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Finding the Synergies Between Foodservice & Retail

Panelists at NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show see more similarities between traditional restaurants and retail when it comes to technology.
Melissa Kress
The Foodservice Innovation: Opportunities in Retail panel
Panelists discuss the intersection of technology and foodservice.

NEW YORK — There is no denying that technology is an integral part of a convenience store's operation. There is also no denying that foodservice is increasingly becoming integral to a c-store retailer's success. And what has become abundantly clear over the past few years is that technology is an integral part of foodservice. 

That relationship is not exclusive to convenience stores, but to all food retail and restaurants, executives agreed while taking part in the "Foodservice Innovation: Opportunities in Retail" panel at the National Retail Federation's NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show, held in January. 

Joining Rob Grimes, CEO of IFBTA, a nonprofit professional association that promotes and advances technology and innovation for the global food and beverage industries, were Michael Verdesca, chief information officer for Murphy USA Inc.; Vikram Badhwar, director of international retail platforms at Starbucks Corp.; and AJ Francavilla, vice president of digital and innovation at Sodexo.

According to Verdesca, who worked in the restaurant business before joining Murphy USA, the technologies between food retail and restaurants are interrelated. They are similar, and there are a lot of synergies.

"We are doing the same things in loyalty," he pointed out. "We are all trying to get share of wallet and we are all trying to ... reach that consumer."

[Read more: Murphy USA's Core Categories Are Driving Long-Term Success]

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Badhwar offered a similar take. "The response to COVID and the complexity that came about with brands having to adopt delivery and mobile ordering at a rapid rate actually meant that there was a lot of great tech innovation that came out of the hospitality industry and now, there is a greater opportunity for cross-pollination from a tech point of view," he noted. 

Brands are increasingly bringing foodservice and retail together to provide more of an experience, Badhwar said, adding that there has been some debate whether Starbucks is a hospitality brand or a retailer. Internally, the company refers to itself as a premium retailer. 

The perspective is slightly different at Sodexo, a provider of sustainable food and integrated facilities management that works with multiple brands. Across its journey from hospitals to schools to senior living facilities, the company takes a retailer approach to understand each one of those touchpoints, Francavilla explained. 

"We see ourselves as having a retailer mindset with that strong food background, but we also create experiences," he said. "How do you get all those back-of-house systems, how do you get all that loyalty and all that mapping across disparate systems, 'doing business as' on behalf of our clients?"

For example, Sodexo has roughly 80 national brands in its mobile ordering platform.

Playing Catchup

The panelists agreed that foodservice has always lagged retail when it comes to technology, something that began to change as a result of the pandemic five years ago. Now, according to Grimes, "people are following us."

Historically, retail has invested more in data and marketing, but restaurants are now catching up. "Right now, I see so much overlap. We are all dealing with distributive labor workforces and multiunit retail and distributive consumers, and how do you talk to consumers," Verdesca said. "I think there is probably as much from each other that we are learning."

To that point, drive-thru is one area where retail has learned from foodservice and restaurants, noted Grimes. 

"For many years, [drive-thru windows] were a main business for McDonald's and all of a sudden, you see them in convenience stores and pharmacies and grocery — and everywhere," he said. "That is probably a technology where we might have led from foodservice."

Key Word of the Year

Walking the NRF Show every year, Grimes said he takes in the key words — everything from artificial intelligence (AI) to data analytics in past years. 

What did the panelists think this year's key word would be? 

  • Badhwar: GenAI. "I think it's a really interesting space and from a hospitality point of view, something the industry is not tapping into as much as it could be."
  • Francavilla: Big Data. "It's about how do you leverage it to start having those meaningful conversations; it is not just that we have the data."
  • Verdesca: Personalization. "We've done a lot in the data space and the AI space, but the end goal is personalization. For us, it's share of wallet. How do we make the right offers at the right time for those people to get them back in the store?"

NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show took place Jan. 12-14 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. Drawing approximately 40,000 attendees, the event featured 100-plus education sessions and more than 1,000 exhibitors. 

About the Author

Melissa Kress

Melissa Kress

Melissa Kress is Executive Editor of Convenience Store News. She joined the brand in 2010. Melissa handles much of CSNews' hard news coverage, such as mergers and acquisitions and company financial reports, and the technology beat. She is also one of the industry's leading media experts on the tobacco category.

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