Friends of Branded!
Happy Saturday and I hope you had a great week.
What does an image of Anthony Hopkins as the character Hannibal Lecter from the 1991 psychological horror thriller film, Silence of the Lambs, elicit from you?
I’m not going to lie, when the topic for this week’s Top of the Fold came together (as a result of a series of articles I read about the job losses as a result of AI-powered growth), a few specific movies came to mind. I settled on pulling an image from Silence of the Lambs, but I admit it took me a moment to select a picture that I felt was appropriate without freaking me out too much.
I know the vast majority of the readers of the H^2 do so early on Saturday mornings (and I appreciate you), and while I wanted an image of Dr. Lecter that was true to this week’s title and theme, I also wanted to mindful that there’s only so much Hannibal Lecter we can all take before our first cup of coffee.
For avoidance of any doubt, my use of the expression “eating their own” has nothing to do with literal metaphor of cannibalism, but rather the figurative use of a people destroying its own members. To explain just a little further (and then I will stop explaining b/c I believe if I’m explaining, I’m losing and that’s true of investment opportunities and of course when it comes to your interest & attention), this isn’t about people turning against one another, infighting or internal betrayal. This is about how technology and innovation have often been a driver of replacement of what was previously the norm.
A classic example of technological disruption with eventual net economic gain is the replacement of horses with cars as the primary mode of transportation. You can refer to this a “The Model T Moment” as automobiles like the Ford Model T liberated horses from the monotonous pulling chores (or as the horses called this period, the “great replacement theory of the 1900s”). 😊
The transition from horses to cars wasn’t an overnight switch. The transition was a gradual economic, technological, and cultural one.
In the early 1900s, horses were still the dominant form of transportation for people, goods and services. By the 1920s, in cities, cars outnumbered horses thanks to mass production and by the 1930s – 1940s, horses were largely phased out of urban transportation in favor of automobiles, which were faster, cleaner (compared to the manure-filled streets) and more efficient for long distances.
On the employment side (which is where this Top of the Fold going), jobs tied to horses (blacksmiths, stable hands, carriage drivers) declined or disappeared completely. Of course, new jobs emerged in auto manufacturing, road construction, mechanics & fueling infrastructure as well as insurance & financing. Cars replacing horses was certainly the end of one era, but it was also the beginning of a new one.
Friends, operators, industry folks and investors, AI-solutions for restaurants represents our modern Model T Moment! You don’t have to believe me, but I hope you will at least consider it, and I invite you to explore this with Branded.
Employment tied to knowledge and specifically repetitive knowledge, is under pressure. Similar to the automobile, AI isn’t here to erase human value, but it will redefine it. The challenge for all of us isn’t to resist change, but to guide it and embrace it!
I aspire to always maintain a steep learning and I know that’s not everyone’s priority (and we all get to make our own decisions here), but this is a most obvious moment for retraining talent, rethinking roles, and reinvesting in human capital.
As I beat this horses-to-cars analogy to death, just as society adapted from managing the reins required to guide horses to the learning about the steering wheels, the shift from manual to machine-augmented thinking is here and it’s now!
As I wrote above, the theme “Eating their Own” was the result of a series of articles about AI-driven layoffs that are first and foremost hitting the technology industry and specifically some of the highest-profile companies.
The very companies that are leading the AI-revolution and that are investing heavily in it, are also the ones that are “streamlining operations” (which is corporate-speak that describes cutting jobs and slashing roles). Capital and resources are being freed-up for AI-powered growth and despite the irony, it’s the tech jobs that are being impacted first (the engineers building the AI-tools are focused on automating what they know, so it’s their jobs that are first and foremost being replaced).
According to one article, Microsoft, which kicked-off a round of cuts 2-weeks ago, announced it would lay off about 6,000 employees or 3% of its global workforce. In what can only be called a most paradoxical twist, Microsoft’s own Director of AI was among those laid off. Pulled from the article and according to a spokesperson from Microsoft, “we continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace.” The spokesperson went on to say that that the cuts will reduce management layers and routine roles, so it stays “competitive and agile” while it “rapidly integrates AI” across products.
The other tech giants executing layoffs include Intel, Amazon, Google, Meta, and others. The message here can’t be clearer – automation and AI are now front and center in strategic planning and companies that are willing to do what it takes to invest in these technologies will be better positioned than those who do not. The fact that it’s the tech giants that are most enthusiastic about AI-solutions should be very telling.
