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Freshly-prepared food, at scale.
At SousZen, we know that margins are made or lost in the kitchen.
SousZen is the only kitchen management platform that orchestrates the entire cooking process like a fine-tuned conductor. A cost-effective solution targeted at FPLO (freshly-prepared, local, organic) restaurants and food trucks, it delivers on consistency, inventory management and training - resulting in better, fresher food, time after time.
Our products
Manager™ web app
Targeted at the manager of a single-location kitchen, the Manager™ app controls food costs and supply by tracking raw ingredients, monitoring consumption, and predicting inventory. Manager™ also includes menu publishing capability to help you maintain your online presence, and it can be easily integrated with most POS systems.
Advisor™ web app
Advisor™ is targeted at the owner or supervisor of multiple kitchens. It collects and analyzes data across one or multiple locations to inform decision making – it's the insight center for your business.
Expeditor™ mobile app
Expeditor™ is powered by the first-ever realtime decision engine for the commercial kitchen. The Expeditor Engine™ is continuously evaluating the configuration and runtime variables in your kitchen, and issuing optimized instructions to the kitchen staff. The Expeditor™ app orchestrates meal prep across orders, timing, ingredients, staff, and equipment, turning novice kitchen staff into experts.
PRODUCTS
Taking a successful restaurant concept and replicating it is never easy. Fast-food chains solve the issue through the industrialization of ingredients and processes. Fast-casual chains scale through simplifying menus. But how does an owner of a freshly-prepared, local, organic (FPLO) concept grow? Especially as these two solutions would destroy the very nature of their farm-to-table ethos? It was nigh on impossible, until now…
As any restaurant manager worth their salt knows, the kitchen is where margins are made – and lost. In fact, 75 percent of all costs reside here. So, it makes sense to focus on ways to increase efficiency and improve margins where the cooking happens.
There are three main areas that cause problems: The talent crunch in the kitchen, delivering food of a consistent quality (not just at one location but across many) efficiently, and effective inventory control to minimize waste. SousZen creates a new approach to food service management that helps solve all three of these perennial pain points.
We deliver intelligent table scheduling, timing, and inventory management. Our products integrate with your existing tech, such as the POS. We deliver ingredient, recipe, and menu management - and a data bank to share everything from recipes to demographic trends.
SousZen’s platform delivers a solution that easily scales from a single food service outlet to a mutli-location chain.
The benefits
Increased margins
Focus on the kitchen
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Analytics
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Inventory and vendor management
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Menu and recipe management
Reliability
Consistently good food
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Reproduce the art of the chef
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Solves talent crunch
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Scales with your business
On time, every time
Kitchen orchestration
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Real-time directives
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Optimized decision-making
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Continual improvement via machine learning and A.I.
BENEFITS
The technology
The future of the commercial kitchen is human augmentation paired cohesively with automation. While many companies have bet on this future state in the form of robotics and human augmentation tools, they’ve ignored the underlying, real-time complexity of the kitchen.
Real-time inputs
Examples of runtime variables
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Orders
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Substitutions
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Delivery/pick-up timing
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Queuing
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Ingredient expiration dates
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Human error
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Stock levels
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Bathroom breaks for staff
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Etc.
Configuration inputs
Examples of non-runtime variables
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Employee skill level
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Features of appliances
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Ingredients
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Recipes
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Menus
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Seasonal variations
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Acceptable ingredient substitutions
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Physical layout of kitchen
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Etc.
The complexity of the kitchen is algorithmically-addressed with SousZen’s real-time, optimization engine
We’re digitizing the decision-making of a seasoned cook
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First, we create commonsense, “guardrail” rules as a baseline
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Then, new rules are created through machine learning as it is utilized for pattern recognition and to form heuristic models
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Additionally, we run system simulations to generate new rules that have never been observed in reality
TECHNOLOGY
ABOUT
Our company
Based in Bend, Oregon, SousZen was formed in early 2019. SousZen’s commercial kitchen management platform is set to revolutionize mutli-location freshly-prepared, local, organic (FPLO) food service operations. The company was started by an impressive roll-call of partners: PepsiCo, one of the world’s leading food and beverage companies, Xinova, the global innovation network, and Innit, the leading smart kitchen platform, joined forces with experienced technologist and restaurant owner Stephen King to launch SousZen.
"It’s about not just doing well, cooking well. It’s cooking well always. Always being on time. Always being ready. Always making it the same way."
- Anthony Bourdain
Stephen King
Chief Executive Officer
As a software CEO, Stephen has built enterprise value and created impact by finding untapped market opportunities: New channels, new markets, new products, and expanded global footprint. A proven leader with a history of establishing high-performance teams and fostering strong organizational culture. He has founded, grown, and turned around companies, creating hundreds of millions of dollars in shareholder value, while personally attracting and closing VC, Angel, and institutional investors, including Sequoia, LightSpeed and Ventures West.
Stephen has been welcomed by the academic and social enterprise communities as a professor of management and marketing, senior advisor to Ashoka, and Chairperson of Relay Resources. He is also the owner of multi-location restaurant business.
Stephen attended The London School of Economics and The Wharton School.
Contact us
To contact us, and/or to schedule a product demo, please complete and submit the form below. A member of our team will be in touch shortly!
CONTACT
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