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🍕 The National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show announces 2025 Kitchen Innovations (KI) Award winners, exhibiting groundbreaking foodservice equipment and technology. The Show, to be held May 17–20, will showcase these innovations in Chicago. Innovations include Alto-Shaam's high-velocity Origin™ convection ovens, American Metalcraft's BuffetBoost™ Warming Block heating to 190°F in seven minutes, and Appliance Innovation's SimpliciTea 1500 that preserves fresh brewed tea quality. Atosa USA's Chillstream™ dispenses frozen products, while Bridge Appliances' OMM Automated Egg Cooker cooks 36 eggs in three minutes. Carter-Hoffmann's CHrisper Station doubles standard holding time for fried foods, and Charter House Innovations' RoboFry X4 is a compact fry automation solution. CookUp Group's Scraegg cooks eggs in 15 seconds, and Doyon's Dual Fuel Gravity Charcoal Oven combines charcoal and electric heating. Judges from global brands evaluated submissions for impact and value to foodservice operators.

🛃 The hospitality industry is integrating AI for identity verification, enhancing security and customer experience. Traditional manual checks are giving way to AI-powered systems, like self-check-in kiosks in hotels, which verify identities in seconds, or digital pre-check systems for airlines, exemplified by Delta FlyReady. These AI solutions can spot inconsistencies and fake IDs more effectively than humans. As digital IDs emerge, they will further streamline the identity verification process, reducing human intervention and security risks. AI and LLMs evolve to detect fraud more accurately, suggesting a future with less face-to-face interaction in hospitality and more automated experiences. Albert Roux of Microblink, with 20+ years' experience in fraud and identity solutions, champions these advancements for smoother, safer travel.

🍴 The 2025 National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show® will take place from May 17–20 and showcase the Kitchen Innovations (KI) Award winners, exhibiting groundbreaking foodservice equipment and technology. The Show attracts a diverse foodservice industry audience, including equipment dealers, operators, and educators. KI Award recipients range from Alto-Shaam's Origin™ convection ovens to American Metalcraft's BuffetBoost™ Warming Block and Atosa USA's Chillstream™ Undercounter Frozen Food Dispenser. Innovations address streamlining workflows, improving sustainability, and enhancing consistency, with features such as high-velocity airflow cooking, wireless heating, fresh brew tea dispensing, and automated egg cooking. Additional highlighted products include Carter-Hoffmann's CHrisper Station, Charter House Innovations' RoboFry X4, and Ecolab's integrated Digital Kitchen App. The event will also feature discussions and networking opportunities focused on the impact of cutting-edge kitchen equipment on foodservice operations.

😋 At MURTEC 2025, leaders from Jollibee Foods Corp., City Barbecue, and Blaze Pizza discussed enhancing guest experience through personalization. Jollibee focuses on individual guest engagement, while City Barbecue, with 80% loyalty transactions online but only 4% in drive-thrus, partnered with Flybuy Networks for Bluetooth check-ins. Blaze Pizza introduced kiosks and QR codes for in-store order flexibility. City Barbecue leverages a Customer Data Platform for targeted marketing based on first-time guest preferences, realizing a 60% retention rate when new guests join loyalty programs, compared to 20% without membership. Jollibee uses data tokenization for comprehensive customer profiles.

📡 Church’s Texas Chicken encountered frequent connectivity downtimes, affecting customer service and daily operations. SVP & CIO Ahnaf Ali highlighted the absence of backup systems and the need for digital platform integration, including POS, mobile app, and digital signage. The brand aimed to improve customer engagement with dynamic digital signage, in-store Wi-Fi, and AI-driven enhancements, necessitating a scalable technology solution.

💾 During a 2025 MURTEC University session, Felicia White and Jason Lechner discussed how 83% of organizations use Learning Management Systems (LMS), with mobile learning boosting productivity by 80%. Pizza Ranch, with 220 locations, uses LMS for consistent training and saw a 5.9-month increase in employee retention for top users. Gamified learning increases retention rates 10-fold, leading to a 41% decrease in turnover at Pizza Ranch, surpassing industry benchmarks by 51%. VR training can improve retention by 75%, while a 3% drop in turnover correlates with a 3% decrease in labor costs, and top-performing locations see a 10% higher operating income.

📊 Large companies ($500M+ annual revenue) are advancing quickly in gen AI use, outpacing smaller organizations in adopting and scaling gen AI. More than 75% of respondents report AI use in at least one business function. CEO oversight of AI governance correlates with higher bottom-line impact, especially in larger companies where 28% of respondents note CEOs manage AI governance. Workflow redesign and centralized AI deployment are key strategies, with 21% having fundamentally redesigned workflows. Risk mitigation efforts have increased, focusing on inaccuracy, cybersecurity, and IP infringement. Hiring for AI-related roles remains high; 13% have hired AI compliance specialists, and 6% AI ethics specialists. Organizations are reskilling employees to adapt to AI, with a notable emphasis on new activities. AI use climbed to 78% in 2024 across businesses, with gen AI use also rising sharply to 71%. However, significant enterprise-wide EBIT impact from gen AI has yet to materialize for over 80% of organizations. The survey, conducted from July 16-31, 2024, included 1,491 participants from 101 nations.