I won’t use a reference of rats & ships here (or did I just do that? 😊), but these tech companies are signaling just how fast the workforce calculus is changing.
The promise we’re all being given is that AI-powered tools will augment our jobs, but for some (actually, for many), the AI-tools have or will replace them.
For the restaurant industry, here’s our own paradoxical twist (or better stated, here’s the opportunity). The more restaurants automate, the more our guests are craving authentic hospitality.
Hospitality isn’t limited to restaurants, but we invented the sport (that’s my position and I’m sticking with it), so we should be pretty darn prepared to excel and capture this moment.
Yes, AI will replace jobs where tasks are highly repetitive, and these include, but aren’t limited to replacing cashiers with kiosks (another shoutout to you Mr. Barton and Bite), static signage & menu boards with digital ones (I see you Mr. Mathieu and Vistify) and humans answering phones with AI-driven voice assistants (I got you Mr. Atkinson and ARI Venture Studio).
Kitchen automation will be a huge area for AI-solutions and that will include everything from inventory tracking & management (you deserve to flex at least a little Mr. Davis thanks to the tremendous value MarginEdge is delivering to your customers), to optimizing food prep timing (cheers to you Mr. Siegel and Curbit).
Sorry for the job losses, but you can’t put technology back in the bottle.
Let’s focus on the areas where AI is already augmenting roles and NOT replacing human capital.
The leveling-up of jobs as a result of AI include menu & revenue management (see how I didn’t say “dynamic pricing”…whoops!), guest engagement and loyalty (Mr. Ochstein and Fishbowl are clearly medaling in the category of “most-mentions” in the H^2 lately) and employee training (not a Branded portfolio company, but we’ve got uber respect for Ms. Rachael Nemeth, her extraordinary training platform, Opus, and the great work they do supporting restaurants including some of our emerging restaurant companies (Big Chicken & Craveworthy Brands) and integrating with our tech-partner, Mr. Oates and pairing guest feedback (Ovation) with training).
And this is where things get incredibly interesting, and I dare say exciting – the jobs and roles being created or transformed because of AI for our industry.
The opportunity to for hospitality workers to take on tech-enabled roles and be trained to help navigate digital menus, troubleshoot kiosks and be an ally to the guest in a way that a cashier (think transactional) couldn’t. AI-integrations will be needed at all levels of the hospitality industry and that includes the unit-level and up to the corporate one. Managing AI tools and being a bridge to the guest and ensuring, protecting, and delivering a hospitable experience is now critical. What an amazing opportunity for those that have excelled at taking care of guests to now be leaders in this transformation.
And finally, the biggest opportunity of them all – data and analytics! Restaurants of all sizes will be afforded the tools to gather, interpret and leverage data thanks to AI-generated reports.
Again, the restaurant industry has no exclusivity when it comes to data and AI-tools, but we do have a most valuable dataset, consumer preference data, and now the tools to harness it. Branded is working on a BIG DATA project and I’ll tease here that coming from a few decades in the world of securitization and fixed income, I aspire to create our own version of a “PPP” (a Public-Private-Partnership).
Yes, AI will displace specific tasks and roles, but historical patterns make it clear that technology shifts tend to lead to the reallocation of labor as opposed to it resulting in net long-term job losses. I’m not suggesting this will be a smooth transition and it will certainly not impact people evenly, but embracing AI and investing into it is my overarching (and unsolicited) recommendation that I make with strong conviction.
It takes a village.
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I’m going to own this FIRST shoutout and accept that it’s about Branded, but it needs to be done!
This week, our friends from Pitchbook shared its Q2 2025 ResTech Landscape which provides an overview of the technologies, start-ups and investors reshaping the restaurant industry.
While there were many key takeaways included in the report, Pitchbook also included the Top VC investors in the ResTech space since 2020. Branded Hospitality is proud to be included on this list with other strong investors.
I’ve pulled the chart from the report and copied it below.
I think what I’m most proud of is not just Branded’s position as an active investor in this industry we’re exclusively focused on, but that it represents one of our core activities that when combined with our other business verticals, creates a flywheel that I feel creates a unique and value-added platform that Schatz, Julie, the rest of the Branded team and I were very intentional about building.
Branded’s Solutions, and Media are both distinct and important businesses at Branded. They also contribute to making us a far better and more value-added investor. I also know our role as an investor (Ventures) in the ResTech, contributes to our Solutions and Media businesses and helps us be more accretive and strategic for the benefit of our clients.
