How Fast Food Is Using Tech To Bridge Labor Crunch

you already know what the company does. It's a platform used by huge names Domino's, Papa John's, uh KFC, five Guys, Chipotle, etcetera. Um, I don't know exactly what it does flat, so I know that you your platform helps people with safety, helps people, especially giving the COVID situation. But what exactly do people use zen Put to do? Yeah, of course, thanks for having us so our customers. You said to make sure that every time you walk into one of their locations,

the food and dying experience is great. There making sure that the food is being handled and prepared to safely, you know, taking temperature readings, making sure that the hot food is hot. The cold food is cold, and particularly given given last year with COVID, a lot of our customers were used us to make sure that you know, safety and clean procedures were followed, that they were being done correctly, so that you and I, whatever we walk into one of these places, we know great, this place

is UM. This places following the like protocols and as you were mentioning, that's correct. We worked with some phenomenal brands that about UM and roughly about fifty locations across a hundred plus companies, including including the Dominoes in Germany and even there should grows technology in Germany as well.

So glad. You know, you walk past almost any restaurant here in the States, whether it's a you know, part of the national chain like a Papa John's or Chipotle, or you know, an independently owned restaurant, almost everyone has a help wanted sign in the window here. How bad is the labor shortage in the restaurants slash fast food business? Yeah, look,

it's it's it's challenging right now. You know, there's a there's a comment that we heard from our customers starting a couple of months ago that said we felt like we just got out of one pandemic and we're getting into another one, but now one being the labor shortage. Look, it's um, it's uh, it's challenging, without a doubt. I think early on you had a shortage of people that

didn't want to go back. They were worried about you know, I don't want to get sick of it, I don't want to get COVID potentially from somebody else in the workplace, and so they bought out of it. Um that's now fading a bit with vaccination. Vaccinations obviously where they are today in terms of how many people are getting them, um to, you're having a lot of people just kind of question the type of work that they want to

be doing. All of a sudden they said, well, hold on, I've been doing this for five or ten years, and maybe I don't want to do this thing more. Maybe I want to switch jobs and go to a different career. And I think that the third piece of it a little bit, and it kind of varies from the statements.

That is, some of the benefit the temporary benefits that we have from the government that are coming in, but are also you know, providing some some money these individuals and so the customers a week talked to in regulations are getting real creative, right for hitting out money just to even get people walking the door for an application. Fifty dollars just to interview, fives on your first paycheck if you start within two to three weeks, and another

five drawars that anyone else that would recommend someone. So, um, it's challenging for sure. So does this get sorted in the next couple of months. We know those unemployment benefits run out in September, and I realized, you know, there are other aspects to this, but once those are done and people have gone through savings, you'd assume they're gonna want to go back and get fifty dollars for an

interview and five um to start off. Yeah, I'm actually considering doing some interviews later today to get I think I think as a whole you're probably gonna see that exactly what you said towards maybe you know, my our best guests is maybe towards the end of the summer beginning of the fall, at some point we start to hit some level of normality, and I think maybe people start to kind of fade a little bit out of

the pandemic. To your point, the benefits start to run out all of a sudden, jobs might be a little bit harder to come by, right because some of these places might might start finding the people that they need, and people start to settle in into certain environments. UM So I would imagine, you know, based on the things that we're here and from from our customers, is that there. You know, while this started off a couple of months ago, it's very difficult. They found ways to deal with it.

Um A lot of it usually have to deal with technology. How do you invest in technology to basically make the people that do have at the store with the restaurant a lot more efficient. They can get more done this way, and so they're trying to find ways to increase that so that hopefully by the time people do come back, you know, and there and they're fully staff, they're rocking and rolling, you know, on all cylinders that thirty seconds. Is there a chicken wing shortage out there? Yeah, a

little bit. These uh, these these chicken uh, these chicken wars have gotten very serious. I think the you know, everyone's pushing into the chicken sere, which is the chicken wings. Obviously wingstoff did a phenomenal job during the pandemic, but the most searching pieces. As prices have gone up on chicken.

