Restaurants to deploy COVID tech

Thousands of Australian venues will rely on this Sydney start-up to track their customers’ details, as lockdowns ease.

Kounta founder and chief executive Nick Cloete. Source: Supplied.

Australian start-up Kounta is aiming to help Australia's hospitality industry prepare for its new set of guidelines and re-open for hungry diners, launching a new contact tracing feature this week.

Sydney tech company Kounta, which has about 7,000 locations using its cloud-based Point of Sale systems Australia-wide, has announced 'Safe Check-In', in which business owners print out a unique QR code, linking to a digital form for customers to fill in their contact details.

Kounta founder and chief executive Nick Cloete said the feature will not only save restaurant owners from using pen and paper, but would also ensure the privacy of customer data and allow venues to stay compliant and keep a secure, digital, timestamped record of all visits.

“Despite contact tracing not being legally required in every state, we are expecting to see many venues voluntarily adopt the feature to ensure both their customers and employees are kept safe and healthy as restrictions begin to ease," Mr Cloete said.

“It’s a tough time for many in the hospitality industry right now, which is why we introduced this new, free feature; to give venue owners the tools and resources they need to comply with the health guidelines, so they can focus on what they do best."

Stephane Meyer, founder and managing director of Etto Pasta Bar across five locations in Melbourne, said that the new technology would be a huge help towards having customers back in his restaurants.

"Having access to this technology saves us and other restaurant owners the time and energy on setting up the processes to adhere to the government guidelines so we can focus on cooking our delicious pasta."

Mr Cloete told The Australian COVID-19 had presented a 'wake up call' for the hospitality industry, that was already prone to changes in the economy.

"It obviously has been really hard and what we've seen is they've had to react very quickly, over a week or two, and it's been awesome to see all these hospitality businesses to keep that resilience up and adapt and change," he said.

Kounta was acquired by Canadian software giant Lightspeed for about $84 million last year, and the executive said that the start-up was well positioned to continue ramping up its presence inside Australian and New Zealand restaurants as they return to normal.

"Humans are very social creatures and crave that connection with each other, and also crave that physical experience that these hospitality businesses have going for them," he said. "I would expect we'll see a gradual move back to customers going back in but for a lot of restaurants, they're busier than ever and a lot of them are making more money than they've ever made."