Tech vs. hospitality: Paradox or partnership?

Is technology taking a bite out of hospitality’s human side? Who among us humans hasn’t wondered “Could I be replaced by a robot?” Well, good news is possible: There are many ways technology can make humans’ jobs easier and allow them to deliver more of that good human stuff, aka hospitality.

Playing into this equation is loads of research pointing to consumers’ homesick hearts yearning for simpler times, like those halcyon days of the early 2000s. (Does anyone else feel old?)

We posed these fairly existential questions on tech and the future to experts in the onsite foodservice field, and their answers point to a surprisingly bright future.

“Paradox is a great word to frame it up at the highest level,” says Aramark Collegiate Hospitality VP of Technology and Innovation Jonathan Duffy. “There’s no going back on the tech front. Tech has the opportunity to take away from the human sort of experience of dining in a group setting; but it’s amazing in the sense that tech can provide access, convenience, connectivity, speed and information into all these amazing things, which is why you can’t take it away.”

Apps, kiosks, AI and life-like mannequins

In a way, Skylar Flynn is living in the future. The food operations manager, along with medical students, doctors and nurses, works at Sharp Prebys Innovation Education Center in San Diego, a futuristic training facility for people in healthcare careers. The recently constructed and opened education center exists for research, training, workforce development, innovation, education and technology for Sharp HealthCare. The foodservice is managed by Sodexo.

The center includes The Terrance and Barbara Caster Institute of Nursing Excellence, where nursing students can learn in-depth best practices in a setting that’s not part of an actual hospital, an immersion lab and a technology demonstration room, where existing and potential vendors can showcase their new gadgets.

But the most futuristic medical advance at the center has to be The Brown Simulation Center, where medical students can practice their skills on extremely life-like mannequins that can simulate different medical conditions so students can get almost-real-life training in all sorts of situations. And that includes the mannequins … screaming. Is it just us, or would you not want to be here alone at night?

“The mannequins are super realistic and there’s one that simulates childbirth,” Flynn says. “It can scream, and there are fluids. There’s a two-way mirror where doctors can watch how the students do.”

On the more appetizing side of the center, Flynn runs the café for students, staff and visitors, and also a growing catering business for the fairly robust amount of medical conferences that the center is equipped to host.

Flynn’s prior career saw her at Johnson & Wales culinary school, where she worked as a storeroom coordinator while she earned her MBA, something that’s she’s already put to use working on finance at the center, something that “has ended up on my plate,” she says. She’s a trained pastry chef, and when talk turns to the future of foodservice, Flynn has a clear idea about the future: It’s more plant-based and less food-waste. For healthcare dining, and most other segments, the nutrition factor is only going to keep increasing in importance.

Over the summer, Flynn competed in the totally plant-based Healthy Hospital Chef Challenge, hosted by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and the Institute of Culinary Education. She won third prize with Roasted Chickpeas over Zesty Quinoa.

One component of the dish is aquafaba, a favorite vegan cooking hack created by taking the liquid chickpeas are canned in and whipping it into an egg white-like substitute. “It almost acts like an egg white or binder,” she says. “It’s great for building viscosity in a sauce.”

To flavor the dish, “I knew for hospitals, you can’t have a high quantity of sodium,” so Flynn thought, “What will give me the most flavor?” The answer is aromatics: Garlic, ginger and lime zest to “lighten, brighten and focus on pulling in a lot of flavor balances and flavor profiles, making a cohesive dish.”

Flynn finds that over the years she’s developed a method for creating recipes and with healthcare now her focus, it’s added another layer of consciousness.

To make the dish a nutritional winner, Flynn used the vegan cheat code of combining chickpeas with quinoa, magically creating a complete protein with no animals involved.

The plant-based nature of the competition is another clue Flynn sees as a harbinger of the future. “People are really looking for more plant-forward options like falafel or green bowls.”