Yes, these businesses operate independently, but when combined and leveraged together, they create a powerful flywheel that I believe makes Branded a unique partner to support interested parties in this industry we love (it also makes this the most fun I’ve had in my fast approaching 40 years of work, but that’s obviously a most personal and self-interested benefit). 😊
For those that would like to explore opportunities the leverage Branded’s investment, solutions, and media flywheel, I’d welcome the opportunity to discuss.
The SECOND shoutout this week could be considered somewhat about Branded, but I’m going to make sure it doesn’t flow that way.
This week our friends from Restaurant Business Online and specifically Mr. Joe Guszkowski, who wrote an article about podcasting and specifically How podcasting took over the restaurant industry.
What Joe says was previously considered side projects for “tech geeks” has become a sprawling content ecosystem that’s changing how the industry connects and learns.
Branded is of course thrilled to be part of this podcasting ecosystem with our own Hospitality Hangout, but I want to use this shoutout to celebrate the other content creators that we enjoy following, collaborating with and in today’s H^2, giving a well-deserved shoutout to.
Whenever you acknowledge a few, you run the risk of upsetting many. So, in addition Mr. Guszkowski’s article as the basis of this shoutout, I’ve also included some links to other articles that acknowledge, highlight, and even rank Branded’s fellow podcasters (and if you’re not on the list, I’ve included cell phone numbers of all the authors that wrote and created these lists at the bottom of this week’s newsletter). 😊
- TOAST - BEST Restaurant Podcasts: Ultimate Guide to Restaurant Podcasts (2025)
- R365 - Best Restaurant Industry Podcasts
- Touch Bistro - 6 Addictive Restaurant Podcasts to Listen to Right Now
- Upmenu - 16 Best Restaurant Podcasts for Restaurant Owners
- Million Podcasts - Best 50 Food Service Industry Podcasts
Podcasting of course isn’t new, but this year was the first time out at the Restaurant-NRA show in Chicago that podcast booths were featured and where the action taking place inside the booths was pumped out onto the tradeshow floor.
From the article, the pandemic is credited with increasing restaurants’ hunger (pun intended) for information as operators tried to navigate the whirlwind of change brought on by COVID.
From 2019 to 2024, the global podcast audience grew more than 80%, to 505 million people, according to market research firm Emarketer.
The future of podcasts for our industry is above my paygrade, but I love the podcast Branded has created and listening to many others that provide both a wealth of content and often some great stories and laughs along the way.
Cheers!
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Branded invites readers of the H^2 that are interested in learning more about our portfolio companies, and investment strategies to become part of our Access Hospitality Network ("AHN").
We’re going to do something a little different with the AHN section this week.
First, I want to highlight (and disclose) that Branded is an investor in Copia, a B2B SaaS company that built the industry’s best surplus food redistribution platform that is easy to use, flexible, scalable, reliable and one of a kind!
Second, I'm proud to serve a member of Copia's Board of Directors.
Copia App is a one-stop-shop for donations; from a single donation of five pizzas to a nation-wide enterprise program with hundreds of locations – Copia has you covered.
Copia is a resource for sharing – connecting surplus to those who need it most. Friends, America doesn’t have a food shortage problem; we have a food waste problem and Copia is addressing that.
There is too much food to be wasted.
With 13% of Americans struggling with food insecurity (and let’s not kid ourselves, that percentage increasing), and nearly 149 billion meals worth of food headed to the landfill each year, Copia has created the best platform that allows you (operators) to be the force for change.
Hunger isn’t a scarcity problem as much as it’s a process problem, and Copia is the solution.
Why is this week’s AHN section different than all the previous ones?
Great question.
This week we're offering a little special and those that wish to engage with Copia can do so by using the following e-mail address: partnerships@gocopia.com, and when mention Branded Hospitality (or say “Happy Birthday Schatzy”) you get 1-month free on an annual subscription.
Is there another reason why this week’s AHN section is different than all others?
You’re on fire today with these amazing questions.
Yes, today is a first where I’m now giving up the balance of the AHN section and passing it to my friend, partner and the CEO of Copia, Kimberly Smith
The Food Industry’s Moment to Lead: Doing Well by Doing Good
Kimberly Smith, CEO, Copia PBC
In May 2025, Congress passed the largest cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in U.S. history. Nearly $300 billion - a staggering 26% reduction - will be stripped from a program that over 40 million Americans rely on for food access.
This is not a marginal change. It is a seismic one, and it directly impacts the very workers who power the hospitality industry.
