Our kitchens have standards — our data doesn’t. It’s time that changed.
Every chef knows the quiet genius of the Gastronorm pan. Before it came along, kitchens were chaos. Containers came in all shapes and sizes, designed for one piece of kit and useless in another. Trays that fit the oven didn’t fit the fridge. Storage was clumsy, workflows were inefficient, and waste was high.
Then, in 1964, the Gastronorm sizing standard was introduced. Suddenly, one container could move seamlessly from fridge to prep bench to combi oven to dishwasher. Suppliers and manufacturers aligned around a shared system, and professional kitchens became faster, safer, and more consistent. A simple standard unlocked efficiency across the industry.
Our data, however, is still stuck in the pre-Gastronorm era.
Data without standardisation
Think about the number of systems the average multi-site operator uses today: EPOS, recipe databases, labour scheduling, allergen trackers, menu management platforms, delivery aggregators, finance software. Each of them holds the same core information — products, recipes, prices, locations — but each in its own format.
That’s the equivalent of a kitchen where every tray, pan, and shelf comes in a different size. Nothing fits. Every time you want to move something, you need to decant it, repackage it, or bodge it into place. It works, just about — but it’s slow, costly, and prone to error.
The consequences are painfully familiar. Menu changes that should take minutes take weeks. A price increase has to be keyed into half a dozen systems, with inevitable mismatches along the way. Allergen information gets trapped in silos, leaving operators exposed. And whole teams are reduced to acting as digital “kitchen porters”, retyping and reconciling the same data across multiple platforms.
It’s a hidden tax on the industry – wasted time, wasted money, and wasted potential.
What other industries already solved
Hospitality isn’t unique in facing this challenge — but we are unusual in tolerating it for so long. Other industries have already had their “Gastronorm moment.”
Retail has GS1 barcodes, giving every product a universal identity.
Finance has SWIFT and IBAN, making cross-border payments seamless.
Travel has IATA standards, allowing airlines, airports, and agents to work off the same playbook.
These standards didn’t emerge by accident. They came from industries recognising that competing on the basics is a waste of energy. Standardisation creates the foundations on which real differentiation and innovation can flourish.
Why should hospitality be any different?
The opportunity for hospitality
A common data model is hospitality’s missing Gastronorm. With one shared structure, operators and suppliers could:
Roll out menu changes or price adjustments instantly across every system.
Guarantee allergen and nutritional accuracy across all guest touchpoints.
Onboard new suppliers, partners, or digital platforms in days rather than months.
Deliver a consistent guest experience, whether on a delivery app, a digital menu board, or in-restaurant.
The benefits aren’t theoretical. They go straight to the P&L. Faster pricing and menu agility means higher margins. Better allergen accuracy reduces compliance risk. Less duplication and rekeying frees teams to focus on growth. And consistent digital data underpins the seamless, trustworthy guest experiences that consumers increasingly expect.
Just as the Gastronorm pan freed chefs to focus on food instead of fitting containers, a shared data model would free operators to focus on customers instead of wrestling with systems.
Time to act
The lesson from Gastronorm is clear: standards only deliver value once they’re adopted collectively. A single manufacturer making its own tray size wasn’t enough. The breakthrough came when the industry as a whole aligned — and everyone benefited.
That’s the challenge and the opportunity in front of hospitality today. We can carry on as we are, endlessly reshaping and rekeying data into containers that were never designed to fit. Or we can recognise that it’s in all our interests — operators, suppliers, and tech providers alike — to agree on a common model.
This is the future we are working towards at Openr. But no single business can achieve it in isolation. It will take collaboration across the sector to create the equivalent of Gastronorm for our data.
The rewards are obvious: lower costs, fewer errors, faster innovation, and stronger guest experiences. Without a shared data standard, we’ll keep working harder than we need to, repacking and reshaping information that should already flow. With it, hospitality can run as smoothly and consistently as the best-designed kitchen line.
The Gastronorm pan transformed professional kitchens sixty years ago. Isn’t it time our data caught up?