Infographic: The Most Popular Smoothie in North America

The most popular smoothie flavor this past summer was…Strawberry [click to view the infographic]. The least popular flavor was…Marionberry. Vivonet examined the summer sales period for hundreds of clients that sell smoothies across North America, a total of $63.7 Million dollars were sold between June 1 and August 31, 2012.

Vivonet looked at of a wide range of smoothies to identify the main ingredient.  The number one flavor was Strawberry. The second most popular was Acai, pronounced a-sigh-EE. Acai is a Brazilian fruit often touted as one of the so-called superfoods.  Rounding out the top ten are Tropical Fruit (smoothies with a combination of Pineapples, Coconut, etc), Mango, Mixed Berry (smoothies with a combination Strawberry, Blueberry, Cranberries etc), Banana, Orange, Cranberries, Matcha Green Tea and Pomegranate. The five least favorite smoothie flavors, in order, were Marionberry, Guava, Papaya, Passion Fruit and Lemon.

Friday is smoothie day. By examining sales by week, analysts found that Friday had the highest sales with over $11.1 million smoothies sold and Sunday the lowest at $7.13 million. Starting Monday, smoothie sales increase day after day until Friday. The highest daily sales for smoothies were Friday, July 6 with a total of $866,020 smoothies sold that day across North America.

Vivonet believes this type of menu information could be helpful to juice and smoothie chains in helping them with menu placement and promotions. Focusing on the most popular can help increase sales while identifying the least popular can help reduce waste and inventory.

As of September 2012, over $1 Billion dollars in transactions have been conducted this year by thousands of restaurants using Vivonet’s POS system, Halo.  Vivonet is re-defining POS for the restaurant industry by combining cloud based technology with mobile and social. Our mission is to help every restaurant in the world succeed by turning transactions into insights and opportunities.

Restaurant Industry Reports Positive Sales Outlook

A recent report from the National Restaurant Association indicates that Restaurant operators are optimistic about sales growth and the economy. The National Restaurant Association report is based on a tracking survey called the Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) which is fielded monthly among restaurant operators nationwide on a variety of indicators including sales, traffic, labor, and capital expenditures.

Restaurant operators reported positive same-store sales for the 11th consecutive month in April. For the fifth consecutive month, a majority of restaurant operators expect their sales to be higher in the months ahead. Fifty-two percent of restaurant operators expect to have higher sales in six months (compared to the same period in the previous year). With the positive outlook for sales, Fifty-two percent of restaurant operators plan to make a capital expenditure for equipment. For the seventh consecutive month, restaurant operators reported positive expectations for staffing growth.

The National Restaurant Association is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which comprises 970,000 restaurant and foodservice outlets. More detailed data and analysis can be found on Restaurant TrendMapper, the Association's subscription-based service that provides detailed analysis of restaurant industry trends.

Vivonet is re-defining POS for the restaurant industry by combining cloud based technology with mobile and social. Learn how we can help your business by contacting Sven Winter at swinter@vivonet.com

$100 Million in Transactions Flow Through Vivonet's POS!

In February 2012, $100 million dollars of transactions were run on Vivonet’s POS system from over 2,000 restaurants across North America. Companies that run on our system include everyone from one of the fastest growing Yogurt companies in the US, Oranage Leaf to the very popular NY dessert bar Momofuku Milk Bar.

Vivonet’s mission is to help every restaurant in the world succeed by turning transactions into insights. Our POS solution gives restaurants of all sizes the tools, information and knowledge to drill down into all aspects of their business including sales, food costs and labor. Through the cloud, owner/operators of restaurants can access data in real time to find out what items are selling in their restaurants, which locations they are being sold at, when are they being sold and who is doing the best job selling. The result helps cut costs and boost revenues by identifying opportunities to reduce waste, improve efficiencies, and implement new solutions that stretch operators' dollar further. With Vivonet’s POS solution, many restaurants have been able to reduce operation costs by 20%.

