But that investment needs to make managers’ working days easier. Hospitality depends on its people, and staffing decisions affect everything from the pressure on the kitchen to the welcome a customer receives.

Having yet another dashboard to check won’t help when someone calls in sick before the lunch rush, which is why one of the biggest opportunities for AI is helping managers get their staffing right.

Anyone who’s worked a busy service knows what happens when staffing goes wrong. The team is stretched, customers are kept waiting, and the manager is firefighting.

Businesses already hold much of the information that could help, from sales patterns to staff availability, but it’s often scattered across different systems. Connected AI assistants that are already embedded in workflows could bring it together and act on it, helping managers anticipate busy periods and adjust rotas without jumping between tools.

The real promise here is taking the manual work out of staffing decisions and giving managers more time on the floor to spot who needs support before the pressure builds. AI should give people more space to lead their teams and look after their customers.

About Planday

Planday makes scheduling, communication, and payroll simple – so managers and teams can save time, cut stress, and get more done together.

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Take September: warmer weather kept shoppers buying ice cream (up 11.7 percent), whilst ambient soup sales fell 5.4 percent. When demand shifts that quickly, retailers can’t afford to be left with shelves full of products shoppers no longer want. AI agents will help them spot these changes sooner and adjust their ranges whilst the opportunity is still there.

But spotting demand is only half the battle – retailers also need to get the right products to customers. Combined with dropship, agentic commerce will make it easier to introduce specialist or seasonal lines without holding additional stock, with home delivery and click and collect extending what’s available beyond store shelves.

None of this works without reliable data. AI agents need live visibility of stock availability and order status across suppliers to make informed decisions. With that foundation in place, they will increasingly handle inventory checks, adjust orders, and flag delivery issues before they cause disruption.

This will free up teams to focus less on fixing problems and more on bringing new products to market and growing their businesses.

About Ben Heath

With over ten years of expertise in the retail sector, Ben is in charge of operational efficiency to ensure retailers partnering with Virtualstock can effectively onboard suppliers and expand their product ranges at speed.

About Virtualstock

Virtualstock, powered by Logicbroker, is Europe’s largest dropshipping platform, enabling organisations to thrive with its innovative supply chain and procurement solutions.Trusted by: John Lewis, Robert Dyas, Toolstation, Bradfords Building Merchants, the Crown Commercial Service, NHS England and more.

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A few years ago, I asked operations for last month’s sales and got one number; I asked finance and got a different one. Neither was wrong – that is the real problem in many restaurant groups: not a lack of data, but a lack of one version of the truth.

AI can help us get there, but only if the processes and data behind it are right. Applied to forecasting, purchasing, scheduling, cost control, and reporting, it can remove unnecessary work and give our teams the clarity to make better decisions. We are building this through I MANAGE because consistency at scale is a choice, not an accident.

I do not want technology replacing hospitality. A memorable evening comes from a person taking care of you. Our job as leaders is to give our teams the tools, training, and support to do that exceptionally well.

My rule for any new tool is simple: it must remove steps, not add them. If it adds three steps to remove one, it has failed, whatever the demo looked like.

Fix the process first, then find the technology that makes it scalable.

About Eddy Massaad

Eddy Massaad is the founder of Swiss Butter, the international restaurant group known for its distinctive single-dish concept. Under his leadership, Swiss Butter has grown to 21 restaurants globally, spanning Europe and the Middle East, with a focus on accessible dining, consistency and thoughtful innovation.

About Swiss Butter

Swiss Butter is an international restaurant group celebrated for its distinctive single-dish concept, featuring a choice of protein served with its signature secret sauce. Founded by Eddy Massaad, the brand operates 21 restaurants globally across Europe and the Middle East, combining quality, simplicity and accessility.

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Food companies have vast amounts of information on suppliers, ingredients, specifications, compliance, and quality, but that intelligence often remains fragmented across systems and organisations. As traceability technology and connected data become more sophisticated, this information can start working together in real time.

A truly connected supply chain could help companies identify an emerging supplier risk, understand which products and markets could be affected, find compliant ingredient alternatives, and take action before a disruption becomes a recall.

That is where connected data becomes predictive intelligence. Instead of using traceability to reconstruct what happened after a problem occurs, companies can use information flowing across the supply chain to identify patterns, anticipate risks, and act whilst there is still time to prevent them.

The future of food and beverage will depend on how well companies connect the information they already have. When supplier, ingredient, compliance, and quality data can move seamlessly across the product lifecycle, the supply chain becomes more than a record of what happened: it becomes an intelligent system that can help companies see what is coming next.

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What is beginning to change, however, is the breadth of the innovation toolkit, with neuroscience, scent, and behavioural science opening up new ways to influence how products are experienced.

