PreciTaste gives kitchens a taste of efficiency

PreciTaste, an AI-powered kitchen management system, will use $24 million in fresh funds to bring big food brands onto its roster as it helps restaurants tackle the labor shortage.

Why it matters: As restaurants face a labor crunch and mounting costs, digital tools that help kitchens run as efficiently as possible are garnering interest and investment.

Driving the news: PreciTaste, whose technology platform serves fast-casual and quick-service restaurant kitchens, closed a $24 million Series A this month.

• The raise was co-led by Melitas Ventures and Cleveland Avenue.
• Danny Meyer-backed growth equity fund Enlightened Hospitality Investments and Monogram Capital Partners participated.

Details: The new capital will fund software rollouts for existing customers and help onboard new users.

• “We have almost a waiting list of big brands that really want to join in,” CEO Ingo Stork-Wersborg tells Axios.
• The company currently has over 1,500 food AI deployments. “And we're growing fast,” Stork-Wersborg says.

How it works: PreciTaste uses machine learning and AI to monitor food quantity (and quality) in quick-service restaurants.

• Its software adjusts to kitchen workflows to make cooking and ingredient preparation recommendations to ensure order accuracy and freshness.

What they're saying: “We've seen that a crew of five people in the kitchen can now do a job that previously was done by seven people in the kitchen,” Stork-Wersborg says.

• PreciTaste helps restaurants “become more efficient and navigate the current labor shortage crisis," he says.
• “Because we're helping them to increase throughput, they can serve the customers faster,” he says, thereby enabling them to drive more sales.

What’s next: Stork-Wersborg hopes PreciTaste’s platform will gain enough “cooking experience” to manage different and more complex menu items that you wouldn’t typically see in chain restaurants.

Of note: PreciTaste's ability to calculate order demand means kitchens cook only as much food as they need to — which will help address the persistent issue of discarded food.

• “We help them assess demand so accurately that we are cutting down food waste significantly,” Stork-Wersborg says.
• Restaurants further save money as they avoid ordering a surplus of ingredients.
• “Even in the greatest recessions, people need to eat [and] they may need to be more economical, which is both driving towards what we do,” he says.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say PreciTaste raised $24 million (not $25 million).