Dylan McDonnell, founder and CEO of Foodini, joins Zack Oates to discuss how restaurants can better serve guests with food allergies and dietary restrictions. Living with celiac disease himself, Dylan understands firsthand how difficult it can be to safely navigate restaurant menus. Through Foodini, he is working to bridge the communication gap between operators and guests by transforming complex ingredient data into personalized menu experiences.

Creating Transparency for Guests (01:22)

“I got more and more frustrated with just how difficult it was to navigate dining out with a food allergy.”

Dylan explains how his own experience with celiac disease sparked the idea for Foodini. Restaurants often struggle to keep ingredient information accurate and up to date, while guests with allergies face uncertainty every time they order. By integrating menu, recipe, and inventory data, Foodini helps restaurants deliver clear allergen information across a wide range of dietary needs.

The Scale of Dietary Needs (03:37)

“You have 33 million Americans with a diagnosed food allergy.”

The challenge is larger than many operators realize. Dylan shares that millions of Americans have allergies, intolerances, or dietary lifestyles that influence where they choose to eat. When restaurants provide clear information, they unlock an opportunity to serve a much larger audience of guests who are actively searching for places they can trust.

The Veto Vote in Group Dining (06:45)

“If you lose me the celiac, you lose my family, my friends, my coworkers.”

Guests with allergies often determine where entire groups choose to dine. Dylan calls this the “veto vote.” If a restaurant cannot safely accommodate one person in the group, the entire party will go somewhere else. Operators who solve this challenge can win long term loyalty from both the guest and their wider network.

The Regulation Shift Coming to Restaurants (08:37)

“Any restaurant group with 20 plus locations with one location in California must label allergens on menus.”

New regulations are beginning to reshape the landscape. Dylan explains how California’s SB 68 law requires allergen labeling on menus for larger restaurant groups, with other states already beginning similar legislative processes. For operators, this makes allergen transparency both a guest experience priority and a compliance requirement.

Personalized Menus and Safer Ordering (13:07)

“Here’s what you can eat, here’s what can be modified, and here’s what you can’t eat.”

Foodini allows guests to build a personal dietary profile that filters menu items automatically. This gives guests confidence in their choices while helping restaurants reduce staff guesswork and operational risk. The goal is simple: make dining safer, clearer, and more accessible for everyone involved.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylan-mcdonnell-a5787574/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/getfoodini/about/

https://foodini.co/

Transcript

00:00:00:08 – 00:00:25:09

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give An Innovation the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zack Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and tactics to help you create a five star guest experience. This podcast is powered by ovation, the feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what’s actually happening in your restaurants and exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:00:25:09 – 00:00:47:02

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation. Up.com. And today I’m excited because we have Dylan McDonnell, who is the founder and CEO of Foodini, which is a really cool company. I have to let him talk about it, but South by Southwest speaker, he’s a mentor of the Founder Institute and just an overall awesome guy. And not because he’s got a cool accent, but because he’s a cool person.

00:00:47:04 – 00:00:49:10

Zack Oates

Dylan, welcome to the podcast, man.

00:00:49:12 – 00:00:52:00

Dylan McDonnell

Hey, Zach, great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

00:00:52:02 – 00:01:14:10

Zack Oates

So there you go. You got your traditional LA accent. Glad that you could be joining us. So for those who aren’t familiar with Foodini, Dylan, and by the way, Dylan has done, I think one of the marks of a great CEO is the team that they build. And Dylan has put together just such a crackerjack team, and I’ve had the privilege of meeting quite a few people on his team.

00:01:14:10 – 00:01:22:17

Zack Oates

And so just kudos to you, Dylan. I think it speaks volumes of what you’re doing and who you are. So for those who don’t know, why don’t you tell us a little bit about Foodini?

00:01:22:19 – 00:01:41:02

Dylan McDonnell

Yeah, 100%. So just my really quick background as well, for context, is to how it ties in here. As you gave away our LA accents, via Ireland. But I was a corporate lawyer before this. Before I came into the restaurant industry. But what brought me in was food allergies. So I am celiac, diagnosed when I was a kid.

00:01:41:04 – 00:02:02:05

Dylan McDonnell

And just over the years, I got more and more and more frustrated with just how difficult it was to navigate dining out of home without in a restaurant, a stadium, university, wherever it might be with a food allergy. So I essentially created food to help bridge that communication gap between restaurants and food service and consumers who have food allergies and dietary needs.