I think Winstoff came out a couple of weeks ago with there now five stop UH brand that's delivery only they're buying whole chickens trying to get a lower price for the chicken, and then they're now selling a big chunk of it off from some other way. But that's UH should be good. Listen, Chicken from a lot of these places is pretty solid, so it's we benefit of consumers from these chicken wars. All right, glad, thank you

so much. We appreciated glad Rick deir CEO of zen Pod giving us a son of the overview of what's going on on the restaurant business fast food business. Obviously the demand picking up dramatically supply side, particularly on the labor A little bit challenge here as a deal with the rebound right now, I want to get into UM crypto and defy and everything surrounding it. Diva Balji joins as senior editor at Bloomberg News. Talk to us about

what's happened here. I guess you know, as we broke down, UM did you a below thirty thousand, A lot of people took that as a technical time to buy in and did so. Now we're bounced back up UM from that level. What's what's the state of crypto currently at this point, it's up about it's up to about thirty four thousand for bitcoins specifically. You know, even stocks that slump yesterday, crypto linked stocks that slumped yesterday have sort

of quickly reversed UM today. They're mostly all in the green. You know, micro Strategy, which obviously was a huge focus for a lot of investors yesterday because you know, they've been making a bullish beat on bitcoin UM is also back up today. So overall, you know, I don't want to say it was a bit of a blip yesterday because that was a huge loss for a decent amount

of time. But you know, I also don't want I also just you know, it's not exactly surprising, you know, to see the type of volatile ride that bitcoin and crypto stocks have. Yeah, that's kind of where I want to go, give you the volatility associated with crypto and particular bitcoin. For some naysayers or some folks that look at this, they say, you know, the volatility is just too great for this to be a real asset class um.

What are you hearing? Um? You know, generally people who are invested in crypto currencies and bitcoin and the stocks that are linked to them are very very well aware of how volatile it is. And you know, some people that we've spoken to generally what they say is as much as it goes down, there's a chance of it

going back up and even higher. So, you know, they seem to be very well versed or or knowledgeable in the land of crypto and seemed to be generally or at least the bulls are sticking to their guns and believe that, you know, this is the place to be, whether it's volatile or not. If you can stomach it, you know, stay because you can potentially make money off of it. Is there any uh, is there any merit to trying to find a reason for the gains and losses?

I mean, we always cite China's clamp down on mining or Elon Musk's tweet, But isn't a lot of this really momentum driven in technicals. I think it's a combination of both. You know, sometimes it is hard to sort of pinpoint a specific reason on any given day. But and you know, sometimes it could be the fact that Musk is tweeting something about it that's really driving the shares. But you know, there's definitely a part of it that's

momentum driven. You know, if it's a bunch of people on Reddit who are talking about it and pushing the stock higher, or just general market rotation. Um, they all tend to play a part in this, you know, on any given day. So let's broaden it out to some of the derivative plays that the stock market plays for crypto. I'm thinking coin based that was a really high profile direct listing here. Are direct direct listings still a thing here?

Or you know, the coin base says it hasn't traded very well, So I'm wondering if that kind of puts a pall on that. Yeah, you know, it definitely was something that a lot of companies were, you know, actively pursuing or considering. I think what we've seen of late, whether it's coin based or other direct list things that have come through, is just the fact that you know, yes, they are an alternative way to list your stuff, but some of them haven't done as well. Like you pointed out,

with coin based UM as other ideas. So you know, generally people seem to be questioning whether a direct list thing is really the way to go UM for their company. All right, we really appreciate it to be a bold senior editor Bloomberg News joining us on the phone, talking all things crypto again. Bitcoin up about two point eight percent today, pushing up close to thirty four thousand, a big reversal from it when it broke below a technical

support level of thirty thousand. Levet more coming up now. I want to bring Dr Eric Servini. He is a Gates Cambridge scholar and an historian. He wrote a book called The Deviance War, The Homosexual versus the United States of America, and we bring him on UM to talk about that obviously in relation to Pride Month and New York City's Pride Week, which is this week. UM, Dr

thanks so much for joining us. UM. We have strewn around the office a number of different Pride flags and pins, and you know here at Bloomberg obviously, UM, we're very aware of the situation. I think in New York City as well, people are is it nash only as as as as UM visible as it is on the coasts. I think so, and thanks for having me. You know, Pride goes back more than fifty years now, and it started out as as a protest and as a reaction to police violence at the Stone Wall in in New

