PURCHASE, N.Y. — PepsiCo will aim to help retailers and foodservice operators deal with growing disruption challenges with its new Digital Lab, which it debuted during the 2019 National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago.
“Think of this as an in-house consultancy that we will use to help operators wrestling with digital and delivery challenges,” Scott Finlow, chief marketing officer of PepsiCo Foodservice, told CSP Daily News. “We’ve got a proprietary set of insights—a playbook, so to speak—that we’re going to share with our partners as it meets their needs.”
The suite of capabilities is intended to connect foodservice operators with the companies, services, insights and solutions best suited for their specific digital and online needs.
"The digital age has disrupted everything, including the way people order, eat and experience food and beverages," Finlow said. "With the customer-focused Digital Lab, we created a one-stop service for operators to access the resources and knowledge needed to drive a better consumer experience and impactful business results in the digital era."
According to PepsiCo, Purchase, N.Y., the Digital Lab will teach operators how to identify and deploy technology solutions that benefit their business through four elements:
- Digital insights: Using proprietary and partner inputs, PepsiCo will share unique insights with its customers, including the digital habits of their target demographics.
- Digital playbooks: The lab will provide operators with comprehensive solutions to make digital tools approachable, achievable and effective for businesses of any size, from the small pizza place on the corner to global quick-service food chains.
- Digital activation: PepsiCo will partner with operators to optimize the execution and activation of digital solutions such as online ordering and delivery platforms to increase beverage and snack sales.
- Digital innovation: Tapping into tools such as voice, augmented reality and machine learning, PepsiCo will experiment with the latest digital innovations and build into practice through customers' platforms.
To help inform the Lab, PepsiCo Foodservice worked with key customers and partners, such as Grubhub, to identify and remedy friction points restaurants experience when fulfilling online ordering and delivery for beverages and snacks. The Digital Lab also teamed up with loyalty and digital consumer engagement providers, such as Mobivity, to find opportunities to improve incremental occasions for brands and deliver personalized experiences that delight consumers.
"Collaborating with the PepsiCo Foodservice Digital Lab allows us to test creative solutions that ultimately help reach diners and increase average order size for our restaurant partners," said Goody Seif, senior director, business development for Grubhub. "The insights already gained have identified new opportunities to ensure beverages are top of mind for orders on our platform, and we're continuing to collaborate on ways Grubhub and Pepsi can work together on co-branded incentives moving forward."
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