00:02:02:07 – 00:02:31:02

Dylan McDonnell

So what Foodini does, we partner with restaurant groups. We take your menu, recipe and inventory data. We tag it with the correct allergy dietary information, and then we power a personalized menu experience for consumers across 150 different food allergies and dietary needs. So not just the major nine, but everything from vegan, vegetarian, keto, paleo, low-fodmap through to garlic, onion, cilantro, tomato, whatever it might be that someone either needs to avoid or wants to avoid.

00:02:31:08 – 00:02:32:13

Dylan McDonnell

And that’s what we do.

00:02:32:15 – 00:02:46:10

Zack Oates

And especially my wife’s family. I saw this meme one time, and it was like the scientific evidence that people there’s actually a gene that makes people allergic to cilantro and makes them complain about it all the time. And I so I think.

00:02:46:10 – 00:02:46:17

Dylan McDonnell

Right.

00:02:46:17 – 00:03:13:24

Zack Oates

Yeah. That’s how my wife’s family is. Yeah. I grew up with cilantro and everything. On the flip side, it’s like I’m not allergic to onions, but I have a strong emotional allergy to onions. But I’m super allergic to some dairies. And so it’s really dangerous for me when I eat out. And I’ve almost had to go to the hospital before because there was some way or milk powder in something that it didn’t say it.

00:03:14:01 – 00:03:24:18

Zack Oates

And even though it looked like it’s a totally normal, safe dish, I’m sitting there for hours, like, not being able to breathe. And so this is a personal thing for me as well. I get it.

00:03:24:20 – 00:03:37:23

Dylan McDonnell

Zach, hundred percent. And it’s funny. I feel like we all can live in our little island that we think I have these problems in my family, but like, it’s isolated, it’s just dark. Most people don’t have this problem, and that’s kind of how I was initially. I didn’t really know what that meant. I knew a few other celiac, but not that many.

00:03:37:23 – 00:04:02:03

Dylan McDonnell

But like when you dwell into the numbers, it’s actually mind blowing. You have 33 million Americans who have a diagnosed food allergy, 1 in 10 diagnosed food allergy. You’ve got another 50 million Americans who are more your bucket of like color, food intolerance. When I eat this food, I react negatively. Tighter. Mightn’t be a medically diagnosed allergy, but like I do not want to eat that dairy because I’m going to be feeling quite unwell after it.

00:04:02:05 – 00:04:13:23

Dylan McDonnell

And then you have another 70 million Americans who have a lifestyle diet they’re following. And that’s the vegans, the vegetarians, the whatever. So it’s nearly half the country that falls into the bracket of either needing to or wanting to avoid certain foods.

00:04:14:03 – 00:04:19:09

Zack Oates

So that’s the real question, though. Dylan is who’s the most annoying group?

00:04:19:11 – 00:04:36:09

Dylan McDonnell

Listen, it’s so ironic because I was the person who was so cognizant of not wanting to be annoying. I was the person at the table who, like, I didn’t want to be the annoying like. And by the way, I’ve this this this, like cause a scene at the table. I just wanted to order my food like everybody else and my drink and get on with my night.

00:04:36:09 – 00:04:45:06

Dylan McDonnell

Like, you know, I didn’t want to be the center of attention. And ironically, it’s all I talk about every day. Yeah, yeah, Jonah knows me, knows I’m a celiac now. And no one would have known before I started this company.

00:04:45:08 – 00:04:48:16

Zack Oates

So, like, you can’t do, like, fish and chips, though.

00:04:48:18 – 00:04:51:15

Dylan McDonnell

No, I’ve got no excuse at Guinness, like, I can’t.

00:04:51:15 – 00:04:52:05

Zack Oates

I’m not even.

00:04:52:05 – 00:04:56:06

Dylan McDonnell

Guinness person can’t drink Guinness. Isn’t that shocking? Oh, wow. Yeah. No it’s not. No it’s not.

00:04:56:07 – 00:05:05:24

Zack Oates

Okay. Oh. Next time, next time we go to Dublin I’ll eat at Leo bird box for you. Oh, you order and I’ll eat it that way. I don’t feel so fat. Placing two orders.

00:05:06:01 – 00:05:22:06

Dylan McDonnell

There you go. Yeah, but. But you hit on another very interesting point there, which was, I think it’s important to fly, which is like I have huge empathy for restaurants in this space as well. Right. Because a lot of consumers are like, bloody restaurants won’t tell me what’s in the food. I keep making mistakes, like, why is this happening?

00:05:22:07 – 00:05:46:09

Dylan McDonnell

And for the for it’s not restaurants fault. Like, this is really hard to do. It’s hard to get the proper information together. It’s hard to keep it up to date. It’s hard to have your staff be experts on every ingredient, in every menu item and every ology, and communicate that all the time. In an ever evolving world where manufacturers change, products and recipes change, and suppliers run out of one soy sauce, so they swap in another soy sauce.

