Technology is taking on an increasingly central role in restaurant operations as businesses navigate a markedly more complex operating environment, according to Belal Zahran, Chief Revenue Officer at Foodics.
In an interview with Daily News Egypt, Zahran said the COVID-19 pandemic marked a major turning point for the sector, accelerating digital adoption, reshaping how restaurants served customers, and forcing operators to adapt more quickly. That experience helped create a more responsive sector, better equipped to navigate the shifts in consumer behaviour and operating conditions that have continued since.
The pressures facing operators have since evolved. Inflation, geopolitical uncertainty, supply-chain disruptions, and rising operating costs are placing greater pressure on restaurant economics, making it increasingly important for operators to understand what is happening across their businesses in real time.
Against this backdrop, Zahran discussed how restaurant technology is moving beyond individual operational tools towards more integrated systems, data, and AI-powered capabilities that give operators greater visibility over performance and support faster, more informed decision-making. He also outlined Foodics’ approach to growth and strategic investment.
How are inflation and current economic conditions reshaping the food and beverage (F&B) sector?
Inflation is reshaping the economics of the F&B sector on both the consumer and operator sides.
Consumers are becoming more deliberate about where and how they spend, while operators are managing higher input costs, supply-chain pressures, and rising operating expenses. The result is not simply lower demand; it is a shift in how demand behaves.
Restaurants therefore need to read those shifts much more closely. Changes in order mix, average spend, preferred channels, or branch performance can all signal how consumer behaviour is evolving. Operators that can see that data clearly are better positioned to adjust pricing, menus, inventory, and channel strategies in response, rather than reacting after the impact is already visible.
That is how the sector is responding to current pressure: by becoming more data-driven and adaptive. Resilience today is increasingly linked to how quickly a restaurant can understand what is changing in its business and translate that insight into an operational decision.
How has the shift accelerated by COVID-19 continued to shape restaurant operations today?
The most lasting change is that convenience and digital access have become part of the baseline customer expectation.
Digital ordering was already growing before COVID-19, but the pandemic accelerated adoption and made those behaviours more established. Today, consumers may move between in-restaurant, online, and other ordering channels without viewing them as separate experiences.
For restaurants, that means these channels cannot be managed as disconnected parts of the business. Each interaction generates operational data that needs to feed into the same view of performance.
That is why integration has become increasingly important: it allows restaurants to connect activity across channels and make decisions based on a more complete picture rather than fragmented information.
What does this more fragmented and multi-channel environment mean for restaurant operators today?
It means operators need much tighter control over an increasingly complex business.
A restaurant today may be serving customers across dine-in, delivery, online ordering, and multiple branches at the same time. Each channel creates its own transactions, customer behaviour, and operational demands. The challenge is therefore no longer simply managing more orders; it is maintaining consistency and control across the entire operation.
Operators need to understand, for example, whether a drop in performance is coming from a specific branch, a particular channel, changes in product demand, or rising operating costs, and they need to be able to identify that quickly enough to respond.
This is why fragmented operations become a real business challenge. When orders, inventory, payments, and branch performance are managed separately, teams spend more time reconciling information and less time acting on it. At Foodics, our focus has been on bringing these operational touchpoints into one ecosystem so operators can manage a more complex business with greater consistency, visibility, and control.
Has the sector demonstrated resilience despite these pressures?
Yes. The sector’s resilience is increasingly visible in how quickly operators are adapting to pressure rather than expecting demand to behave as it did before.
Consumers are becoming more value-conscious and changing what they order, how much they spend, and which channels they use. Restaurants, in turn, are responding through pricing, menu mix, digital channels, and tighter operational control.
What has changed is the speed at which operators need to make those adjustments. Businesses that can identify shifts in demand early and respond efficiently are better positioned to protect performance even in a more volatile environment.
So resilience today is less about resisting change and more about having the systems, visibility, and flexibility to adapt as market conditions evolve.
So, how is the role of restaurant technology itself changing?
Technology is moving from simply managing restaurant processes to helping operators interpret what is happening and decide what to do next.
For many years, restaurant technology was primarily transactional. The POS recorded sales, inventory systems tracked stock, and payment solutions processed transactions. Those functions remain essential, but the next stage is about extracting greater intelligence from the information those systems generate.
This is where data, automation, and AI are becoming increasingly important. When technology can analyse activity across the business, identify patterns, and surface relevant insights, it can help operators understand issues and opportunities that may otherwise be difficult to detect quickly.
At Foodics, we are increasingly building towards that model: combining an integrated operating ecosystem with data and AI-powered capabilities that can help restaurants move from simply seeing what happened to understanding why it happened, receiving relevant recommendations on what to do next, and making faster, more informed decisions.
That fundamentally changes the role of technology. It becomes not only the infrastructure through which the restaurant operates, but also a tool that supports smarter, faster, and more informed decision-making.
Why does that connected view matter even more under current market conditions?
Because the current operating environment leaves much less room for delayed or poorly informed decisions.
Inflation, rising operating costs, supply-chain pressures, and broader geopolitical uncertainty are putting pressure on restaurant margins, while consumers are becoming more selective about how and where they spend. This means operators need to react faster, whether by adjusting pricing, managing inventory more carefully, refining their menu mix, or focusing on the channels that are performing best.
This is also why Foodics introduced Forward Together, a support initiative designed specifically to empower restaurants to navigate current market pressures and maintain business continuity. Through flexible payment terms, free access to Foodics Online Website and Self-Ordering Kiosk, as well as complimentary access to advanced AI tools, the initiative gives operators practical tools to ease short-term financial pressure, improve efficiency, and unlock additional revenue opportunities.
How does Foodics approach growth as the needs of restaurant operators continue to evolve?
Our approach starts with the operator and with identifying where greater integration or additional capabilities can solve a meaningful business problem.
For us, growth is not about adding products for the sake of having a larger portfolio. It is about strengthening the ecosystem around the restaurant so that more of the operator’s needs can be addressed in a connected way.
That can involve building capabilities internally, introducing complementary services, or evaluating strategic investment opportunities where there is a clear fit with the Foodics ecosystem.
The test is always the same: does this capability make the platform more useful to restaurant operators, improve how different parts of the business connect, or help them make better operational decisions? That is the lens through which we think about expansion.
Could acquisitions form part of that growth strategy?
Yes. Acquisitions and strategic investments can be part of the approach when they add a capability or open an adjacent area that strengthens what Foodics can offer restaurant operators.
Depending on the opportunity, that could mean taking a stake in a company, acquiring it fully, or pursuing another form of strategic investment.
The strategic rationale matters more than the structure of the transaction. We look at whether an opportunity can complement the Foodics ecosystem, deepen the value we provide, or help us address a relevant need more effectively.
A recent example is Foodics’ acquisition of Norma, a Greek company specialising in AI and data analytics. The acquisition brought Norma’s technologies and team into Foodics’ AI division, strengthening capabilities that are already active across more than 10,000 branches operated by Foodics customers.
What do you see as the next stage in the evolution of restaurant technology?
I think the next stage will be about making technology more intelligent and proactive, and increasingly capable of moving from insight to action.
Restaurants already generate large amounts of operational data, and the opportunity now is to use AI and advanced analytics not only to interpret that data faster, but also to anticipate changes, surface opportunities or risks, provide recommendations, and, over time, respond to operator commands and execute approved actions based on the permissions given to the system.
That could mean identifying shifts in demand, flagging operational issues earlier, recommending changes to inventory or menu performance, and eventually carrying out selected actions rather than only reporting what has happened.
For Foodics, this means moving beyond digitising operations towards technology that can help restaurants anticipate, decide, and act with greater speed and confidence.
