By: Michael Cousineau, Union Leader

McChanges are coming to a McDonald's near you.

Paige Macken ordered vanilla shakes for her two children at the McDonald's on Brown Avenue, but she didn't need to talk with a person.

The Bedford mother used an electronic kiosk that featured pictures and prices.

"It was quick; we could see our order," Macken said during lunch last week.

Then she found out that her food would be delivered to her table. "It's a nice surprise," Macken said while Grace, 12, and Liam, 10, enjoyed lunch.

And if you don't want to leave your house, then six McDonald's restaurants in Greater Manchester recently started offering the option of having your Big Mac delivered to your home or office via Uber Eats.

Many restaurants are upping their game - whether it be with phone apps or delivery. Uber Eats announced last month its first five Manchester restaurants not named McDonald's.

By: Elizabeth Dinan, Seacoast Online

Invasive, destructive and with scant meat under their hard shells, green crabs are being studied by global scientists who hope eating the crabs will cull their numbers.

The challenges of using green crabs as food are many, but Moxy chef Matt Louis has teamed with University of New Hampshire scientist Gabby Bradt to overcome them. On Moxy’s menu Tuesday was a green crab stew with chicken sausage and chili oil.

Louis explained that because the small crabs’ shells are usually very hard, “it’s not feasible to go after the meat.” So he extracts the flavor by cooking them whole and using the stock for soups and stews, or in risotto and paella. Expanding the use of green crabs for food, said the award-winning chef, is dependent upon being able to predict when they’ll molt and harvesting them at the right time, when their shells are soft.

Bradt, a mother of three with a PhD in zoology, is a fisheries specialist with UNH and Sea Grant New Hampshire, who has been recruiting citizen scientists to help her study the crabs’ molting habits. She said green crabs “decimate everything,” eating as many as 40 mussels or soft shell clams a day and they reproduce veraciously. One female will lay one or two clutches of eggs a year and there are about 180,000 eggs in a clutch, she said.
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By: Danny Klein, QSR Magazine

There’s no secret kiosks are coming. McDonald’s said after its fourth-quarter earnings report in late January that it planned to invest $2.4 billion of capital in 2018, the majority of which would go to deploying its “Experience of the Future” design at U.S. locations. The main attraction: kiosk ordering. Subway also said it’s preparing to roll kiosks out in 2018 and beyond. So did Taco Bell. Wendy’s, too. Panera has had this technology live for years. Shake Shack opened a New York City store dedicated to it. Facial ordering is even a thing now.

This all backs what the data must show, right? Customers are eager for the technology, especially in an industry where convenience sits on the throne above all others.

Tillster, a global leader in digital ordering and engagement solutions for restaurant, launched its Self-Service Kiosk Index Monday. For the second consecutive year, the company partnered with research firm SSI to conduct a study on how offering self-service kiosk impacts guest behavior. The study surveyed 2,000 restaurant customers across the U.S. in an attempt to summarize customer-ordering habits with kiosks and illustrate how kiosks can lead to more visits.

By: Bret Thorn, Nation's Restaurant News

In 2018, American kids will be eating a wider range of foods and grown-ups will be swapping out carbs for vegetables and eating heritage breeds of meat with uncommon herbs, according to chefs polled by the National Restaurant Association.

In its annual What’s Hot survey, the NRA asks members of the American Culinary Federation to rank a long list of items as either a “hot trend,” “yesterday’s news” or “perennial favorites.”
New cuts of meat ranked in first place, same as last year, followed by house-made condiments, which leapt five places to second. Street-food-inspired dishes, ethnic-inspired breakfast items and sustainable seafood rounded out the top five. They all scored in the top six last year, with ethnic-inspired breakfast jumping up two spots to fourth.