The food and beverage service industry is evolving rapidly. Today’s reality demands attention to detail and personalised care, specifically in the space where food and people converge. A successful food service business is a high-volume, high-variation and customer-focused business where personal touches often make all the difference.

Digitisation is a reality for restaurants. The sector faces changes ranging from the positive, such as market share growth opportunities and an acceleration of digital transformation, to potentially more painful transitions in real estate and the shift in consumer preferences.

Consumer patterns and behaviours may have likely shifted permanently, and food businesses need to adapt. We are moving into a digital economy where data will dictate how we engage with customers, and market to them.

XLink has identified the tremendous potential to improve restaurants with digital technologies. “We’ve earned our stripes in linking people, business and technology over the past 16 years, and we are bringing new capabilities to the restaurant industry in South Africa with FoodGuru,” said Hymie Marnewick, MD of XLink Communications.

The FoodGuru platform is set to change the way the food industry operates. FoodGuru recently launched commercially in South Africa, following a soft-launch period where it was tested and refined with the help of many food retailers and customers. FoodGuru aims to develop and expand further over the next few months, bringing these digital possibilities to all levels of the food-service world. As this sector recovers from the pandemic, it must make every cent count and work at keeping current clients safe and happy while attracting new ones.

FoodGuru is different

The uncertainties of stumbling economies and changing social behaviours could cause a perfect storm for the sector, already under pressure from thin margins that require regular nimble footwork. Many services offered to restaurants are not including these realities in their offerings, which is why FoodGuru is different. Designed from the ground up to put restaurants first, it will be the start of a digital wave across the industry.

“We’ve seen platforms make a tremendous impact on other sectors,” Marnewick said. “Platforms are one of the reasons why companies could shift to work-from-home environments so quickly, but we find that restaurants are just nibbling on digital transformation because they aren’t really feeling the value they should be getting. That’s because the market has been selling them one thing at a time. That’s never going to work. But a platform such as FoodGuru will soon change all of that.”

About XLink
XLink has been enabling Africa to transact since 2004 by providing companies with the high level of reliable, secure connectivity required to process payments. Facilitating over a billion connections a year, XLink plays an important part in growing the country’s businesses. By leveraging its extensive capabilities in connectivity, managed services and platforms, XLink allows businesses in retail and financial services to solve complex challenges, simply. To find out more about FoodGuru, visit foodguru.ai or follow the regular updates on the FoodGuru Instagram page.