Panera Bread becomes the first national restaurant to roll out SmartScale’s autonomous technology across third-party orders on DoorDash, drive-thru, and first-party digital orders nationwide

Today, DoorDash introduced SmartScale, an innovative hardware solution designed to help restaurants improve order accuracy and deliver a more reliable guest experience. Developed by DoorDash Labs, SmartScale combines precise weighing technology with intelligent predictive modeling to help ensure every order matches its expected contents.

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DoorDash SmartScale

If discrepancies are detected, staff receive real-time alerts, allowing them to resolve issues before the order leaves the kitchen - reducing missing or incorrect items, accelerating order handoff to Dashers, and helping ensure consumers receive exactly what they ordered.

SmartScale has been shown to cut missing item claims by up to 30%* while streamlining restaurant operations and improving handoffs to Dashers. Less than the size of a cutting board, the physical device is designed for busy kitchens and is compact enough to stay out of the way, but sturdy enough to handle commercial kitchen traffic.

“SmartScale is a simple and powerful new tool that helps restaurants deliver with greater accuracy with minimal change to operations,” said Harrison Shih, Head of Product for DoorDash Labs. “By verifying every order before it leaves the counter, it reduces errors, saves staff time, and gives merchants and consumers greater confidence in every delivery. It also makes the handoff more seamless for Dashers, providing a more reliable order-ready signal that improves on-time deliveries, and ensures happy customers.”

SmartScale proves its impact with Panera Bread

Panera Bread is the first national restaurant to use the SmartScale for third-party orders on DoorDash, drive-thru, and first-party digital orders across the U.S., working hand-in-hand with DoorDash to deploy the technology. Together, the teams weighed and calibrated every menu item and trained the system to recognize customizations, ensuring SmartScale fits seamlessly into Panera’s operations.

Since adopting SmartScale nationwide, Panera has seen improved delivery accuracy in 98% of test cafes, a 42% reduction in guest-reported missing items, and a smoother delivery experience overall. The SmartScale is now fully integrated across Panera’s digital ecosystem – including Rapid Pick-Up®, Delivery, and third-party marketplaces – helping the brand consistently deliver the quality and value guests expect.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve our guest experience – especially through technology that makes things easier on both our team members and our guests,” said Meenakshi Nagarajan, Chief Digital Officer at Panera Bread. “The SmartScale is easy to use, takes up virtually no counter space, and is a simple tool that delivers unprecedented results. It allows us to focus on serving delicious food and delivering a great guest experience, while knowing that our orders are accurate before they go out the door.”

Beyond accuracy, SmartScale improves overall restaurant operations. The Achievements Modal shows merchants where they rank on SmartScale utilization and adoption across all stores, while the Order Manager add-on allows staff to track orders, contact customers and Dashers, process refunds for out of stock items, and make substitutions, all from one single interface. It improves Dasher arrival time by signaling when an order is weighed and ready for pickup, ultimately creating a faster, more reliable experience for restaurants, guests, and Dashers.

Unlocking the future of delivery

SmartScale is already helping restaurants improve accuracy, reduce guest complaints, and streamline operations. By verifying order weight, it also ensures compatibility with emerging delivery modes such as drones and robots – including the recently released Dot, the first commercial autonomous delivery robot, purpose-built for local commerce. Dot is powered by our Autonomous Delivery Platform, which powers the end-to-end system to optimize the technology across our network – laying the groundwork for more reliable and efficient handoffs as these technologies scale. Read more about Dot here.

SmartScale is being introduced with select restaurant partners today, with broader availability planned in the coming months. As more merchants adopt this technology, DoorDash will continue driving innovations that make delivery more accurate, efficient, and reliable – for restaurants, Dashers, and customers alike.

For more information, visit the SmartScale page.

*Based on DoorDash internal data from August 2024 to April 2025.

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