Flavour is not produced by the tongue in isolation; much of what we interpret as taste is shaped by retronasal smell and the brain’s integration of multiple sensory signals.

At air up®, our Scentaste® technology applies this principle by using natural aroma to create taste by scent – delivering a flavour experience with no sugar, no artificials, just water.

What excites me most is how this technology can drive good habits. At air up®, we exist to help people drink more water. In hydration, consumers who want to avoid sugar or artificial additives are often left with one obvious choice: plain water.

Whilst awareness that water is one of the purest and most effective ways to hydrate is already well established, drinking enough of it consistently remains a challenge. The greatest opportunity lies in making healthier choices feel sufficiently enjoyable and intuitive that they become habits rather than obligations.

Emerging technology will have the greatest impact when it helps close that gap between knowing what is good for us and genuinely wanting to repeat it every day.

About Cristina Kenz

Cristina Kenz is CEO of air up®, having previously served as Chairwoman of the Board. She brings extensive FMCG experience from senior roles at PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz and Danone, where she worked across brand building, commercial strategy and business transformation.

About air up®

air up® is a hydration brand on a mission to help people drink more water. Using scent-based technology, its drinking system delivers flavour through aroma alone, without adding sugar or artificial additives to the water, offering a new way to make everyday hydration more enjoyable.

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When machines are internet-connected, every interaction can provide useful information about customer preferences. Companies can then combine that behavioural data with direct feedback and back-end analytics to make better product decisions.

The technology itself has been around for some time, but the ability to connect and analyse these different signals is becoming much more sophisticated. That sophistication gives companies a unique opportunity to ask better questions and get answers faster.

What are customers choosing? What do they come back to? What are they ignoring? These behaviours can show where preferences are moving. Customer feedback adds another layer of context. Together, these signals create a more complete picture of what people want and a faster feedback loop for product teams.

Technology will also enable more personalisation across the food and beverage experience. Products can better reflect individual tastes, preferences, and routines; that personalisation should feel simple for the consumer. People want experiences that are intuitive, convenient, and relevant to them in the moment.

For companies, the opportunity is to listen and learn at a much larger scale. Technology can help connect different signals and identify patterns that might otherwise be missed. Those insights can inform what companies build, improve, and introduce next.

About Julien Levesque

Julien brings over 15 years of product development, management, and leadership experience. Before joining Bevi, he served as SVP of Product Development at SharkNinja, leading product strategy across high-growth categories. He also serves on Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business Management Advisory Board in Boston.

About Bevi

Founded in 2013, Bevi designs Smart Water Coolers® that provide filtered, flavored, and sparkling water on demand. With thousands of machines across the U.S., Canada, UK, and Ireland, Bevi serves workplaces and shared commercial spaces while helping eliminate nearly 1 billion single-use bottles and cans.

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At PATH Water, we’re using that intelligence across the business. Demand planning is a big one. At our scale, knowing what’s going to sell, where, and when is the difference between full shelves and wasted inventory.

Shipping is another. Smarter logistics means fewer wasted miles and faster delivery, which matters a lot when sustainability is your mission. Customer service is evolving too; tech helps us respond quicker and learn from every interaction.

At the end of the day, it’s all about leveraging technology to deliver a higher standard for our customers. That’s the bar, and it keeps rising.

About Shadi Bakour

Shadi Bakour is Founder and CEO of PATH Water, the fastest-growing reusable bottled water brand leading the shift away from single-use plastic. He has expanded PATH into major retailers, airports, and stadiums. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, he speaks frequently on sustainability and entrepreneurship.

About PATH

PATH is redefining beverage sustainability with the first 100% recyclable water in a sleek, reusable aluminum bottle. We’re dedicated to eliminating single-use plastic, as projections suggest oceans will hold more plastic than fish by 2050. Our mission: make sustainable bottled water the preferred choice.

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What makes this transformation particularly powerful is the ability to connect physical assets with real-time data. At IFCO, our digital track-and-trace technology enables greater visibility of reusable packaging assets throughout the supply chain, improving food traceability, inventory accuracy, and operational efficiency.

Combined with IoT-enabled cold chain monitoring, businesses can identify temperature deviations in real time, helping to reduce food losses, maintain product quality, and strengthen food safety.

Beyond primary/secondary food packaging, the same technologies can transform the management of other supply chain assets.

Platforms such as TRLLN extend track-and-trace capabilities to any type of reusable asset, including roll cages, totes, or pallets, providing end-to-end visibility and actionable insights across increasingly complex logistics networks.

