Foodservice

• DD IP Holder has continued its test of self-serve kiosks in some of their Dunkin’ branded stores. The company has already tested some of these kiosks in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island as well as adopting this model in a California store this month.

• Domino’s Pizza Inc. has started testing out cashless payments at five stores in Australia. Patrons will be able to use contactless payments such as Apple Pay and PayPal as well as normal credit cards and a few other means of exchange. The company also plans on implementing GPS tracking technology to delivery orders in order to compete with the functionality of third-party services such as Uber Eats.

• Firehouse Restaurant Group Inc. unveiled a new look for one of their Jacksonville, Florida locations dubbing it their “Restaurant of the Future” prototype.  The restaurant has been redesigned to streamline the customer experience with a designated area for to-go orders and more prominent ordering areas.

• McDonald’s Corp. has announced that they no longer will only offer delivery exclusively through Uber Eats. They will now be testing out using Uber Eats fellow third-party delivery service Doordash in order to better serve their customers. A pilot program is launching this month in Houston for 200 stores.

• Papa John’s International Inc. has received the highest marks of any company by the American Customer Satisfaction Index for their mobile app. As mobile ordering continues to gain prominence; having a reliable app is more integral than ever for companies in order to remain competitive.

• Roti Mediterranean Grill has announced their adoption of solution provider Brightloom’s (formally Eatsa) technology. Brightloom’s integration is said to improve multiple facets of the fast casual brand’s experience including streamlined ordering and pickup as well as increased data analytics.

• Starbucks Corporation has invested an undisclosed sum in the newly rebranded Brightloom (formally Eatsa) tech company. The deal is in an effort to combine Starbucks proprietary marketing software with Brightloom’s digital ordering and pick up systems. This union will create an all-in-one digital solutions platform.

• Yum Brands Inc. has decided to test cubby shelves in one of their Pizza Hut locations. These cubbies would allow customers to place a pick-up order and retrieve their pizza from their respective cubby without having a need to interact with any Pizza Hut employees. The cubby system was developed by Brightloom.

Retail

• Rue21 is rolling out an online payment solution from Klarna that allows customers to pay for purchases with four equal payments collected bi-weekly.

• Lowe’s Companies Inc. has announced plans for a 357,000 sq. ft. global technology center to be constructed in Charlotte, NC.

Grocery/Convenience

• Cumberland Farms Inc. has released the Cumberland Farms app, the next edition of its SmartPay Check-Link program. It has also introduced a Coffee “Cup-Scription” program.

• Food Lion LLC launched online grocery pickup at 105 stores in the Carolinas and Virginia. Called Food Lion To-Go, the service enables customers to buy groceries and have them available for pickup at a local store in as soon as an hour.

• H-E-B recently opened its new Eastside Tech Hub innovation center in East Austin, TX.

• The Parker Companies introduced DailyPay technology, a program that allows employees to access their pay daily, weekly or on demand. Employees can transfer some or all of their banked pay at any point for a nominal fee.

• The Save Mart Companies now offers same-day home delivery through Instacart at all of its stores in California and Nevada.

• Sheetz Inc. is partnering with Coinsource to bring bitcoin ATMs to five of its locations in Pennsylvania and one in North Carolina.

Drug/Health/Beauty

• CVS Health announced its telehealth offering is now available in eight additional states, bringing the total number of states with this option to 26.

• Rite Aid Corporation is partnering with Google Maps in a program to promote safe medication disposal. More than 550 medication disposal units across the nation are now searchable on Google Maps.

Just because we don’t mention it here doesn’t mean it didn’t happen – or we didn’t capture it. In the past four weeks, we’ve updated more than 875 companies in the Database of Foodservice Technology and Database of Retail Technology, with many of those companies’ records updated at multiple points.