Blockchain for Restaurant Owners is a Must Explore Technology

If you have been tracking financial and IT reports for a while, then you might have heard the words like blockchain, smart contract, and cryptocurrencies very frequently stated. Although still an emerging industry, it is crucial to consider the importance of blockchain for the restaurant business and its applications like supply chain development for the advancements of business operations positively.

Blockchain Technology

In the simplest of words, a blockchain is a time-stamped collection of permanent digital records maintained by a cluster of computers not operated by any particular individual, according to Block Geeks. Cryptographic principles keep any of these data bricks (i.e. blocks) guarded and connected (i.e. chain).

Blockchain for Restaurant Business

Blockchain, Smart Contracts, and Restaurants

Restaurants are in close communication with the end customer, and therefore have a better sense of their desires. For instance, a restaurant promotes itself in a specific manner, maybe as a vegan institution, or one that buys from local producers. In that case, it wants the right to back up their arguments and guarantee that their vendors do so,

If a vegan restaurant sources bread from a nearby bakery, they may like to ensure that the ingredients used are free from dairy and eggs. Yet a bakery may not wish to share those. It is so to keep a secret from their recipe. The restaurant might use blockchain in this situation with a smart contract solution or a self-executing contract that would put the order only when the bakery secretly discloses its ingredients to the restaurant. These goods data will remain on the chain to check if validated ingredients are coming in use while protecting the identity of the bakery with their patented recipe.

Blockchain could also record the sources of food supplied to a restaurant with locally sourced ingredients. In this way, customers can review things against the immutable blockchain database separately, like where the food provenance, and if the restaurant lives up to its statements.

Authentic Ratings and Reviews

For both restaurants and consumers, false and inaccurate restaurant reviews are a problem. Since anyone can publish reviews without authenticating an author's name, it is difficult to understand which remarks are truthful and fabricated to assist or harm an institution.

The businesses are looking to adjust their websites to reimburse reviewers for contributing restaurant ratings with cryptocurrency tokens. Once held in a blockchain, they cannot change the ratings. Also, consumers and restaurants cannot erase or build new accounts to scrub away bad reviews. It holds ratings and above board and fair.

Innovative Loyalty Program Management

Blockchain can allow a loyalty scheme to come into use by firms or even groups of companies. Loyalty services that go outside their doors are in production by large chains and small independent firms. It will spark new attention from customers.

Chanticleer Holdings is launching a blockchain-based loyalty platform that would protect their restaurants while enhancing customer experience.

Customer Experience and Brand Building

Restaurants share with customers the origin and journey of ingredients with a blockchain module. It creates brand loyalty around ingredient consistency, protection, sustainability, and sourcing. It can connect diners with knowledge about their food.

Modules of Blockchain for Restaurant Solutions

Optimized Food Life, Waste and the Freshness of Perishables

Blockchain-powered analytics, including analysis of food temperature in transportation, provides near-real-time supply chain data. Insights from technologies like blockchain and IoT provide restaurants with a better understanding of the supply chain. It includes the shelf life of ingredients and how to rotate items from inventory.

Proof of Provenance and End-to-End Supply Chain Visibility

The Trace module provides visibility of the end-to-end supply chain. It reduces the time taken from days to seconds to track a food source. Know the provenance and status of ingredients can prove significant in case of a food-borne disease epidemic. You can respond rapidly and confidently to recalls, preventing expensive harm to reputation and needless waste.

Immutable and Accurate Supply Chain-Wide Documentation

Users can upload, manage, update, and exchange any documentation in the supply chain using the Documents module. Maintaining the reputation of vendors and access to certificates of origin, organic growth policies, compliance with quality requirements, and test results allow trust and honesty of supply.

Also, Read | A Use Case for Blockchain in Thorium's Supply Chain Traceability

Use Case Scenario

Sharing seafood goods' provenance with diners helps improve restaurant chain sales. TAPS Fishhouse and Brewery is an award-winning local restaurant chain serving a range of seafood specialties on its menu in California. TAPS collaborated with Raw Seafood in 2019, an IBM Food Trust affiliate, for an ambitious initiative to introduce greater transparency to restaurant diners around seafood.

On menus, the team put QR codes that allowed guests to scan the code with their phone and access information about the individual scallops from the blockchain. Diners were able to see where and how the scallops were picked and how they were handled as they went from the boat to the plate down the supply chain, gaining trust in the catch's consistency and freshness.

TAPS sold 38 percent more scallop entrees year-over-year in just the first 45 days of this program. Recognizing that 80 to 90 percent of Americans consume less than the recommended seafood allotment, Raw Seafoods is looking at how it can exploit transparency to expand the seafood industry, from restaurants to household kitchens, partially due to lack of product details.

Also, Read | Analyzing the Food Traceability System Developed by Walmart with Hyperledger Fabric

Real-Life Examples 

Burger King

In 2019, Burger King Germany released Bitcoin payments on its website, and in 2016, several Dutch locations started accepting the coin. In comparison, in 2017, Burger King Russia spread on Waves a custom cryptocurrency called "Whoppercoin".

Starbucks

In August 2018, Bakkt revealed plans for Starbucks to affiliate with them. The coffeehouse chain will become one of the "flagship retailers" of Bakkt and will embrace crypto through Bakkt's payment app. Also, Bakkt announced that soon it would unveil its payment app.

Crypto is unlikely to make up a big portion of the overall sales of Starbucks, but Bakkt's collaboration is a significant achievement. Bakkt unveiled its futures trading platform last year, mostly aimed at retail investors. Bally's new payments program, by comparison, would be geared at general customers.

Conclusion

The key takeaway is that blockchain for restaurants may prove to be a game-changer in terms of efficiency, security, and transparency. By streamlining operations and reducing fees, these systems can transform the way business is conducted. Cryptocurrency is not something that we should not overlook in this age of digital transformation. Connect with our experts for more information about blockchain applications in the restaurant business.