Ultimately, the greatest impact will come from turning real-time data into smarter decisions, helping the industry reduce waste, improve transparency, strengthen resilience, and ensure more fresh food reaches consumers whilst using fewer resources.

About Iñigo Canalejo

Iñigo leads global sustainability and strategic marketing for IFCO. With 25 years+ international experience, he has held senior roles at Brambles and CHEP, as well as at SEAT, Audi and Opel. He holds an MBA from IESE and engineering degrees from Kettering and Esslingen Universities.

About IFCO

IFCO is a leading global provider of reusable packaging solutions in 50+ countries. IFCO operates a pool of over 400 million reusable packaging containers for 2.5 billion annual global shipments of fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, bread and more from suppliers to retailers.

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In the past, packaging was simply bought, used, and replaced. Now, with Internet of Things (IoT) and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, reusable packaging gives real-time updates on where assets are, how they move, and conditions like temperature, humidity, and vibration.

This data helps companies spot products at risk before problems happen, reduce waste, find hidden bottlenecks, and use assets more efficiently. In a business where quality and loss depend on timing, having this visibility is just as important as automation.

The other piece is automation. Robotics and AI get most of the attention, but automation is only as reliable as what’s moving through it.

Standardised, reusable packaging helps automated systems run consistently at scale, whilst inconsistent, single-use materials can introduce variability and slow things down. Even small inconsistencies can create disruptions that reduce throughput.

The biggest near-term impact won’t come from one flashy technology, but from the physical infrastructure, packaging included, finally being built to support the data and automation layers now being added on top of it.

About Nigel Lemmon

Nigel leads Tosca’s global technology and digital transformation strategy across North America and Europe. With over 20 years as CIO, he specializes in business intelligence, emerging technologies, AI, machine learning, IoT, and traceability solutions that enhance visibility and decision-making in complex supply chains.

About Tosca

Tosca is a global leader in reusable packaging solutions. We provide a “pooling system” of Reusable Plastic Containers (RPCs), pallets, and bulk bins that help companies move their products through the supply chain more efficiently, safely, and sustainably.

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Speed, efficiency, and consistency from equipment are essential to meet the demand. However, equipment that goes beyond expectations and makes the kitchen easier to run will push the industry forward.

As a result, the emerging technology I believe will shape the future of food and beverage is one that has huge potential to improve kitchen performance: intelligent cooking technology.

The future will be defined by solutions that help teams work faster, maintain consistent results, and adapt to changing demand without adding complexity. That includes equipment capable of combining multiple cooking operations into fewer steps and reducing the number of touchpoints required from staff.

For multi-location operators, IoT-enabled connected equipment and standardised programmes can extend that control across a fleet of locations, allowing teams to push recipe updates and monitor energy use, wash cycles, and cooking performance from a centralised dashboard.

At UNOX, we believe the standard for foodservice is performance under pressure. By utilising smart and connected equipment, operators can meet the needs of modern kitchens whilst supporting throughput and protecting profitability.

About Derrick Richardson

Derrick is a seasoned foodservice and commercial equipment executive with decades of industry experience. In his current role, he leads UNOX North America as the company advances intelligent cooking technologies designed to improve efficiency, consistency and sustainability for food service operators.

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This means spotting and addressing issues the moment they occur, such as monitoring food quality, verifying order accuracy, identifying bottlenecks in kitchens and drive-thrus, tracking inventory, and supporting food safety compliance.

What once relied on manual checks and periodic audits can now happen continuously and at scale. When applied, computer vision technologies can improve quality control, quickly detect issues, and provide live operational visibility.

But the biggest impact may be on the guest experience. Better visibility means more accurate orders, more consistent food quality, shorter wait times, and fewer operational errors. Guests may never know computer vision is working behind the scenes, but they’ll notice when their experience consistently improves.

Combined with artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing, computer vision will help operators make smarter decisions, empower employees, and deliver better outcomes for the business and the customer. The future is a restaurant that can actually see, understand, and respond to what’s happening in the moment.

About Fredrik Carlegren

Fredrik Carlegren is a retail enthusiast with a deep understanding of industry trends and technology. With over 20 years in the retail industry, Fredrik is keenly focused on how innovative technologies are impacting retail’s transformation, enabling retailers to deliver memorable in-store experiences.

About Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions

Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions empowers retail to thrive and prosper through a dynamic ecosystem of smarter, more agile solutions and services that enable retailers to evolve with consumers and adapt to market conditions.

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As brands contend with changing consumer preferences, shorter product lifecycles, and greater pressure to reduce waste, the ability to respond quickly is becoming increasingly important.

