Starbucks is bringing in new technology to help its cafes stay on top of incoming orders, reported Restaurant Business Online. “The Seattle-based coffee giant confirmed that it is licensing software from a company called Empower Delivery and hiring Empower’s six engineers. Starbucks also recently hired Empower’s founder, restaurant veteran Meredith Sandland, as its new chief store development officer,” the outlet reported.

Per the publication, Empower was founded in 2022 and is an order fulfillment system that takes in a restaurant’s orders from various channels, and then sequences them so that kitchens are not overwhelmed, and customers receive accurate quote times. It got its start at ClusterTruck, a ghost kitchen in Indianapolis. 

In a recent LinkedIn post, Sandland wrote that Starbucks will use Empower to help manage order fulfillment, improving speed for in-store and drive-thru customers and ensuring that people who order on the app get their beverages on time.

“It is part of CEO Brian Niccol’s goal to get customers their drinks in four minutes or less as the chain looks to turn around slumping sales. Niccol has identified mobile orders in particular as a challenge for Starbucks' operations. During busy periods, app orders tend to create backups and overwhelm workers, in part because Starbucks did not have a way to sequence those orders,” wrote Restaurant Business Online.

During Starbucks’ investor day last month, Niccol said the chain is working to “bring order to mobile orders,” so that “people show up when their drink shows up and vice versa.” He also said Sandland will play a leading role in “[managing] this algorithm of mobile order, drive-thru, in-store experiences.”

During the same earnings call, Niccol surprised many analysts by saying he had a plan to double the number of stores in the United States but provided no timeline for that expansion. “Places like Texas, the Southeast. As we continue to open stores in those areas, they are opening with great economics,” Niccol said.

This came after Niccol “pledged to bring back a more personal coffeehouse atmosphere with comfortable seating and the cafe experience for which Starbucks was originally known. Changes also include allowing baristas to quickly serve brewed coffee to customers at the register and bringing back the condiment station, allowing customers to add their own milk and sweeteners.