There is a lot of talk when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it can shape the world around us. The beer industry is not immune from the technology and it is showing up in an increasing amount of ways from the front office, to the brew deck, and the tap room.
Brett Danielson, co-founder and CEO of BarTrack, a hospitality quality and data technology company, spoke with John Holl, ProBrewer contributor and editor of All About Beer on the role it is playing when it comes to the beverage space over the next few years.
John Holl: I imagine because of the evolution of things, thinking about where BarTrack could be headed right now. What’s driving you all inside of the company right now? Where are you looking towards?
Brett Danielson: Things are going is more towards the total quality management approach, really connecting our industry. When I say our industry, I mean retailers with suppliers to make sure equipment is performing correctly and delivering consumer experiences that maximize the profitability of your draft system. There are lot of different things draft from cocktails to wines to Kombucha. People are not shifting away from beer, but they’re looking at other things that they can put on draft instead of beer that is complementary to beer.
John Holl: There’s a lot of talk about AI. In some ways, it’s buzzwords that are being thrown about by folks. But then there’s real applications, obviously, behind it, as well. And I think that in the beverage space, folks are still kind of trying to figure out where everything is headed. So, from a technology standpoint, the question that I have is: how has software evolved in the beverage space in the beer space, over the last couple of years?
Brett Danielson: I would say that AI and machine learning is going play a big role in the beverage space, in particular over the next five to 10 years. How we manage supply chains, and how we manage quality. Being able to take inputs from sensors, systems, like BarTrack, wiring them up to AI will allow folks to be preventative in their approach to draft beverage quality.
I see a world where service companies and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) can detect that a problem is going to occur before it dramatically affects the beverage quality and before the average consumer will even notice is the difference. And that’s extremely exciting.
I also think that AI and machine learning as it relates to on premise data, in general, is kind of a blue ocean right now there’s a lot of opportunity to understand the consumer, understand what they’re looking for, why they’re buying the things they’re buying what their price ranges are based on certain parameters. I think there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity in that space on allowing restaurant owners to utilize their data better.
I think there are a lot of opportunities for it. But I think there’s also a lot of noise. And I think that’s the natural curve of any invention that’s brought to market is kind of figuring out what its real purpose is and what it’s not. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But I also think that what it does is it leads to expectations for consumers, retailers, whoever in our world that may not be realistic right now and may not be the best use of the technology. But the only way to figure that out is to try things. So I’d say you’re gonna see a lot of AI a lot of machine learning in our space.
I think there are a lot of opportunities for it. But I think there’s also a lot of noise. And I think that’s the natural curve of any new invention that’s brought to market is you are figuring out what its real purpose is and what it is not. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
But I also think that what it does is it leads to expectations for consumers, retailers, whoever in our world that may not be realistic right now and may not be the best use of the technology. But the only way to figure that out is to try things. I’d say you’re gonna see a lot of AI a lot of machine learning in our space.
John Holl: One of the things that you brought up was some of this ability to stop problems before they happen. What’s a good example of that?
Brett Danielson: We have a glycol monitoring solution that that we partnered with Micromatic to bring to the market. There is real data that we’ve seen already that you can pinpoint a failure point in your system, before it actually affects the taste and delivery of the beer. That’s real.
I think that as we insert more sensors, or insert more units into the field, we’ll be able to detect things that we’re not even thinking about today that relate directly to beverage quality and affect the way that beverages are dispensed to the customer. That’s exciting for us because when we started this mission to make bar owners more profitable, we also started it because we wanted to have consistent drinking experiences across all bars. I think is a great utilization of AI and machine learning in general.
John Holl: How do you see that dynamic changing of understanding the consumer with some of these technologies?
Brett Danielson: I believe that the best way to get actionable and real data is from data that is completely blinded. And what I mean by that is that the consumer doesn’t know that the data is being analyzed, or they don’t care. They’re just at a bar, they’re drinking their favorite beer, they’re having their favorite cocktail, their drink, they’re eating their appetizers their entrees to desserts. And they’re not doing that as a part of a focus group or a questionnaire or survey, they’re doing that because that’s what they want to do. And that’s the opportunity to utilize data that some people do well, but not very many.
And there’s a lot of macroeconomic data that’s in play there from not only determining trends for an individual bar, which is really important because tastebuds are localized, in my opinion. People’s taste buds in different areas are totally different. They eat different things, they drink different things. They have different price points that they look to purchase things. The buying behavior is completely different in these different areas. And I think that there’s a huge opportunity for restaurants to understand that. But I also think there’s a huge opportunity for macroeconomic trends that are important to our economy as it relates to those things. That is another missed opportunity for businesses like us in our market and it’s what we’re trying to conquer.
John Holl: I know there are a lot of small business owners, small brewery owners that want to be using technology better, that want to be understanding their consumer better and running their business more efficiently but might not have the time or the skill set or to fully dive into so much of what you’re saying right now. Where can or should the folks who run taprooms start to learn more about the technology?
Brett Danielson: I would say that you want to have as big of a diverse lineup as you possibly can. You want to have as much rotation as possible and as much diversity on tap as humanly possible. And if you can incorporate cocktail style beverages, you should, because it applies to a different segment of the business, and it allows people to come back in. The other thing that I would say, before I get to the technology component is, I would highly recommend any brewery owner, if they can have a kitchen in their brewery, if they can’t partner with a food truck, because that’s something that we see as a big deal. People want to eat and drink; they don’t want to just drink anymore. So, I would highly recommend that the most successful brewery tap rooms that we see, have food in them, because they’re driving volume, and people staying longer drinking more beer as a result of that.
In terms of technology, I’m biased, but if you were to install our product in any brewery, taproom, I guarantee you’re going see thousands of dollars of savings every month and in most cases that’ll help automate processes that your team is doing.
The other thing would just be caring about quality and delivering a consistent drinking experience. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten feedback from people saying they went to a brewery and loved it but went back and the beer tasted different. And that could be because of production, but more than likely, it’s because of the way the draft system is configure and the lack of monitoring that goes on from a quality standpoint.
The best use of technology is to automate things that customers don’t see. And that allows you and your staff to put all your energy and focus into the customers experience, because that’s the most important thing. If you want repeat business, which is how you scale your business and how you drive higher check values and higher revenue every year, it’s going to come through an amazing experience. And that comes from quality of food, quality of service and quality of beverage.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.