Dill is at Hospitality Tech Expo on 29 and 30 September, ExCeL London, stand HT416.
Here is what we are bringing, and the argument behind it.
The system is software first
Food labelling usually gets sold as a hardware problem. Buy the printer, buy the label stock, and the compliance is meant to come with it. But the printer is the easy part. What decides whether an operator's labels are right is everything behind the printer: where the recipe lives, who is allowed to change it, and how long a change takes to reach every site.
Dill is software first. In most cases it runs on the printers an operator already has, so nobody has to replace a fleet to fix a labelling problem. The hardware stays where it is. What changes is the system on top of it.
Every operator has a different label in their head
There is no standard label. A bakery counter wants one thing. A forecourt store wants another. A QSR group has a template that already went through their brand team and is not moving. Most of the time an operator can describe exactly what they want and has never been able to get it printed.
So the job is not to hand someone our label. It is to build theirs. On the stand, all of this runs from the same product data:
- Prep labels and day dots
- Stock rotation and FIFO
- Food to go allergen labels
- Retail shelf edge
- Your own label designs, built in the label designer
When an operator asks for a template or a workflow we do not have yet, we build it. Usually in days. That release speed is the actual product. A labelling system that takes six weeks to add a field is one people stop trusting and start working around, and the workaround is where the wrong label comes from.
The smallest site and the biggest chain run the same system
A single site should not be sold a cut down version, and a national estate should not need a bespoke build. It is the same system either way. What changes is how much of it gets switched on.
One cafe gets set up and prints the same correct label a large group does. A group gets central control of the product data, printing at every site, and a record of what was printed where. Nobody has to grow into a different product, and nobody has to buy a scale they do not need yet.
In practice that means the same system runs at independent cafes and at multi-site groups including BrewDog, Jamie Oliver, atis, Busaba and more.
Fifty million labels, and counting
Across our customers we have collectively printed over 50 million labels worldwide. On current growth we expect to pass 100 million by the end of next year.
The number is only interesting for one reason. Every one of those labels went through the same system, so the awkward cases have already been hit by somebody else and dealt with. That is what an operator is really buying. Not a printer, and not a template, but a system that has already met the difficult version of their problem.
Why bother with a show
We spend most of the year on calls and in meetings. A show compresses that. Two days in one room with operators who all have a version of the same problem teaches us more than a quarter of scheduled calls.
It also gets past the tidy version. Nobody sends over their messy setup on a call. They will describe it standing next to a printer with the label in their hand, and that is the only version worth solving.
Hospitality Tech Expo is the right room for that. UK operators, single sites through to national groups, in the same two days. It is co-located with the Hotel & Resort Innovation Expo.
Bring the label you are not sure about
The useful thing to do with a stand is not to watch a demo. Bring a label you are unsure about, or a menu item that is difficult to label properly, and we will build it in front of you and print it. If the problem turns out to be your data rather than your label, we will tell you that instead of selling you something.
We are joined on the stand by Brother UK, including a senior end user specialist on both days, so bring the hardware questions too. Those get answered there rather than followed up next week.
Hospitality Tech Expo 2026. 29 and 30 September. ExCeL London. Stand HT416.
10:00 to 16:00 both days. Registration is free. The nearest entrance is the West Entrance, from Custom House on the Elizabeth line and DLR.