Vivonet is re-defining POS for the restaurant industry by combining cloud based technology with mobile and social. Learn how we can help your business by contacting Sven Winter at swinter@vivonet.com

The Fall Release of Halo POS Is Here!

A Special Message from Ryan Volberg, President, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman

A lot has happened in the last year. Vivonet has seen tremendous growth and we’ve been working hard to make the transition to enterprise-class company. Yes, we've had our fair share of growing pains along the way but as I reflect back on the last year I am very pleased with the progress we have made. Here are some interesting facts:

• Vivonet has quadrupled our team of dedicated employees – primarily in critical customer impacting departments such as support, product management and development
• Vivonet has added a new tier of service in our support team which delivers industry leading response for customer support calls
• Vivonet has added 40 additional hours per week to our customer support schedule. Vivonet’s call center is now staffed from 3:00 AM – 9:00 PM PST Monday to Friday and 4:00 AM – 9:00 PM PST Saturday and Sunday. As always, emergency support is available 24/7/365
• In the last 18 months Vivonet has invested over $1.5 million dollars in new Oracle and Sun hosting and storage systems to improve performance, security and redundancy for Halo Secure Web Based POS customers
• Vivonet has launched new hot back-up and failover systems in 'the cloud' on Amazon’s EC2 infrastructure
• Vivonet now processes over $1.5 billion worth of transactions per year through Halo Secure Web Based POS
• Vivonet has customers in all US states and all Canadian provinces
• Vivonet has added four executives from the software and banking industries that bring with them significant leadership and experience from companies such as SAP, Business Objects, Moneris and IBBS

The Fall Release of Halo Secure Web Based POS is a landmark release for Vivonet. It marks a significant investment in the quality, performance and reliability of our POS software, paving the way for the many new features, products and partnerships we have on our product roadmap. Of course, as Halo subscribers you won’t have to pay for this or any future Halo POS upgrade!

The Fall Release is also the first release to support Halo Mobile – our seamlessly integrated mobile application for Apple and Android smartphones that changes the way you’ll interact with and market to your customers.

The current release of Mobile allows your customers to order (and pay!) using their smartphone. And, with full Facebook integration, your customers can instantly post their purchases and location to their Facebook friends. After all, referral marketing is the best marketing.

Finally and most importantly, I want to thank you for your ongoing support of Vivonet. As we manage our growth and move into a more regular rhythm of software releases I am excited by what this means for our customers. The Fall Release is primarily focused on the performance and reliability of our POS software. With this in mind, if at any time you feel that a member of Vivonet’s team or our products are missing the mark I encourage you to contact me directly at ceo@vivonet.com or on my mobile phone at 206-792-9874.

Ryan Volberg

Vivonet Wins 2011 Emerging Company Of The Year

Vivonet Inc. has been awarded the 2011 Emerging Company of the Year by the British Columbia Technology Industry Association (BCTIA) for "reinventing the cash register".

This award recognizes Vivonet’s innovative POS software Halo™ that has revolutionized retail transaction data management. Halo is a web-based complete POS software enabling small and medium sized restaurants and retailers to remotely manage their restaurants whenever and wherever they are. It gives restaurateurs and retailers a new level of control over their operations and in turn boosts bottom line by consolidating equipment and allowing easy, real-time access to important information.

"We are extremely honoured to be awarded the Emerging Company of the Year by the BCTIA and recognized for our accomplishments and innovation in Software as a Service,” said Ryan Volberg, president and CEO of Vivonet Inc. “We are 100 per cent dedicated to our clients and will continue to enable, acquire and organize millions of transactions for our customers and provide restaurants and retailers with the world’s most trusted source of retail performance information."

