Hooters franchisee bites into blockchain tech

Burger restaurant company Chanticleer Holdings is to use blockchain technology for its customer rewards programme.

The venture operates a number of Hooters restaurants and also holds a minority stake in the latter’s parent company, Hooters of America. "Eating a burger is now a way to mine for cryptocoins," says Dennis Becker, CEO at Mobivity, which is working with Chanticleer on its initiative. "Every meal enjoyed at any Chanticleer Holdings brand will accrue currency for the consumer that can be used for future meals or traded with other consumers."

"Mobivity Merit is real cryptocurrency, leveraging the same infrastructure and principles of bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, litecoin," says Chanticleer CEO Michael Pruitt. Rather than being locked into one specific rewards programme, customers will be able to transfer their reward points across multiple restaurants. The company will also be able to track customers' preferences, allowing it to provide more personalised service.

"Each brand owns the data about [its] interactions with a consumer, but the consumer owns the data about ALL of their transactions across all brands, stored in the distributed ledger of blockchain technology," a statement stresses. Chanticleer is gearing up to roll-out the technology across all of its restaurant brands by the end of 2018.