AT&T and Welbilt to Showcase Connected Kitchen at National Restaurant Association Show in Collaboration with Microsoft

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May 19, 2022, 09:30 ET

Industry leaders collaborating to transform restaurant operations

CHICAGO, May 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As restaurant operators seek to accelerate their digital transformation in response to labor challenges, changing consumer behaviors, and increasing cost pressures, AT&T*, Microsoft and Welbilt are coming together to help restaurants digitize, simplify and transform their kitchens across the food service industry.

Welbilt selected AT&T to connect their award-winning KitchenConnect® cloud solution to build upon their restaurant equipment manufacturing expertise. KitchenConnect delivers improved efficiency, reduced cost, and enhanced food quality to commercial kitchens.

"Using AT&T's wireless IoT networks to connect all the sites for a particular foodservice brand helps us quickly improve customers' operations through digital transformation while connecting all the equipment at a restaurant with Microsoft technology like Azure Sphere gives us a great level of trust in the technology and security we are providing to our restaurant and foodservice customers," said Omar Jacques Omran, Welbilt's VP of Digital/Managing Director of KitchenConnect.

KitchenConnect from Welbilt enables restaurant owners and operators to quickly deploy the latest approach to digitally transforming their restaurant and food service brands. The solution provides secure telemetry by connecting new and existing food preparation equipment with Azure Sphere powered guardian devices to Microsoft Azure IoT services. With AT&T's wireless cellular connectivity, one can keep the IoT data separate from other store systems for better scale and security.

Restaurant operators and foodservice retailers may now:

Monitor kitchen equipment with a single pane of glass approach and use predictive maintenance analytics that can save hundreds of dollars per avoided incident by minimizing downtime and service calls
Save crew time by automatically pushing recipe updates to all equipment sites to ensure oven profiles are updated to support new product offerings or limited time offers
Track food safety and equipment across the restaurant food journey potentially saving hundreds of dollars a month
Save thousands of dollars per year with real-time oil quality, filtration, and cleaning monitoring
Greatly increase equipment longevity with regular monitoring across all a restaurant brand's locations
Provide energy management to save costs with high energy appliances, HVAC (Heating, ventilation and air conditioning), and lighting monitoring.

"Adding Welbilt's decades of commercial kitchen equipment experience built into their KitchenConnect software to the existing AT&T and Microsoft collaboration makes this an extremely compelling solution to the restaurant and foodservice industry," said Greg Wieboldt, Senior Vice President, Global Enterprise Solutions at AT&T. "This will enable us to accelerate the digital transformation of an entire restaurant chain in a matter of months."

"Security by design has become an unnegotiable priority in IoT. With Azure Sphere, Microsoft is providing a unique edge-to-cloud offering designed to simplify the development and deployment of secured IoT solutions," said Bin Shen, Vice President Communication Partners, Global Channel Sales, at Microsoft. "The triad of Azure's secure, interoperable IoT platform with AT&T's wireless network and Welbilt's industry excellence helps operators create value-added connected restaurant experiences. They can turn data insights into business-critical actions while trusting that their hardware and software are securely connected."

Visit Welbilt exhibit (booth #4023, South Hall) at the 2022 Restaurant Show in Chicago at McCormick Place, from May 21^st – May 24.

*About AT&T

We help more than 100 million U.S. families, friends and neighbors connect in meaningful ways every day. From the first phone call 140+ years ago to our 5G wireless and multi-gig internet offerings today, we @ATT innovate to improve lives. For more information about AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), please visit us at about.att.com. Investors can learn more at investors.att.com.

About Welbilt, Inc.

Welbilt, Inc. (NYSE: WBT) provides the world's top chefs, premier chain operators and growing independents with industry-leading equipment and solutions. Our innovative products and solutions are powered by our deep knowledge, operator insights, and culinary expertise. Our portfolio of award-winning product brands includes Cleveland™, Convotherm®, Crem®, Delfield®, Frymaster®, Garland®, Kolpak®, Lincoln®, Manitowoc® Ice, Merco®, Merrychef® and Multiplex®. These product brands are supported by three service brands: KitchenCare®, our aftermarket parts and service brand, FitKitchen®, our fully-integrated kitchen systems brand, and KitchenConnect®, our cloud-based digital platform brand. Headquartered in the Tampa Bay region of Florida and operating 19 manufacturing facilities throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, we sell through a global network of over 5,000 distributors, dealers, buying groups and manufacturers' representatives in over 100 countries. We have approximately 4,700 employees and generated sales of $1.5 billion in 2021. For more information, visit www.welbilt.com.

SOURCE AT&T