Digital label printing solutions, such as ColorWorks colour label printers, give brands more flexibility in how and when they produce labels. Instead of printing large quantities and storing them until needed, brands can produce the right labels in the right quantities at the right time. This can be particularly valuable for personalised packaging, seasonal products, limited-edition offerings, and products that require multiple languages or frequent content changes.

Digital printing also eliminates the need for traditional printing plate requirements and can reduce setup time, helping simplify workflows and reduce material waste. When combined with automation and robotics, digital labelling can also become part of a connected production environment, helping streamline workflows and respond faster to demand.

Ultimately, on-demand labelling reflects a broader shift in food and beverage production: moving from forecasting demand to responding to it. That agility can help brands operate more efficiently whilst reducing excess inventory and supporting sustainability goals.

About Connie Kuo

Connie Kuo is senior product manager for Epson’s ColorWorks color label printers where she leads product strategy and drives growth and creativity through strategic insight, innovation and customer-centric thinking.

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Many manufacturers already have advanced ERP, manufacturing execution system (MES), and warehouse management system (WMS) environments, yet packaging, coding, labelling, and verification can still rely on disconnected equipment and manual intervention. Manual data entry accounts for approximately 20 percent of production mistakes, including packaging and printing errors.

The opportunity is to create a connected flow of information from approved enterprise sources directly to the line.

Operators should not need to re-enter existing data; coding and labelling systems should receive the correct job information in real time, whilst vision and verification systems confirm the right information has been applied and production events are reported back to business systems.

The benefits are measurable. Connected packaging automation can reduce manual data entry and message data maintenance costs by up to 90 percent, cut changeover duration by 50 percent, saving hundreds of hours each year, support 100 percent compliant finished products, and help reduce total running costs by up to 15 percent.

For manufacturers, the future is connected, automated, and data-led across the entire production environment.

About Stephen Tagg

With over 20 years of international manufacturing software sales experience, Stephen helps organisations across more than 60 countries transform operations through automation and digital solutions. A BEng (Hons) Control Systems engineer, he specialises in connected manufacturing, traceability, brand protection, customer engagement and connected products.

About Markem-Imaje

Markem-Imaje, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dover Corporation, provides intelligent identification, traceability and consumer engagement solutions. Its marking and coding systems integrate with software, services and consumables, helping more than 50,000 customers worldwide improve supply chain efficiency, support compliance, protect products and engage consumers directly.

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Unlike conventional conveyors, maglev systems can move, position, rotate, and stop individual products independently, with every movement controlled through software. This gives manufacturers greater flexibility when dealing with increasing product variety, shorter production runs, and changing consumer demand.

It can also bring significant hygiene, efficiency, and maintenance benefits by eliminating mechanical points of contact.

But the evolution is about more than one technology. The future factory will increasingly connect motion, robotics, vision, software, and data through a unified automation platform.

We are already seeing this in applications such as Ocado’s Automated Frame Loader, where Beckhoff control technology is enabling vision, motion, and functional safety to work together to automate grocery loading up to 350 totes per hour.

For food and beverage manufacturers, the goal is not simply to automate more – it is to build systems that can adapt, communicate, and optimise themselves as requirements change. That combination of intelligent control and flexible automation will be fundamental to the next generation of food and beverage production.

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It is already accelerating ingredient identification and product development, whilst improving manufacturing efficiency, supply chain resilience, and food safety. Some fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are using generative AI to shorten product ideation and development timelines, whilst others are applying AI and digital twins to optimise manufacturing performance, reduce waste, and improve asset utilisation.

AI-enabled forecasting can help businesses improve supply chain accuracy, reduce inventory costs, and respond effectively to demand volatility.

Meanwhile, manufacturers face growing pressure from climate uncertainty, geopolitical instability, and increasing scrutiny of ultra-processed foods. AI can help navigate these challenges by identifying alternative ingredients, predicting agricultural yield risks, strengthening food safety, and optimising resource use.

By enabling manufacturers, research institutions, and regulators to accelerate ingredient and product development and model production processes, AI can help accelerate commercialisation of the next-generation proteins and functional ingredients.

As the industry balances affordability, nutrition, and sustainability, successful organisations will be those that combine AI-driven insights with scientific innovation. Those that fail to harness high-quality data and robust governance risk missing one of the biggest opportunities for productivity and innovation in decades.

About Patricia Francisco De Oliveira

Patricia holds a PhD in Food and Chemical Engineering and has over 20 years of experience across industry R&D and academic research. She specialises in food science, particularly natural compounds extraction and separation, and food packaging, including the development of recycling processes.

About PA Consulting

PA Consulting believes in the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future. We combine strategic advisory, design and delivery to create opportunity from complexity. Our diverse teams combine deep expertise, innovative thinking and breakthrough technologies to help clients adapt, transform and achieve results.

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