Nobody Admits to Dipping Nuggets in a Sundae. Plenty of People Do.
Heatseeker shows food brands what customers actually order, not what they tell a survey. Walk into the menu, promo or positioning decision with behavioral proof, not a best guess.
Watch a Food Brand Go From Market Signal to Answer
Starting it loads Storylane, which stores an ID in your browser and records how the demo is used.
The interactive tour is built for a bigger screen. Open it full screen to click through.
Open the Tour ↗Demo workspace. The brand and the results are fictional.
See the full product tour →Food Research Has a Say/Do Problem
Customers tell you they want healthy, local and good value. Then at 9pm, on their phone, they order what they always order. Big food brands have more data than almost anyone, and still can't see why customers choose what they choose.
Every promo teaches customers to wait for the next one. Surveys can't tell you which offer changes behavior and which one just gives margin away.
The data shows something odd, customers are already doing it, and nobody can prove it's worth backing. So it gets killed.
LTOs, seasonal ranges and promo calendars are locked in months ahead. Make the wrong call and you live with it for a quarter.
How well surveys predict what people actually buy
How well live behavioral experiments predict it
What Food Leaders Learn When They Watch Instead of Ask
The Sundaes-and-Nuggets Problem
At McDonald's, Lex Bradshaw-Zanger watched the data point to something strange: customers were putting nuggets on their sundaes. It stayed a secret-menu curiosity, because nobody could prove it was worth more.
“If we'd had Heatseeker then...”
“Marketing's all about behavior change. We're trying to get a person from not buying something to buying something, from leaving to being loyal.”
Results From Heatseeker Customers
HelloFresh's Australian team were sure they knew their market. A live test with 40,000 real Australians showed a 44% uplift and settled it.
See customer stories →A leading food delivery platform found which of eight partnerships would drive subscriptions in 72 hours, using behavioral proof.
“Do all the intelligent work. And then every few months, put yourself behind a mirror and listen to real customers.”
- Test every idea, and put money behind only the best ones.
Once your synthetic audiences are trained, you can screen a dozen menu, offer or range ideas in minutes. Live tests are kept for the few that deserve market proof.
- Proof in market within the promo window.
Live experiments run for 4 to 7 days on Meta, TikTok or LinkedIn, well before the calendar locks.
- Bring franchisees and category teams with you.
Every answer comes with a board-ready summary and cited sources, so the people who have to execute can see why.
- Enterprise security as standard.
SOC 2 Type II audited. Your data is never used to train AI models.
Food & Restaurant Market Research That Measures What Customers Do
- 01Bring in what you already know.
Past studies, loyalty and brand-tracking research, app reviews and campaign results, so you never start from scratch.
- 02Ask the real question.
"Will a late-night value menu bring in new customers, or just take sales from dinner?" You get an answer based on behavior, with citations you can drill into.
- 03Prove it when it matters.
Trained synthetic audiences answer most questions in minutes. Live experiments settle the rest in 4 to 7 days.
Where Food Teams Use It
An Answer You Can Defend Upstairs
Every insight links to its source: a document, a customer quote or a live result. You leave with a board-ready summary, not a hunch. When the CEO asks "how do we know?", you have the answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is food and beverage market research?
It's research into how people choose what to eat, where to buy it and how often. Most of it relies on surveys and focus groups. Heatseeker measures behavior, because what people say about food and what they order are often very different.
How is this different from a customer survey?
Surveys record what customers say, and they predict purchase behavior 20 to 30% of the time. Heatseeker runs live experiments that put real choices in front of real people.
Can we test menu or range ideas before we build them?
Yes. Test them as concepts with synthetic audiences in minutes, then live in market in 4 to 7 days, before you commit to supply or print.
Can we use research we already have?
Yes. Past studies, tracking and customer verbatims all go in, and every answer shows which source it came from.
How long does it take?
A synthetic read takes minutes. A live experiment runs for 4 to 7 days.