually needs to work correctly because it's tied to the menu item and not to the modifier. And the modifier is ultimately where it's most important because. If you can easily not put the cheese on that sandwich, then we wanna know that information. But if the cheese is cooked within the, say the girl, whatever, if it's in there and you can't prepare that dish without it, then it can't be modified. And ultimately, that's really where we realize that all of these kind of solutions on the restaurant side are all short term. They're putting a ton of pressure on the staff.

Jeremy Julian: 9:37

that was where I was going with it.'cause last night, again, we got a twice baked potato. Somebody at the table got a twice baked potato, but in the twice baked potato, it had green onions. And the staff member said, are you allergic to the green onions?'cause they're mixed into the, to the deal. Or do you just not? Do you have a preference? And it turned into this whole discussion tableside, which. Was great, quite frankly.'cause most times they'd be like, yeah, and they probably would just deliver you that twice. Baked potato, or they'd tell you, I'm sorry, you can't have the twice baked potato, or, and so there's a lot of potential there. This happened to be a high dollar, there's four of us and I think we spent$500 for dinner. So it wasn't a cheap meal. So it was a, it was a higher end dining, vendor dinner. But I promise you at some of those other brands you were talking about, you're not getting these staff members that are able to do this. and the other piece, I guess Dylan, is my son grew up playing baseball with somebody that had Celiac and Chase was never able to go out with us to team meals. Like his mom just wouldn't let him go with us. So he wouldn't go on travel tournaments. He wouldn't, because she never felt comfortable enough that he as a consumer could consume, product while he was out. I guess. is that, a typical experience? Experience that you hear about people?

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 10:45

To a hundred percent. And like the super users on the consumer side are always the moms of kids with food allergies.'cause those are the people that absolutely care about this u this issue on the consumer side the most. But, in one way, you can't, like the moms times, I've got sick after eating and rest like so many over the years. Even when you, there's a stat that came out I think in a report earlier this year, which said that. 54% of the time when an allergy incident occurs, it's after the staff have been notified. So it's not just a case of they're not communicating, it's like they're telling the staff, but there's two main reasons the staff can't deal with it. One is the restaurant don't have the information documented in the first place that staff member has no way of, no, of actually answering the question.'cause it's not documented. What, like, how are they supposed to know? Or secondly, the stat, as is the case with a lot of, chains and, it's. It tends to be staff that are part-time casual, not properly trained. They just don't understand that it even matters in the first place, and they don't understand the consequences of. Guessing or not making sure that they do give accurate information and that's why, I think there's been a 400% increase in food allergy lawsuits in the last few years.'cause these incidents keep happening. What I do also though, wanna add, because I know your audience is a lot of restaurant owners who are probably like, I care, but the part that I don't, people don't talk about as much. That is really challenging. It's not that easy to document this data, right? So a lot of the back of house solutions, the more we dug into this and we were hoping that okay, we work with, and we do partner with some of the great inventory solutions like Swell mes, margin Edge. But when you look in, in the back end of a lot of these solutions, it's still on the restaurant to properly document your recipes and make. Sure that you have all of your inventory in that recipe form and you, unless you have the recipes and then you have the specific products. And so it's critically important for us to do our jobs correctly, to know, for example, in the aioli what type of mayo you use. Because if that mayo has soybean oil, that's important to someone who has a soy allergy. some don't. And so just writing Mayo. Doesn't get the job done. And so we've taken shortcuts and I don't blame restaurants like it's ultimately, it's a lot of reasons, right? It's the software that's built it, you didn't necessarily need the product or the product. Skews change frequently, and so it's too difficult to keep that. And so we've taken these shortcuts as an industry that has left us in this situation where. You just don't have the data in one place. And so that's really what we focus on is how do we help restaurant operators make this much, much easier by going and going where the recipes exist today, where the products and ingredients, where they're buying their products. And we tie that together, leveraging AI to be able to make this a much more seamless process for them to document it by ingredient so that we're able to get that information to the consumer.

Jeremy Julian: 13:37

So I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that, Erica, then. So how does that even function? Going back to this restaurant that, again is making this twice baked potato. It tastes fantastic by the way, but at the same time, I don't know what was in there and if I had a food allergy and there was potentially some form of, something I was allergic to it. I promise you it didn't say it on the consumer level, menu, there might have been four or five, it was twice baked potato with green onions and cheese and bacon. But if they had mixed in sour cream or butter or something else into that twice baked potato, it didn't show it in the recipe because that was just part of what they do. And so a lot of times, at least. I've been in the restaurant space for a long time. They will do these things'cause this is how they've always done it. Nobody's ever told them that you've gotta, you've got to ensure that you're using and that you're even using the proper mayonnaise.'cause sometimes they're gonna grab whatever's available or they're gonna get their broadliners gonna drop off whatever's available on the truck.'cause they did a substitute without talking to them about it. And so I'd love for you to talk through. As you guys engage with restaurant brands, AI is fantastic. I'm glad we didn't get more than 15 minutes into the show before we started talking about how AI's gonna solve all of the world's problems. But at the same time, it still takes humans and it still takes creating these recipes. So I'd love for you to walk us through what does that look like? Is it, I guess talk us through, what does that look like when you engage with a brand to start with?

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 14:52

Yeah, absolutely. and I will caveat the AI side of things. People always say it's oh, like with AI you can easily take a picture of food and know what's in it. You can take a picture of that sweet or that potato you had last night and it should, and I'm always like. In what world? Like AI is built off of data and ultimately that's what we're building out is this data infrastructure layer. So the way it works is when we work with a restaurant, there is a very big difference between larger chains and the smaller, small businesses, unfortunately, and a lot of it just makes sense, right? A chain is a chain because they've got replicated recipes, they've got. Control on their supply chain. So it's typically a lot better documented. They typically have the exact recipes, they've got the same, suppliers, which they're buying from. And so there usually they do have an inventory management system, either a crunch time or a restaurant 365. they'll have that. Recipe documented, typically published, they'll have PDFs. There's laws, obviously for the larger chains that they have to disclose more information than smaller restaurants. So we'll basically take that information, their product list, what they're buying, their menu, the recipes, and then we break that down. And so we ingest that data. We basically break down recipes into Subres. So to specifically speak to that example on that. Potato, the twice baked potato, most likely there's a sub recipe in there, which is like they, what they do to, make it delicious. Adding in the scions, the salt, the sauce. Yeah.

Jeremy Julian: 16:16

Yeah, the sauce, the salt, the pepper, all of it. Yeah.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 16:19

Exactly. And so that's where we will pull the information so that we, and that sometimes if it's a more fine dining, smaller restaurant that is part of the work is they have to document that. and it's okay, like the changes that can happen, it makes sense. But ultimately where we say it is, the industry's so scared because. It's not perfect to document it, but by not documenting it at all, people are literally dying like we are. This is a health issue at this point, and so what we encourage is let's document it and then as you make changes or there are substitutions that happen, we have recurring checks that we make sure in case there are any changes, but ultimately we give the, here is what is intended to be in this dish, the reflection of as it is today. And that is what we tag on the backend. And that's important because the other thing most chefs also say to me is I don't want my recipe, every, and we don't share that information. We tag it in the backend and all the consumer sees is if that dish contains an ingredient that they can't have just so that, or they can modify. Just so that they have that information. And we still encourage consumers, if you have an allergy, you still need to let the chef know because we're not trying to, cause any sort of false sense. We still wanna make sure that conversation occurs, but it should be after they're just verifying. I saw that. I just wanna make sure I have an allergy. We're much faster. The operations aren't slowed down. We're not having, it's just gonna make us a lot faster as an industry. and I think consumers will feel a lot more comfortable included, and hopefully safer when they die out. Just the other thing to add over the top of that is this is coming anyway, right?

Jeremy Julian: 17:53

that was where I was gonna go next is just, I'm sure I, unfortunately, and again, I've spent my entire life in the restaurant industry, oftentimes it takes legislation. Or it takes something in order to get them to move off the mark because there's what, 700,000 estimated restaurants just in the United States, outside of, nationwide, worldwide, all of that. And so is that, Dylan, is that where it's going? Is it going to a place where, you know. A long time. you guys happen to be based in California, I believe. they had the whole, food labeling and kind of the calorie counting thing. If you had a certain size, and I know that's also a big piece of what's coming to try and get transparency in, in restaurants is the same thing happening. Are they going to be forced to do this? outside of the fact that it's just good business to what you said, Erica, you're not killing people, you're not hurting people. You're not sending them home sick because they ate something that they didn't know. But is that really where it's going, Dylan?

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 18:45

It is and even just before I go to that, like over the top of that, those are obvious kind of benefits that you just mentioned, but what we've actually seen the benefits of having this information documented and can and met clear to the consumer. It's also you're attracting in all these consumers that previously would not go to your restaurant, they didn't trust you, could cater to them. And then it's not just them, it's their families, their friends, their coworkers. Now the, all of a sudden the team dinner can be at that restaurant'cause the celiac and the nut allergy person feel safe going there. It's also the data. When you have a digital solution that manages this, instead of that table site conversation that you referred to, where that allergen that your, your friend had, that was, that's a lost data point. If someone puts this into a digital solution at the end of every month, you can look at it as a restaurant chain and say, ah, we had 20,000 gluten-free and 10,000 vegan and 4,000 keto. We actually have no keto friendly option on our menu. That's something we should go and look at. And we can also tie those. Dietary profiles to loyalty, and now we can market to those consumers. We know Dylan is Celiac, it's world gluten-free day. It's 10% off. Like these are all the things you can do with that data as well. So it's more even than just the ops and the risk mitigation. But to your question specifically, that's what's happening. So Europe now, most European

Jeremy Julian: 20:00

Yeah, I was gonna ask about Europe'cause I, my parents had traveled there and they said that there's some, there was something on the bottom of the menu they were trying to explain to us. So I'd love for you guys to educate our listeners on that.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 20:09

yeah, regs, it's and let's take Ireland, the UK as just an easy example, 14 major allergens in the, in those countries versus nine here. Every menu, every. Org that serves food, even if it's a food truck, has to label for the top 14 allergens. And how they've typically done it is they have a key at the bottom, one gluten, two wheat, three eggs, four shellfish, and then every menu item will have the numbers beside it if it contains that allergen. So it's messy, I would say It's not like aesthetically pleasing. and obviously every time anything changes, they have to reprint the menus and the menu boards or whatever. But it is accurate and it is transparent. And that's I suppose been the starting point without going down the digital route. What's been happening here, and I suppose the most advanced is in California with the SB 68 bill that's been going through the kind of legislative process here for the last several months. It passed the Senate unanimously, I think it was 32 to zero about two months ago. It went through assembly health. It went through assembly appropriations. It's in the main assembly right now. I think it's due to be heard by the end of next week. And then it goes to Gavin Newsom's desk. And what this bill mandates is that every restaurant in California, labeled for food allergens effective one July 26. our perspective on this, similar to what happened with the gig economy drivers, when DoorDash and Uber Eats and, that kind of got pushed back for a while and then, e eventually it, it passed. But this is coming. this is going to be required. It'll either happen right now or it will happen in six months or 12 months, but it is. it's the trend. It's popping up in other states as well. Like I said, California is the most advanced, but the beginnings of this are now happening in some other states. On the east coast you have, Maha is also pushing through all sorts of stuff that relates to like food dyes and chemicals and additives. That all kind of ties into this as well. So all the legislative trends show this is going to be required very soon and it's gonna be required, probably across the board over the next two to three years.

Jeremy Julian: 22:10

No, and I think, and we talked about it again before we hit the record button. I love that, that you guys are on the leading edge of this and there's gonna be more and more people that are gonna be trying to do this. The other thing that I want to, double click on is for those restaurant owners out there, Erica, I'd love for you to share. It's a value add to your consumers. You become a restaurant of choice when you do this. Yes. It's hard work. Yes. You've gotta have discipline. Yes, you've gotta do these things. Yes. You've gotta pay for software to help you with it, and it pays off. The increase in volume from people that are wanting to dine here because of it is pretty significant. I'd love for you to share a little bit about what you're seeing. The value to the restaurateurs as they implement this solution and kind of how not only is it helping give confidence to the staff, but it's also giving con confidence to the consumers and ultimately driving top line sales.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 23:01

Exactly. I think what you've seen now is evolution of everyone is looking up the restaurant before they're going in. at this point, now you're looking up the menu. It's, if you don't, it's the new veto vote. I think it was the veto vegetarian back when everyone added a, vegetarian option on the menu. Just so that in case you are driving by, it's the same thing now with if you don't have an option for someone who has an allergy or dietary need, or they don't know that there's something there that they can eat. They will choose another option. I deal with it every day getting lunch with him. my brother growing up, it was similar. It was, we had to look at the menu and see if there were options and so the reality is if you give this information upfront, you are going to attract more people to come in who know that they have option. once they come in, you are now, instead of bogging down your staff, waiting for them to come to the table, you are able to give them this information upfront. They're ready when the waiter comes over, if it's full service or they're able to see what they can have. If it's a kiosk or it's a. Digital board will have QR codes so that they don't wait until they get to the register. If you're a fast casual or QSR to now, ask the question. The amount of times. We've also seen this at lunch at some of the biggest chains out there, that I'm horrified that they don't have the answer and they're having to hold up a whole line behind us because they have to ask.

Jeremy Julian: 24:19

my favorite is they'll have to go get this binder out of the back to figure out. It's really? This is the way that we're working in 2025.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 24:25

Exactly, and sure there are some annoying consumers out there who love being the center of attention and they like the chef and the manager and everyone there. And the tableside conversation you said, but the reality is most people, and myself included, I just wanna order my food like everyone else. I don't wanna fuss, I don't want this Hubble Lu. I just want them to give me the food that I can eat. And so for most consumers, we see as well, they appreciate the fact that they have the information now. And sure, I'm still gonna say, and by the way, I'm Celiac, just so you know, so you can let the kitchen know, but it's not the five minute conversation before that to figure out what I can even order in the first place. And then over the top of that, Erica talked about the attracting consumers. There is no more loyal consumer than a food allergy consumer. They find it so hard to find places that they can trust that when they do find someplace, they just keep going back again and again. And you could probably vouch that wheat in the same three places. Like when we go for, because they're the places around here that, it's me, dry me it, because I'm like, the three of them can cater for me perfectly. They know what they're doing. We're going back, and that's what happens.

Jeremy Julian: 25:29

and so I'd love for you, Dylan, since you've been talking about the consumer side. and I think Erica just alluded to it, we talked about what, what happens within the restaurant, but how is a consumer do you most often engage with these things? So that's great. You've got these three places that are near your office or near your home or whatever. And now I'm in a different city. Now I'm at a trade show. Now I'm traveling. As a consumer, talk me through what is the consumer, experience to go find these types of allergens out on the menu if they're on your guys' platform. and then what does it really even look like when they're not?'cause it's probably pretty miserable for you to travel and have to go eat out when you're traveling.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 26:05

So if you take the standard consumers, so take us out of it for a second, right? I'll tell you what consumers normally do. There's a few things. One, they don't eat out. They decide we're gonna cook, we're gonna go to Whole Foods and buy, and we're gonna bring it to the hotel or with Airbnb, and that's what we're gonna do because it's just, it's hard. One, two, they ring or email before to and get someone on the phone to try and get that information before they go. Same when I, yeah, in my old career, I remember having to do it a few times in a work capacity where there was a 20 person team lunch and my ma my partner was like. there's four different allergies here. I have a clue where we got, like, how are we gonna figure out where we can bring the 20 people? And so it's email and blah, blah, blah. And then the restaurant's obviously having to deal with that. Or else it's as you said, when you're there in person, getting the manager, getting whoever in there and having the conversation. So that's the like how you deal with it today in, or, without

Jeremy Julian: 26:54

In our non technologically advanced areas.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 26:56

with us. How again we manage it is you walk in off the street to a restaurant you like have never heard of FINI before, but there's a QR on the menu border on the, OR on the physical menu saying allergy dietary needs scan. Here. You scan the qr, pops up a URL to create your dietary profile. We've over a hundred different selections. You create your dietary profile, picking whatever is unique to you. And it shows you the personalized menu instantly, five seconds, and that, that is the experience equally as I, I think I, I alluded to earlier, we put a digital button, on the website as well, which says, allergies, dietary needs clicker triggers the same experience so that someone knows before they can go there. And with the online ordering side of things, we're try, we're in the process of powering that same solution within their ecosystem as well. So that wherever you're coming to the menu from, you can still get that same level of transparency and personalization so that you just have confidence placing your order. cause that's what happens to a lot of consumers. I go on. Or I go on GrubHub or DoorDash or, and I'm scrolling and I'm clicking. I'm like, I really want this. And I'm just, I just don't know. I just don't know. It's suitable. So now I'm not gonna order, I'm gonna walk down to the grocery store again instead. And these are like, it's just so much lost revenue for online ordering and for the restaurants.