York City. But it's really from that moment has grown all across the country and all across the world. You can rainbow flag, uh, not just on on logos and not just in parades, but in in houses and schools all across the w entire world, and it's comes to mean a symbol for equality. And I think that's something that you'll start to see grow even more in the future. All right, Well, the folks in Washington are friends in Washington, and Congress are you? I guess there's the Equality Act

which is going back and forth. Give us the status of what is the Equality Act? What does it seek to do? And kind of where are we in terms of the discussion in Washington. Sure, Well, until last year, there was no federal protections for anyone who was lgbt Q plus when it came to employment, when it came

into housing, public spaces, or services. And there was a very important Supreme Court decision last year bus Dot versus Clayton County, which for the first time, the Supreme Court said that actually the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four protects queer folks in this country. The problem is

according to which administration is currently in power. Currently President Biden issued an executive order saying he was going to interpret that to mean that it applied to all sorts of different areas where discrimination should be prohibited, so education, housing, and healthcare. But the problem is, at any point, if we had a different administration in office who interpreted that Supreme Court case differently, UH, than very easily those protections

that we currently have UH could be stripped. So what the Equality Act would do is cod if I and make very explicit that Supreme Court decision to ensure that this is a permanent protection for a very large and growing minority in our country. Is at some point has the movement shifted the zeitgeist of it from a gay rights movement to really just a general political movement, because it's not just lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. There are many many more letters and numbers now in UH involved. And

it's not just the rainbow flag I read today. There are thirty different rainbow flags UM is it at some point just a political dogma. Well, I think it's just a community of folks who don't identify as straight or cis gender meaning you're this, you identify as the same way you were assigned at birth. Uh, And so there are so many different gender identities and this goes back thousands of years. What's new isn't the concept of being non binary or not being male or female. What to

do is that binary itself? And so what you're starting to see is people realizing that, especially younger folks, that there are so many different varieties of humanity. And that's true not just among straight people, but within the queer community as well. There's so much diversity contained within that one rainbow flag. In fact, it's changing, and I reginate that there's an a sexual flag as well. I mean there's it's it's almost like everyone except for a small group,

is contained into the in the in the movement. Right. Well, at the end of the day, you look at our Congress and you see a very small group it's running our country. It's a it's white, this gender straight men. And you know, there should be flags for everyone else because given how ubiquitous we are, we should be also

in power. We should also have representation in media. So I think that's why those flags are so portant, because you, as you mentioned, there is a disparity between who is actually in power, who has the wealth, and then who actually constitutes this country. All right, Eric, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate uh your time. Dr Eric Servini Gates, Cambridge scholar and historian, also author of the book The Deviance Wore The Homosexual versus the

United States of America. And you're right, Matt, the flag is it seems to be growing and growing and growing. Is more and more people you know, look to have their positions is aired and and be you know, fairly represented. So it's an issue that is important. Is you know, Eric was saying, are the folks on the Congress are you know, looking at a lot of these issues as well from a legislative perspective. Um, and certainly for the

Biden campaign, kind of a a important issue. All right, Let's talk technology, particularly artificial intelligence and how it's transforming the financial services business. For that, we bring in Lisa Chi. She's a senior research analysts for robot Global. Lisa, thanks so much for joining us. Here, I'm probably fairly representative of some people. Are a lot of people that during the pandemic, I found myself doing a lot more digital banking, a lot more banking on my phone. Talk to us

how the financial services industry is adapting. How well is it adapting to technology? UM, Yeah, thanks for having me. UM. So, I've been following the fintech industry for a while now and and and it has really evolved, probably in the past decade, has really seen a lot of advancement, and obviously with the pandemic has accelerated all the activities around e commerce. And just like you, I've also been home and be doing a lot more online shopping and a

lot more of the kind of the touchless payment system. Right. So, some of these dynamics that we're seeing and experiencing today, UM is due to all these digitization that we're seeing growth of IOP devices that definitely had a lot to do with it. UM. I think ten years ago we had just about a third of the world that we're Internet users, and now almost two thirds of the world

has access to some type of Internet. So, and on top of that, I think technologies around cloud services UM combined with advanced compute power has really accelerated, so so definitely, the financial industry has been real tremendous progress in terms of innovation, and I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg and what's to come talk to us?