00:05:46:09 – 00:06:04:23

Dylan McDonnell

These are the realities, as we all know, of working in restaurants, so it’s really, really hard to do. And that’s, I think one of the things here where we’re really trying to like, do this heavy lifting in this hard work for restaurants to, like, protect them from the backlash of consumers being frustrated as much as to protect the consumer in terms of giving them accurate information.

00:06:05:00 – 00:06:30:08

Zack Oates

And it’s not just about because this is absolutely critical for the guest experience, and it builds that trust, which is so important, right? Trust builds loyalty and loyalty builds brands. And if you can do things that are going to increase the trust of your guests coming to your restaurant and feeling safe with their family, because what often happens is it’s not everyone in the family that has the issue.

00:06:30:10 – 00:06:45:05

Zack Oates

Right. And so you need to go to a place that can accommodate the one person who has those issues. And if you can be that place, then great, right? If you could add another couple tables a month to your bottom line. Awesome.

00:06:45:11 – 00:06:55:00

Dylan McDonnell

We call it the veto vote. Yes. That’s it. Yeah. If you lose me the celiac, you lose my family, my friends, my coworkers, my everything. Because if I can’t come here, none of my circle can either.

00:06:55:06 – 00:07:14:08

Zack Oates

Well, and it’s like I think about the peanut allergies and how about 5% of Americans are allergic to peanuts? And five guys went all in on peanuts. And it works for them because the rest of the stuff is pretty good. But there’s a lot of people who just they’re allergic to that. And so that means the whole group can’t go.

00:07:14:10 – 00:07:34:00

Zack Oates

Now, granted, I think the majority of people are just allergic to expensive hamburgers, but sure, I think that’s another story. But at the end of the day, when you look at this, Dylan, it’s not just about the guest experience. This is about legal compliance and as we all know, I mean, as we kind of joke, you’re based in LA right now.

00:07:34:02 – 00:07:44:01

Zack Oates

And if there’s one thing we can say about California, it’s that they love to let businesses just be businesses and stay out of the way. Is that right? Would you agree with that?

00:07:44:03 – 00:07:47:19

Dylan McDonnell

I, maybe maybe not. That’s the hardest.

00:07:47:19 – 00:08:00:04

Zack Oates

But Uncle Gav, he just like, lets us lets people do what they would do, you know? And I think it’s great. No, there’s some regulations that are coming out that are it’s not just about experience, it’s about compliance.

00:08:00:06 – 00:08:19:16

Dylan McDonnell

100%. Listen, I don’t know how a lot of businesses do business in California. I’d be the first to empathize. It is pretty brutal in terms of a lot of the things out here. However, for once, I feel like something that is worthwhile has come through not just because of selfishly, it’s good for my our business because I really, really, truly, as someone who has the problem, believe it’s the right thing to do it.

00:08:19:16 – 00:08:37:20

Dylan McDonnell

Europe’s been doing this for ten years. You can’t open a hot dog stand in Ireland without labeling for food allergies for the last decade. Like that’s the law there. And so to your point, what has really shifted in this space is prior to October last year, there was not one regulation in the United States as related to food shortages in restaurants.

00:08:37:24 – 00:09:02:22

Dylan McDonnell

There’s nutrition, which was, you know, 20 plus locations, FDA. You have to label for calories and whatnot, but nothing for allergies. But Gavin Newsom in October signed a bill called SB 68, which for the first time mandates that any restaurant group with 20 plus locations nationally where at least one of those locations is in California, must label their physical and digital menus with the major nine food allergens by 1st July this year.

00:09:03:03 – 00:09:21:21

Dylan McDonnell

So four months time. But they gave a pretty tight implementation window 7 or 8 months to kind of get it done. But this completely changes, I suppose, that the landscape in that now the vast majority of national and mid-market chains that they have any kind of California presence are now required not just to document it, but to label it on their menu.

00:09:21:24 – 00:09:40:03

Dylan McDonnell

But there’s two ways they can do it. Either one they can beside each menu item, say like cheeseburger contains gluten, eggs, soy, beef burger contains pop up bar. Or they can have a QR code that links out to a digital allergen menu. And that’s, of course, what we do. We made sure that was expressly included in the language in the bill as well.

00:09:40:05 – 00:09:50:22

Dylan McDonnell

So pretty much every operator we’ve spoke to has said, you know, strong preference to have a QR code linking out and completely redesigning and destroying their menu with, you know, a lot, a lot of language on every menu item.

00:09:51:01 – 00:10:00:05

Zack Oates

And to your point, you switch, you know, Cisco runs out of something, then they add something back in that has milk powder in it, and now all of a sudden your allergens change.

00:10:00:07 – 00:10:17:12

Dylan McDonnell

Exactly. And the problem then is right in the old way of doing it. Let’s say even you were doing a good job in this space and you had PDFs and menu boards, whatever. Now you have to, like, reprint everything, redistribute everything across all of your locations. Like it just doesn’t make sense. It’s so hard to keep up to date and current in venues, and it’s expensive to do so.

00:10:17:12 – 00:10:34:19

Dylan McDonnell

We have one central source of truth that powers this information everywhere that the consumer can access it. So in venue, it’s generally via QR code online. It’s a button on the website. Because again, don’t forget, most people with food allergies will review a menu before they go to the location to make sure that there’s something there they can eat.

00:10:34:21 – 00:10:53:01

Dylan McDonnell

So it’s very important that the consumer can access this allergy information in your website as well. We also even the groups that do this well, it’s a PDF. PDF is a dead end. Where does the consumer go from the PDF? We in our experience, in our personalized menu experience, have an order button on every menu item which brings them back to the ordering experience.

00:10:53:01 – 00:11:18:08

Dylan McDonnell

Again, just making sure that it’s seamless for the consumer to actually place the order, not just give the information, but the other thing to add over the top of that is we knew that the California regulation was going to be the first domino, and it has proven to be the case. So since that bill passed, even as in the last three weeks, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey have all commenced the same regulatory process mandating ology tagging.

00:11:18:09 – 00:11:34:18

Dylan McDonnell

Two of the bills have effective dates before the end of this year, and it’s all restaurants, not just 20 plus locations, every restaurant in those states in the current draft of the bill, and that’s actually what California was meant to be up until the 11th hour. And they made a decision at the 11th hour to start with 20 plus.

00:11:34:18 – 00:11:49:00

Dylan McDonnell

And the plan is for the senator is going to go back and make a mandatory across the board. So I think what I’m trying to say is this is coming. This is going to be by the end of this, by the end of this year. I think that about half the states in the country will have actioned this, started this process.

00:11:49:05 – 00:11:58:13

Dylan McDonnell

And so the reality of the landscape is going to be in about two years time. I think most restaurants in this country will be required to have this information on their menus.

00:11:58:15 – 00:12:19:09

Zack Oates

And why not get ahead of it? Because this isn’t just like as we talked about this, there’s two sides to this. I think the regulation yes, you want to be compliant. And then the guest experience is yeah, you want to have a better guest experience. But the thing is that because people are eager to check out the menu, they’re more likely to come into a place if they know that they can choose that meal.

00:12:19:09 – 00:12:47:24

Zack Oates

Like, I think about how many times I’ve gone to a fast food place and ordered what I found on some blogs, like Keto Friendly. Or here’s a hack if you’re on a GLP one to get your protein intake. Those are things that, if you could see that outside of, you know, that’s what I’m doing with like user generated content on it, do it, put it on your website and make sure that people know that what you serve and how you can cater to them.

00:12:47:24 – 00:12:49:00

Zack Oates

It’s a no brainer.

00:12:49:02 – 00:13:07:22

Dylan McDonnell

100%. And I probably was remiss, I forget, Zach, that you know what we do, but a lot of your listeners don’t. But when someone actually scans our QR code venue or clicks the, you know, accesses the menu digitally, the first option they take is they create their dietary profile. So they choose from those 150 different options. I mentioned gluten, vegan, keto, tomato.

00:13:07:22 – 00:13:25:01

Dylan McDonnell

Save instantly what we do with that personalized menu. It actually shows them exactly. Here’s what you can eat. That’s an exact match for your dietary profile. Here’s what you can eat that can be modified to be made suitable for you i.e. the venue can remove this, this, this, or can swap in this, that, the other. And here’s what you can’t eat.

00:13:25:01 – 00:13:44:20

Dylan McDonnell

And why. Because this item has expired that baked into us and it cannot be removed. So like the menu is completely and utterly personalized, dependent on the dietary profile that the consumer creates. And I think to your point, you made earlier, the two things in terms of the guest experience that we’re really driving are one personalization that’s completely personalized, and two, transparency.

00:13:44:22 – 00:13:59:08

Dylan McDonnell

The modern day consumer wants to understand what is in their meal. You know, that’s I think, just a trend across the board, not even allergy related, more health related. And so we’re really helping provide that transparency to consumers as well.

00:13:59:10 – 00:14:09:13

Zack Oates

I love that love that. Dylan. Well, who is someone in the restaurant industry that you feel like deserves innovation? Who’s someone that we should be following or celebrating?

