QR code business me&u is using new technology to overhaul pub, restaurant menus

One of the nation’s largest hospitality tech businesses is overhauling QR code menus by using AI which can predict and order food and drink with just a couple of clicks.

Sprout founder Damian Janeski, me&u chief executive and co-founder founder Kim Teo and My GuestList founder now me&U director Andy Marcus.

Static dining menus are getting an overhaul from artificial intelligence-powered recommendation engines which tailor an order for dishes or drinks based on a customer’s previous orders.

It’s part of QR code ordering start-up me&u’s approach to the future of dining, and which co-founder Adrian Osman tells The Australian will have an Amazon-like approach to ordering.

“Part of our ambition is that this recommendation engine will understand your food and drink preferences better than you do and to be able to recommend the things that you like,” he said.

Mr Osman said that on average it took about eight clicks after a customer had scanned a QR code menu before their order was sent to the bar.

The start-up wants that to become two – serving up recommended dishes, craft beers and cocktails from the moment the customers scans the menu with as little scrolling and manoeuvring through a menu as possible.

Mr Osman and his wife, Kim Teo, founded QR code ordering start-up Mr Yum in 2018 and later joined their largest rival, me&u, after an all-stock merger in November 2023.

After me&u’s original founder, Stevan Premutico, departed in July the husband-and-wife duo continued to run the combined business, which largely uses Mr Yum’s technology and has embedded certain features from the original business.

The merger gives me&u a combined customer base of more than 12 million users. Its QR codes are used by some of the nation’s largest hospitality groups, including Justin Hemmes’ Merrivale Group, ALH Hotels, Solotel and Tilley & Wills.

The use of QR code menus, which boomed during the pandemic, have become the new normal at many Australian pubs and restaurants.

Mr Osman said me&u’s new recommendation function took inspiration from US eCommerce giant Amazon which built an express purchase option called “buy now” which lets customers purchase a product in as few steps as possible.

“Prediction and low friction e-commerce is a big focus for us,” Mr Osman said.

The new tech engine is part of a larger trend of hyper personalisation whereby customers are served up stories, videos, pictures and other forms of content they are likely to engage with, based off of their previous activity.

Recommendation engines leveraging predictive analytics exist across the internet – from social media algorithms to suggested movies and TV shows served up by Netflix, products spotlighted on Amazon and suggested news stories.

“Spotify is the best thing to liken it to,” Mr Osman said, adding that “Spotify discovery just knows your taste so well”.

“When you go to a restaurant or a pub, their menu could consist of 100, 200, 300 items and me&u doesn’t exist to distract you from time with your friends and family,” he said.

“The whole purpose is less friction and to reach that mission, we need to actually limit the amount of time that you’re looking at our products.”

Me&u’s bold ordering plans are part of a larger shift in hospitality whereby modern technology is changing the ways and times people eat.

Another start-up attempting to change dining habits of consumers is EatClub, founded by former Adelaide barman Pan Koutlakis, which lures customers to restaurants at off-peak hours with digitised dynamic pricing features that slash as much as 50 per cent off the bill.

Mr Osman said me&u’s new features were starkly different to that of many businesses in the sense that the start-up doesn’t want people looking at its products for longer while serving up ads.

Rideshare companies like Uber and streaming giants such as Netflix are increasingly shifting to advertising-supported models to increase revenue.

Mr Osman said me&U would buck that trend. “We just don’t need to do it,” he said. “I’m not a huge fan of ad models … I just think a lot of things consumers have been kind of burnt over the years by it.”