I mean, I often wonder is that, you know, here in midtown Manhattan, there's still a lot of bank branches around, and I'm wondering what's the future of a branch commercial bank branch because I can't even recall the last time I went in one, right, I think UM definitely the we've all received our if you had a credit card, we all received that touch this UM credit cards in the mail in the past six months or so. I

got a few exactly UM. I think the younger generation, the millennials, definitely feel much more comfortable using their apps to do their banking. And you saw the growth of UM institutions like robin Hood, right, and you've got companies that coin b is coming out, and and that that use of the used platform in the apps have really UM kind of dominated UM some of the usage and

mind share. So definitely, the banks and credit card providers are kind of scrambling at the moment trying to find some innovative solutions and really adapting to the world um and I think that definitely we're seeing a combination of the cloud and co put power and adoption of the AI that's really making the experience for the consumer a lot more user friendly, and I think we're going to

see a lot more innovations around that. I think the biggest hurl, and while you still will see some of the banking branches is because of the integration between the back end solutions and then the front end. It's still being worked on and that's still um I think we're going to see a lot of spending around that UM but I think that the industry is really um embracing technology to offer that integration from the back influtions and

the front end, and you're seeing lots of progress. You publicly don't really feel it on a day day basis, but you believe it or not. Um AI is just

at the forefront of everything that we're doing. So when you're banking, whether you're talking about your credit card transactions are actually transferring money into different payment system like there's the wallets right venmo um cash up where we just have so many options now and you could also trade, you know, equities and bitcoins with our banking and then at the same time you get a credit card and

a debit card. So you're seeing this integration of these solutions happening and at the at the same time, UM, I'm very concerned as a tech analyst to see what are the industry doing. Are they doing enough to to prevent fraud? And what type of data are they collecting? And are we going to have this world where every transaction that we're making, um where it's while it's going to be personalized types of transaction and solutions that's going to be coming to us, but in terms of marketing,

are we going to get flooded? Right? With marketing? You know, whether it's a spam or alert notification throughout text, it's really it's we're coming at a level where we're industries really embracing technology. But are they going to be smart and be thoughtful and how they're going to use the data? I mean just writing just writing the New York City subway.

In my lifetime, I've gone from using the tokens um to then swiping the metro card and now I just tap my iPhone to the turnstyle and boom, I'm in, So that's the good news. The bad news is I think the MTA knows where I'm going at all times now and that's a little scary. So it kind of goes to your point of uh, security, are are there

are there some companies that are focusing on that? Yes, definitely, UM there are many companies that are whether private and public that's really helping with the either cybersecree types of solutions or data protection and also fraud prevention. So right now, um a I can figure out whether um, you can't be definitely in two places at once. So it's basically where there it's AI analyzing the feelings of transactions are crying each day, so um while the financial service industry

is and I published for the last ten years. So what we're seeing the instruction innovation is that AI application is a really expanding and a very quick level. So you're they're using predictive analytics to really improve the accuracy levels and there's a lot of data around this where um, if you've ever been in a store where your credit card is getting declined, it's a terrible experience and and the retail stories don't want to lose you as a customer.

The banks don't want to lose you. But some of the data around it's really shocking that UM over a hundred and twenty billion dollars a year of transaction credit card transaction UM is from false decline and over a third of that customer stopped shopping at that retailer after being falsely declined. So that's that's really shocking number. And according to MasterCard data, over twenty percent of customers also switch to their bank after experiencing some type of frauds.

So you're seeing companies like Fara ISAAC that has whether it's credit you know, kind of score monitoring systems UM services like Psycho scores, and you've got company like fly Serve. They have solutions around this and they've been using AI for probably the longest out of all the publicly traded companies out there because they have so much data. But we're we're seeing um um these companies continue to adopt in and invest heavily an AI so so to really

improve the accuracy level. So I think I think that's that's very important, I think, and I think that's very exciting. All right, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us. Fascinating stuff. Lisa Chai, senior research analysts at Robo Global Technology overtaking and or disrupting, certainly the financial services industry like never before. Just look at all the apps you have on your iPhone. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews with

Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three. Pet On bal Sweeney I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio