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Life at Toast Blog

Spark: Toasters Behind the Scenes

Avatar: Noelle Holdsworth
  • Noelle Holdsworth
  • Sr. Employer Brand Manager

 

Toast Careers

 

Our customers’ feedback, testing, and collaboration have been the driving force behind every product we’ve built. Together we navigate big change with bigger ideas, sparked by our shared love of the industry. Innovation is core to the Toast brand, allowing us to stay a step ahead of a changing industry and deliver the best value to our customers. Spark is a biannual web experience that celebrates innovation through the announcement of new products and features at Toast. Hear from a few Toasters who are behind the scenes of some of our newly announced enhancements from our Spark Fall Release 2023.

 

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Food Waste Reduction

An innovation by our Toast.org team, Food Waste Reduction is a suite of features available at no additional monthly cost designed to help restaurants reduce food waste through data, including a POS waste tracker, an insights dashboard, and an educational hub.


“The most rewarding part of working on the Food Waste Reduction (FWR) set of features was the opportunity to advance the conversation of food waste as a mysterious part of a restaurant’s operations to a known and addressable area of improvement. Being able to work with early adopting customers directly to stress test the product and receive ample feedback to ensure their employees could effectively use the FWR suite is invaluable. I’m excited to see how restaurants use this data to help reduce their cost of goods sold and ultimately increase their gross margins.” 
Ani B., Associate Director, Product, Toast.Org

 

New POS Experience 

Our biggest UI update ever. Based on feedback from thousands of customers, this sleek, totally intuitive update has more complete functionality, tailored to the needs of a wide variety of service models from counter service to fine dining. Our new POS update is designed to help customers deliver best in class service, however they do it. 


“We know that this is a huge change, and that change can be hard. It brightens my day to see excitement about a new feature or relief when a pain point is addressed with an update. There’s definitely a hunger for the new POS experience, which makes it all the more motivating and rewarding to work on this program!”
Jamie K., Technical Program Manager

 

“The most rewarding part of working on these new features for me is being able to engage with co-workers and restaurants who really care about their craft and work. We all want to make the space better not just for Toast customers but the hospitality sector. As a Toaster in Dublin, I had the opportunity to witness my neighborhood cafe adopting the new POS experience. I also had the privilege of receiving direct feedback from them, which illuminated their preferences for enhancements that would benefit their business and their staff's experience. Being able to see the improvement in the restaurant experience first-hand is super satisfying.”
Paulie B., Sr. Product Manager

 

“Every individual involved in the successful launch of the new POS experience – spanning designers, product developers, enablement specialists, and educators –made outstanding contributions. We had true North Star-style cross-functional collaboration. I also felt like we had nailed the perfect balance of being proactive in our work but also swiftly responsive to customer sentiment. We collaborated seamlessly as a cohesive team, operating like a highly efficient and well-coordinated unit. Kudos to everyone involved!”
Lauren E., Customer Education Content Manager


KDS

Exciting kitchen display system (KDS) updates will streamline and simplify kitchen operations, making every rush a little more predictable.


“With our plans to enhance the KDS experience, I highly valued talking to restaurant operators and staff. Our goal is to constantly make it easier and better to operate any business on Toast. So working on these, we can see immediately how restaurant staff will use them for easier and faster service, that all translates to happier guests and repeat business. “
Chris LF., Director of Product Management

 

“Restaurants have a huge impact on people’s lives in so many different ways. From celebrating life’s biggest milestones to being the extra pair of hands that helps a busy family get through the day, restaurants are deeply embedded in all of our lives and it’s not an easy job. I wanted to work at Toast and with the Kitchen Team specifically to make things easier for the hardworking people who make all the magic of eating at a restaurant possible. It’s been rewarding to hear customer feedback about how it has improved their workflows and the positive change it has had in their restaurants.”
Sophia S., Sr. Product Manager 

“I had the opportunity to see the Kitchen Display System’s new Grid View feature be used for the very first time in a live location. This experience was unique in that not only was the first time the product was being used in production, but it was also the first time the staff at the restaurant got to see and interact with the product. Being able to observe firsthand how seamlessly and quickly users acclimated to the new KDS view and how much the new functionality helped during lunch rush was pretty gratifying — it was truly a testament to the user-centric focus of all the work that our product, design, and engineering teams put in to launch that product.” 
Miranda F., Product Manager

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