Wendy’s is exploring cost cutting measures and decided to trim directly from the meat of its expenses—the employees. To combat emerging minimum wage hikes within the fast food industry, Wendy’s is replacing a number of workers with self-serve kiosks.
Yes, in the future you’ll be asking yourself if you’d like fries with that.
The new technology option will lower labor costs with states like New York and California increasing minimum wage to $15 an hour. Wendy’s is expected to implement the kiosks by the end of this year in certain company-owned locations. Wendy’s president says franchises have made menu prices higher to offset the costs.
“If you look at where just pure wage rates have gone year on year, first quarter last year to first quarter this year, we are seeing about 5% to 6% inflation. Some of that is driven by minimum wage. Some of that is just driven by demand to access good labor,” said Wendy’s President Todd Penegor at an earnings conference.
Wendy’s also plans to unveil a mobile payment option and ordering apps.
“So once we have that up and rolling, we can then actually have mobile order, mobile pay in all of the restaurants, and then we can provide some support to drive awareness and then really get a sense of how does it connect to today’s consumer.”
Other fast food giants are riding the fast food wave into the future. McDonald’s tested out a similar option with its “Create Your Taste” kiosk in Manhattan.
In closing, all of your complaints about poor fast food service is now in your hands.
What are your thoughts on replacing workers with machines?