Jeremy Julian: 28:11

and you talked about it, the fact that it's such a large percentage of the population that has some form, again, somewhat ignorant. I do have a, have one of my four kids doesn't have any allergens, but. But struggles to eat certain things and doesn't care for certain things. And so he has preferences and his is more about preference than it is even about anything. And so we do end up, when he is in town, he happens to be in college now. So our palate expands quite a bit when he's gone, but when he is home, it's like that we eat at the same four or five restaurants'cause that's where he'll eat. and I know that

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 28:39

but it's bigger. Again, even, I remember the first time I dug into this properly, like the number, like if I break down the half the population that I referred to earlier, you have 33 million Americans with a diagnosed food allergy, so that's one in 10 straight away diagnosed allergy. You have another 50 million that fall into the intolerance bucket. Dairy intolerant, lactose intolerant, wheat intolerant, gluten intolerant. They're, it's not a, an allergy technically, but they feel unwell if they eat it. And then you 70 million, which fall into the vegan, vegetarian, keto, low fodmap, paleo, low carb, lacto, like you name it, right? And so again, I think it's just much, much bigger than most restaurateurs realize. the other stat that I was pretty surprised by that, impacts the way we handle this is 40% of people who have an allergy have more than one. And so that is one of the most significant reasons why the current solutions are just. Really not effective, these PDF allergen matrixes. So now you're telling consumers, you're holding up the line handing them this binder or this matrix and now they've gotta go down. Okay, I've got egg here and then, but I also need to look at the row that ha and it, and that's where it's just you're, it, we're

Jeremy Julian: 29:49

It's hard enough to pick a menu item anyway, and then you figure out that you can't eat it.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 29:53

Exactly. So that's why, and a lot of it though is also advancements in technology. Like the fact that we're able to make this a bit more easy for the restaurant to be able to let us work with your back of house or work with the existing documentation you have and the documenting on the backend and just exposing what the consumer needs to know, we think is the right balance here, where we cover 150 plus. Constantly growing different diets and allergens. Ultimately, as long as we're documenting the ingredients, our ability to cater to different needs, preferences, and, diets can continue to grow and grow, especially as all these consumer health tech platforms are telling everyone what you should and shouldn't eat based on your biometrics and your blood and all of that. I

Jeremy Julian: 30:35

That was this guy last night he was telling me about, he did his blood work and his stool sample, and he's this is what I have to eat. I'm like, okay, dude, what you do? You, I don't, there's green onions in that, but, I'm teasing about it. Erica, one last thing. You mentioned it earlier, but I'd love for you to dig in a little bit. there's obviously the main I ingredient, but then you've got. The components that go along with it, the modifications, the sides. I'd love for you to talk. How do you solve that? Because you know what? A chicken sandwich that's on a pea, on a, on flatbread that doesn't have a gluten, not that big of a deal. But then I happen to get fries that happen to have, flour on them or whatever, Whatever it might be. I'd love for you to talk through how do you guys solve for that? Because it is a very complex matrix when you have an ingredient and it's not just the main, it's the main plus the two sides that come along with it that also need to now be included in this conversation.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 31:24

I think best way to give you an example, a restaurant we onboarded last week that, it was a single location, that, does a pretty good job. I will say in terms of how he documents his recipes. He uses, craftable and in Craftable has recipes documented Within those recipes. Those I also tied to inventory. And so with us, basically we took his menu. and I guess I'll break it down from the top. So menu, it comes first with menu. We want the data from the POS as much as possible because that's where we also will take your modifiers. And so toast was his POS and so toast menu. And then we could see the modifier data in there. And that way to your answer your question, we know what can be added or removed because that's already set up in your POS. We then layer on the recipes, and so the recipes were pulled from Craftable. If they're not in Craftable, they can also be documented. We'll get Excel files all the time. That's okay.

Jeremy Julian: 32:19

Hopefully that's where you use AI to filter through that stuff. But sorry, I'll let you guys keep going.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 32:23

Exactly. That is exactly, we try to get some help, but ultimately we take it from where it exists. And so the recipes, then we break that down into the products. products can either be a ingredient, a raw ingredient, lettuce, or it can be a composite ingredient or a product that has sub recipe. And so that would be a product that can buy Hans ketchup or, like a branded product in essence. Yeah. So we then break that down. And so the good part of what we've been building is a product database that allows us to make this really easy, where you tell us you're buying Heinz ketchup, we know the ingredients in Heinz ketchup because we've built up that product in our database. So we automatically tag it for all those ingredients, and then we automatically tag each one of those ingredients for all the relevant diets and allergens. And so really with the restaurant side of it, it's just that menu, recipes and inventory. And then we take it from there and we show them the dietary tag menu. we test it out. Obviously, we, a lot of restaurants also use it to train the staff. That's another

