Overview

It is no wonder the food industry is one of the most vital industry segments for humanity. As consumers, we need our meal to be fresh, healthy and tasty. As stakeholders of the supply chain, we need full visibility and various info on customers’ preferences, transportation status, restaurant prices, just to name a few. 

Since the overall progress advances with gigantic steps and the market environment is becoming way competitive than ever, so, everyone is eager to find a breakthrough solution. The companies leveraging Big Data have found the way to a perfect food industry analytics, in order to boost business, reduce expenses and research trends. The food industry is worth $81 trillion globally, which also means there is a ton of data here waiting to be processed and analyzed, providing an undeniable advantage, when applied.

Restaurants are no exception. Oftentimes, the owners of these businesses don't pay attention to the wealth of data about customers they possess. Therefore, they miss on the opportunities to reduce costs and improve their guest experience. With the right Big Data implementation, restaurant stakeholders can get real-time data analysis and make timely improvements. 

For instance, founders can discover their highest-selling and most expensive items, the performance of stuff across the departments, and more. Based on it, they can find some costly mistakes and fix them. Explore how one US restaurant benefited from big data analytics despite the industry tech unawareness.

Emerging tech startups and companies disrupting food industry

Every stakeholder, starting with farmers, shippers and retailers, ending with restaurants and shops, must have relevant data on the product and its condition. It’s also urgent to see the full picture and act, according to the gathered data, as of high expenses rate. For example, the restaurant industry is estimated at $899 billion in 2020 in the USA. 

With a huge quantity of competitors, the restaurant business is quite risky and could be even painful without in-depth timely insights on the market. More so, since the pandemics spread, manipulating the data may help you to save on expenses and even save your business.

Big Data benefits: The use of Data analytics

Restaurant data analytics is all about gathering data from anywhere and analyzing it to get crucial insights. Restaurant analytics software may define problem areas, which can affect food quality, freshness, etc. It can also monitor the market and adjust to new trends and competitive prices.

To be more specific, let’s have a closer look at three key benefits of Big Data.

• Quality control

As we mentioned above, Big Data is of crucial importance when it comes to food quality control. A spectacular example here is a cold supply chain during transportation. Temperature-sensitive products like vegetables, fruits, milk, ice-cream demand accurate environmental conditions and can get damaged in case of temperature fluctuations. 

Specific IoT-driven sensors, which process, analyze, and transfer the data to all parties in real-time, providing the ability to monitor the full supply chain cycle is the perfect solution here. While using Big Data, it is possible to timely replace the damaged products with new ones or perform preventive measures. Big Data-powered software and hardware can also be adopted and used along with production processes, scanning the quality of incoming materials and final products.

Protecting the brand from negative feedback caused by insufficient food quality has long-term outcomes rather than the short-term. Specifically, 46% of survey respondents mentioned customer service improvement and fulfillment of demand as the advantage of using big data in the supply chain. 41% stated a fast reaction to supply chain issues. 

• Enhanced efficiency

Big Data allows us to boost any business type and leverage new available strategies, based on acquired information. Predictive weather reports for farmers, transportation info for shippers, customer feedback and pricing for restaurants. Big Data in restaurants provides especially powerful opportunities for owners, allowing them to compare gathered data and choose the most efficient strategy.

Furthermore, Big Data makes it possible to detect profitable and preferable goods in particular areas, thus marking them for interested parties. The farming segment is only starting to implement Big Data but already has impressive results. It’s very vital to use Big Data here, as the farming sector is some sort of basement for all food industries. According to USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), national net farm income was forecasted at $63.4 billion in 2017.

• Improved insights

Data analytics is the core of data science for restaurants or any other food segment. It’s widely spread and covers all the information regarding price, condition, quality of products, customer preferences, market situation, brand popularity and so on. But Big Data needs an expert analyst and innovative software, though, to effectively analyze and leverage all acquired data. With customer feedback and his behavior pattern, you can always be aware of his food excesses.

Truly notable and state-of-the-art technology here is predictive analytics, powered by AI algorithms. With the unique processing capacity of AI, predictive analytics is capable to determine and foresee possible outcomes and issues, which means you can correct and adjust your strategy in time.

Here is how you can use big data to improve your food delivery.

Big Data successful use cases

A bunch of companies is intensively applying food tech innovations, such as Big Data-powered solutions, as they realize it can significantly change their whole business and streamline profit. Here are some worthy noting:

1. The Cheesecake Factory utilizes a Big Data-driven software to process and analyze enormous data sets from 175 locations in the U.S.
2. FreshDirect uses sensors, processing, and analyzing data to monitor product status and environmental conditions during transportation.
3. Connecterra has designed a predictive analytics-based tool to aid farmers in determining cattle health problems.
4. The Yield company has developed the solution to monitor planting beds and the whole agricultural ecosystem and foresee any arising issues.
5. The all-known restaurant KFC uses Big Data to analyze customer feedback and food preferences, which comes up with better customer experience and sales.

With all that said, Big Data solutions have various use cases in any food industry sector. Such technology makes the most effective strategies available to stick to. Especially when it comes to predictive analytics capabilities, thanks to AI-driven power.

There are a lot of companies offering such food tech solutions, but typically they cannot meet all of your specific requirements, which makes it quite hard to find exactly what you need.

So, if you decide to opt for the solutions above or eager to find any IT-related consultation, please note ByteAnt is always ready to make you a competitive offer with an eye to Big Data-driven technology or provide you with expert advice. Please, feel free to contact us.