In a fast growing company, it’s essential to make sure your teams are focused. Vivonet understands this, and uses a number of innovative practices to drive momentum forward and encourage collaboration across departments. Each month, all executives and managers are taken off-site for a one day session to work on the big picture and ensure all teams are prioritizing their objectives on the most important opportunities. The company doesn’t stop there – they also focus on customer communication. It’s a requirement at Vivonet for every technical team member to shadow customer support and system implementation teams for a minimum of four hours every month. In the fast moving and high pressure restaurant business, this ensures the voice of the customer is being communicated from the front lines and passed directly to the people who manage functionality of the systems that are supporting Vivonet’s customers.

With the release of Halo Mobile, Vivonet is taking a giant leap forward in revolutionizing the restaurant industry and allowing customers to order, pay and set pick-up times from their favourite restaurants directly on their smartphones. The smartphone app for Android™ and iOS devices link directly to the restaurant’s web-based Halo POS system, allowing the restaurateur to use a single system to manage menus, ordering and payment. Halo Mobile allows restaurant owners to see exactly how their branded app is performing through their POS reporting interface. The app allows every restaurant to quickly and easily get their brand featured in the App Store and Android™ Market and compete in a market that might not have been available to them before.

The BCTIA Technology Impact Awards recognizes companies in BC delivering integrating innovations that touch all sectors of the economy. The Emerging Company of the Year award acknowledges an emerging company with continuous revenue growth, innovative products or services, strong business plan and has potential of becoming a leader in its market. This year’s Technology Impact Awards attracted over 100 applications from companies of all sectors and sizes and from all corners of British Columbia.

Vivonet was recognized as the 9th fastest growing company in BC by Business in Vancouver in 2010 and in the same year, Vivonet secured a $60 million agreement with Sodexo, a leading provider of Comprehensive Service Solutions, to deploy Halo™ in the majority of Sodexo’s 6,000 North American client sites by 2015. This record breaking agreement with Sodexo also led to a marketing partnership with Intuit.

This is the fourth accolade Vivonet has earned this year. The company was recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Best Workplaces by Great Place to Work® Institute, and was named one of the Most Innovative Companies in BC by BC Business Magazine.  Vivonet was also selected by Rocket Builders in January as one of its top 25 Ready to Rocket Information and Communications Technology companies in BC.

Olympic Games Increase Some Restaurant Sales By 128%

Vivonet releases sales data from 1,584 restaurants and foodservice outlets.

Vancouver, BC: Restaurants in Yaletown and downtown Vancouver are reaping the benefits of the first week of 2010 Olympic spending with sales increases of 128% and 89% respectively, compared to February 12-21 of 2009.

The research compiled by Vivonet also shows that in Whistler, restaurants are feeling the glow. According to Vivonet President & CEO Ryan Volberg, sales are up 44%, with limited service dining up 80% and full-service dining up 56%. This is not the case for restaurants in the Broadway Corridor, the suburbs or areas outside the downtown core of Vancouver, where owners have seen their sales drop slightly.

In a national comparison, restaurant and food service sales during the first week of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Eastern Canada increased by 6% and were flat in the Prairies.

Vivonet, a Software Service Provider (SaaS) that processes millions of transactions every month in the hospitality and retail sectors across North America, released the results today based on actual sales data from 1,584 restaurants and foodservice outlets.

"This information is very exciting," says Ian Tostenson of British Columbian Restaurant and Food Services Association. "Previously, all of the information on the impact of the Games was anecdotal and there were always conflicting opinions. If London is smart, they’ll use this information to prepare their restaurant community for the 2012 Olympics."

"From viewing the data, it is clear that if you’re outside of the core event areas, you’d better create the atmosphere of the event within your four walls," says Tostenson. "If you’re within a venue area, the biggest challenge you’ll have is keeping up with the demand. Prepare as much ahead as possible, without sacrificing your quality."

Volberg says Vivonet will continue to monitor the Olympic impact with regard to return on investment for venue city restaurants during the last week of and immediately following the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. "Our next data analysis will closely track issues like Olympic fatigue," he says.