Jeremy Julian: 33:23

No, I think that once you've got it documented, now being able to go back and educate those staff members, not only on sharing with their guests, but also, from a safety perspective,

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 33:31

It was funny, one of the first, our first customers, the, when we were going through feedback in terms of how it was being received by customers and staff, it was already positive, but one of his inputs was that his biggest surprise unlock was culturally, he was like, the fact that this now lives on the menu and that we, like all the staff know it's consumer facing and the chefs, et cetera. Means that they just implicitly are taking it more seriously and they're double checking things with it in mind. It like, it just culturally met it important in a way.'cause it was front of mind now

Jeremy Julian: 34:03

no different than when you throw a camera in the kitchen. You're like, people are gonna behave, even if you never look at the film. They're gonna behave better because they know that somebody's watching.

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 34:11

Exactly. Exactly.

Jeremy Julian: 34:12

Yeah. No, I love that. we're getting close to time. I guess what, is there anything I missed, guys, that you guys would want to share with our audience? it feels like we've gone from both consumer restaurant side. Erica, you talked about this whole fear that people have, that my recipes are gonna get out to the world. I know you guys hold, hide that behind the firewall to make sure that it's just the ingredients. It's not how do you make it? And that's the secret sauce is how do you all put it together and whatnot. But is there anything else we missed?

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 34:35

I think just if I was to surmise it, it's something that sometimes restaurateurs can find a bit daunting, especially if they haven't gone to there for, to documenting this before. And I suppose we've spent time making sure that our approach makes it as simple as possible for them. all we typically ask for is give us the data you have. We will review it all, package it, and come back with the queries that we ha need answers for. It's typically one onboarding call to like verify that information and we're good. So it's not this convoluted long process for a restaurateur that's gonna take them days. It typically is. An hour or two of their time to actually get to the point that we have it fully verified. We can work with SMB, we work with mid-market, we can work with Enterprise. As I mentioned, we can work with stadiums, with universities, with schools. So anywhere that food is served, our service, works. And again, we've spent the time making sure that it's as seamless as possible for the customers. That's, I think, just something worth pointing out. other thing from a restaurant operator perspective is by doing this work, if it's not something that you already have documented. documenting your recipes pays in dividends for lots of other areas of your business, right? Yeah. Understanding your cogs, understanding what truly each menu item cost is organized. it's not just to have the benefit of being able to help consumers know it's in their food. There's a lot of other benefits that we find, which is why it's so nice to partner with the inventory management systems because ultimately the better documented your recipes are and the more we can help track your ingredients, the better operator you are in terms of understanding. your restaurant in your back of house.

Jeremy Julian: 36:05

I love it. so how do people get in touch? How do people get engaged? where do they go to find you guys? other than, they can sit and listen to the podcast over and over again, but, how do they get engaged and learn if this is the right solution for what they're looking for?

Erica Anderman and Dylan McDonnell: 36:18

we, our website is generally a good place to start, Foodini. and it also has we have a separate page for each segment as well, so restaurant, mic, stadium microenvironment, et cetera. So have a look there. We have some case studies on our resources page just so people can maybe dig in and have a bit of a closer look. there's a one minute video that kind of explains as well the kind of process that might be worth running through and a bit of a visual of what it actually looks like for a consumer. and then email us directly. It's dylan@foodini.com. It's erica@foodini.com as well. we'd love to hear from anyone with questions or if they're interested in, in using us.

Jeremy Julian: 36:55

I love it. there's a rumor that there's a YouTube page that, I might have been on and given you guys some views on the YouTube page, so I knew what both of you guys looked like before I jumped on today watching the YouTube to make sure that I was ready for today's interview. So thank you guys for creating this again, I love. I love talking to entrepreneurs that are really scratching a niche that, that they see out there. Obviously for you, Dylan, very personal'cause, this is a life experience. and again, like I said to you, Erica, there's something about food startup techs that are fun and exciting, but also, it really does solve a lot of problems and make the world a better place, when we can. do these things. So thank you guys for sharing your story. Thank you guys for creating the product. To our listeners, guys, like I said at the onset, I know you guys got lots of choices, so thanks for hanging out and make it a great day.

Speaker: 37:36

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