00:14:09:15 – 00:14:14:02

Dylan McDonnell

I’m going to give a shout out to Derek from Groucho’s Deli.

00:14:14:04 – 00:14:15:23

Zack Oates

Oh, we love Derek.

00:14:15:23 – 00:14:38:13

Dylan McDonnell

He has a child who has food allergies as well, and we connected on that level. And we’ve been kind of working with them now for a number of months. But he also I do a lot of work with Fair with the Food Allergy Research and Education Society, and he also joined in and started supporting there and is really, I think, making a push to not just help as an operator, but also help the industry.

00:14:38:13 – 00:14:44:02

Dylan McDonnell

And so I, as a customer and as someone who’s just doing the right thing, I’m going to give him the shot up because I he’s just a good guy.

00:14:44:04 – 00:15:07:20

Zack Oates

I remember I actually reached out to Derek about you and he was like, yeah, I love food because I was like, hey, this seems like something that you would like. And he was like, heck yeah. It’s something I would like. Anyway. He’s such a great operator. Very sharp guy, actually, something I rarely do, but I went and like gave him a whole shout out on LinkedIn because he’s just someone who’s been so helpful to evolution over the years and given so much feedback and someone just sharp guy.

00:15:07:20 – 00:15:10:12

Zack Oates

So yeah, yeah, 100% I love that. Yeah.

00:15:10:14 – 00:15:27:24

Dylan McDonnell

And I think as well, like as a smart operator, it’s funny even just repeating part of the conversation with him, like a lot of people think allergies. And again, it’s not necessarily always the sexiest topic, right. But in terms of the advantages of doing this right, forget compliance for a second. As we talked about attracting new customers who are the most loyal customers.

00:15:27:24 – 00:15:49:02

Dylan McDonnell

Bear in mind people with food allergies, when they find somewhere they like, they keep going back. It’s speeding up operations. It’s last questions for staff. But the risk mitigation, Zach, is so critical as well. The amount of things we’re seeing with customers who end up reaching out to us. It’s one staff member and one location for golf that there was no Sesame and the homeless, and next thing there’s someone on the ground having an anaphylactic event.

00:15:49:02 – 00:16:06:23

Dylan McDonnell

It’s a lawsuit you have to sell like RLC if it goes, if it ever gets to like public domain, you’re in trouble. That’s massive brain damage. And there was a lot of big case that happened in the last year where it’s been really damaging. But like that’s all it takes. One Slipup can really, really set you back, have one source.

00:16:06:23 – 00:16:27:19

Dylan McDonnell

Even if you don’t want to work with food. Any documents, your food allergies. Make sure your staff have access to a source of truth. Because how can staff protect you, the restaurant from these incidences if the information isn’t there for them to access, to answer the question in the first place? So that’s just my main thing is, please do any restaurant or make sure you have a documented somewhere that your staff and customers can access.

00:16:27:23 – 00:16:33:00

Dylan McDonnell

If you want to go manual, no problem. But if anyone obviously wants to go more, the digital route, that’s where we commit.

00:16:33:02 – 00:16:44:17

Zack Oates

Well, and it’s been I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a question about if something has dairy in it, and they literally go to the back and they get a box and they come out with a box and they read through the ingredients.

00:16:44:19 – 00:16:45:18

Dylan McDonnell

If you’re looking. Yeah, yeah.

00:16:45:18 – 00:16:50:18

Zack Oates

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So yeah. How did people find and follow you and Foodini.

00:16:50:20 – 00:17:14:09

Dylan McDonnell

Sure. So website is Foodini.com. So you can find us there, more information about us and what we do in different segments we work in, including sports and education and stadiums and all sorts of different places as well. Me personally, LinkedIn is generally a pretty good place. Dylan Macdonell and my email is Dylan at Get Food Unicom. So always happy to speak to anyone who’s interested, be that on the consumer side or the restaurant side.

00:17:14:15 – 00:17:15:12

Dylan McDonnell

That’s how you find me.

00:17:15:14 – 00:17:29:14

Zack Oates

Man. Well, foodie, any man, you can’t make allergies disappear, but it does feel like magic, right? So healthy restaurants cater to the needs of annoying people like me. And turning high fives into high fives. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Given Ovation.

00:17:29:16 – 00:17:32:01

Dylan McDonnell

I appreciate it, Zach. Thanks so much for having me.

00:17:32:03 – 00:17:54:14

Zack Oates

Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen. We’re all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by ovation, a two question, SMS based, actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants. If you’d like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at ovation up.com.