The irony is that most families relying on SNAP are not unemployed. They’re working - many are in restaurants, hotels, and service businesses. When foundational networks shrink, it’s not just the community that suffers—it’s your staff, your teams, your neighbors.
We Don’t Have a Food Shortage. We Have a Distribution Problem.
According to ReFED, over $200 billion of food is wasted annually from overproduction alone. Perfectly edible, safe food - never sold, never served, never eaten.
At the same time, more than 44 million people in the U.S. face food insecurity - including 1 in 5 children.
Hunger isn’t political.
It is solvable.
If we simply redistributed unsold, uneaten food as part of our restaurant and hospitality operations, we wouldn’t need to produce more food to solve this problem. The foundation would already be laid. We’d reduce the environmental impact of growing and transporting excess food. We’d mitigate the financial volatility tied to federal support programs. And most importantly, we’d ensure that fewer families go without.
But for this to work, it needs to be operationally easy - not a favor, but a function.
Copia was built for this exact moment. We connect businesses - restaurants, hotels, healthcare campuses - with local nonprofits to redistribute surplus food safely, efficiently, and legally. And we do it in a way that’s frictionless for staff and valuable for the bottom line.
Because here’s what most operators don’t realize:
You get rewarded for doing the right thing.
- Tax deductions under IRS §170(e)(3)
- Lower waste-hauling costs
- Quantifiable ESG wins
- And the pride of knowing your food didn’t go to waste - it went to someone in your neighborhood where you employ and operate in
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a few trays of prepared meals from a hotel kitchen or pallets of food from a distribution center. What matters is finding that food the right home so it can be used for its highest purpose: feeding people.
Copia’s platform makes donation operationally efficient, reliable, and a triple bottom line win for businesses.
To every restaurant and hotel group: This is your moment to lead. You got into this business to feed people. Now is the time to extend your table.
The need has never been higher.
The food has never been more abundant.
The solution has never been easier.
Copia is ready. Are you?
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Featured Episode - Tech-Driven Hospitality: Amir Hudda on the Evolution of Food Service
What happens when cutting-edge tech meets old-school hospitality? In this episode, we sit down with Amir Hudda, CEO of Qu, to unpack the evolution of restaurant management in a rapidly changing world. From emerging brands to enterprise breakthroughs, Amir shares candid insights on the tech reshaping food service, the trends that matter, and how to future-proof your operation. Whether you're a founder, operator, or just obsessed with the business of hospitality, this one's packed with gold.
Get ready for stories, strategy, and a behind-the-scenes look at the future of food from one of the industry's most innovative minds
Tune into the episode and subscribe to our channel here: Hospitality Hangout With Amir Hudda
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MARKETING
Biggest Takeaways: National Restaurant Association Show 2025 - Real Insights from 12 Restaurant Decision-Makers
By: Rev Ciancio, Head of Revenue Marketing at Branded Hospitality Ventures
I invited a group of restaurant operators, tech leaders, and marketers to sit down for quick interviews and answer the same set of questions about the show, the state of the industry, and where we’re headed. The conversations were fast, real, and packed with insights.
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AI
AI and Customer Feedback: Turning Reviews into Actionable Insights
By: Michael L. Atkinson ResTech Entrepreneur, Investor, and Co-founder of ARI Venture Studio
AI can analyze customer reviews from various platforms, including social media and online review sites, to identify common themes and sentiment, highlighting areas for improvement. Additionally, AI-powered chatbots can automate responses to common customer inquiries and complaints, providing timely and efficient customer service.
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Today's Thought
Pursue Your Potential with Truth & Intention
By: David Meltzer
Success isn’t about being everything to everyone; it’s about being honest with yourself, staying intentional in your actions, and committing to the continuous pursuit of your potential. In a world that praises titles and external results, this mindset shift is what leads to lasting greatness.
Food For Thought
Can Color Make Your Food Taste Better? Science Says Yes!
By: Melissa Hughes
Before guests even see the menu or speak to a server, the color palette of your restaurant decor is already shaping how they feel, what they expect, and even how hungry they are.
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That’s it for today!
See you next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel.
It takes a village!
Jimmy Frischling
Branded Hospitality Ventures
jimmy@brandedstrategic.com
235 Park Ave South, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10003
Branded Hospitality Ventures ("Branded") is an investment and solutions platform at the intersection of foodservice, technology, innovation and capital. As experienced hospitality owners and operators, Branded brings value to its partners through investment, strategic counsel, and its deep industry expertise and connections.
Learn more about Branded here: Branded At-A-Glance