Falafel is made in house, something Flynn is proud of. But the center was built intentionally without a deep fryer, “since this is healthcare,” and it’s technology to the rescue with a cutting edge combi oven that “we can set to anything: grilling, sauteeing, air frying,” Flynn says, adding that kitchen equipment is playing a role in making healthier menus and will continue in the future.

Another factor making Sharp Prebys Innovation Education Center futuristic is the fact that all of the foodservice is hooked up to kiosks and apps. How does it affect the human factor of hospitality? Flynn has found that it’s provided shortcuts to better human interactions.

“Even though we don’t have that same interaction, all of our front-line workers know all the orders,” she says, “and it helps them to remember customers’ individual orders, too, allowing them to interact with the customer more.”

Flynn has a wise caveat for incorporating technology into foodservice: “As long as you use technology to your favor, it will work for you, not against you.”

Her main tip for making that happen is “having someone know how to operate [the technology] on the back end,” she says. “If it’s someone who’s not always available, that’s a pitfall. Someone always has to know the program.”

As ordering, delivery and food-making tech gets more advanced, not to mention artificial intelligence (AI) in everything from menu development for chefs to training in K-12 schools ,  “it’s evolving itself to be more user-friendly,” Flynn points out.

Even so, “In a chef’s world, AI can do so much, but you can’t take someone’s creativity and their education, their studies and their life experience: You can’t put that heart and love into a robot. When chefs know they have that passion, they know they’re not going to be replaceable.”

Tech 101 on campus

Aramark’s college and university arm has done extensive research into what makes the students they serve tick, and nostalgia  is a word that keeps popping up everywhere, including on the show floor at the National Restaurant Show this past spring.

Aramark Collegiate Hospitality’s response their findings, in a statement, is to meet students “where they are this fall: Collegiate Hospitality blends high-tech efficiency with tangible, wellness focused programs to bridge these needs while also creating classic, in-person opportunities for a human touch.”

“We know that students are existing in an emotional paradox right now,” President and CEO of Aramark Collegiate Hospitality Jack Donovan said in a statement. “Nostalgia for what they perceive as simpler times is changing the way they approach their hospitality experience on campus. At the same time, they are steeped in technology that is integrated into all that they do. Our constant monitoring of student sentiment and satisfaction on campuses allows us to find unique, creative ways to build an ecosystem of hospitality that prioritizes authentic interaction.”

Aramark Collegiate Hospitality’s management team at Drexel University is making strides in feeding the future by partnering on a research project with Drexel Solutions Institute and Drexel Food Lab, a culinary innovation and product research and development center within the Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions. This partnership highlights the intersection of so many fields that can work together to make foodservice better for humans. They’re collecting data to serve real-world food system challenges and looking at reducing carbon footprints to make things better for the climate as well.

‘They’ll never call’

Aramark Collegiate Hospitality’s Jonathan Duffy gives the example of how daily communications have profoundly shifted: “If we have a phone number for dining services, they’ll never call. We know students want to interact with us not with a telephone but with a chat.”

He predicts further automation over time, as the non-automated versions of service prove to be less consistent and/or slower. Delivery robots, in particular, are perfect for college campuses, with their “closed ecosystem” and accessibility features including ramps and wide sidewalks.

In terms of delivery, at least on college campuses, robots are proving to do it better, Duffy says. “Tech has met the human alternative and they are closer to parity. But on the production side of food, humans are still better at that if you take everything into account.”

“I think it will evolve with specialization,” Duffy continues. “We’re leveraging AI in a couple ways right now in the college dining world, for menu planning, for allergen info and a chatbot named Sam.”

Still, it’s important to Duffy that the human element isn’t lost. “We feel very strongly that in a residential dining facility, or if you take it more to a retail experience, you have to move that human interaction from the moment of ordering to the moment of hand-off,” he says. “We absolutely changed our name to include the word ‘hospitality’ not by accident. It’s about experience and humans as much as it is about food. That human experience will resonate much more than just putting food into your mouth.”