However, first of all, operating at scale food delivery brands need to maintain CONSISTENCY.

Onboarding numerous restaurants daily is a monumental task. Food delivery companies are tasked with the responsibility of not only ensuring that the images in their apps meet minimum quality standards but also optimizing them for conversion rates, all while adhering to company guidelines.

In a recent discussion with OCUS, a company known for its expertise in imagery performance, particularly in the food tech industry, we explored the pressing challenges faced by food tech clients:

1. Maintaining Minimum Photo Quality: Upholding basic quality standards is the minimum. This includes dealing with issues like blurry images, inconsistent color and brightness, and random backgrounds. Low-quality images are destructive to the brand, but also immediately drive users away. In an audit for a random batch of 75,000 images for a major player in North America, OCUS found that 65% of the issues flagged were due to blurry photos.

2. Building Trust through Authenticity: Trust is fundamental to the user experience. Users must have confidence that the images they see accurately reflect the reality of the dishes they’re ordering. Surprisingly, the use of watermarked photos from downloaded sources has become a common concern.  For a large company in APAC, OCUS helped them discover that nearly 10% of flagged issues were due to the presence of a watermark. Also many platforms deal with the problem of perspective, with restaurants often uploading images that are overly close-up shots, failing to offer an accurate representation of their dishes.

OCUS mentioned that many industry players struggle with labor-intensive manual processes, reliance on external agencies, a lack of expertise, and inadequate technology to meet even the minimum standards. Only a few take the extra step of optimizing photos to enhance conversion rates and revenue.

While flagging and rejecting problematic images is important, the real opportunity lies in automatically salvaging and enhancing images, immediately aligning them with brand guidelines, and optimizing them for conversion.

Solutions that seamlessly integrate into existing workflows are crucial. These solutions automate the detection and resolution of these issues, such as watermarks, human presence in photos, color and brightness adjustments, image sharpening, and background replacement.

And what are your best practices working with restaurant menus?
Did I miss any other major issues that restaurant menus are experiencing and need attention?