FoodGenius: Bringing Automated Marketing to Hospitality with CHILI GraFx

FoodGenius Labs has spent the last 18 years developing digital solutions for the hospitality industry. Their flagship product combines point-of-sale, online ordering, delivery management, and workforce scheduling into a single platform, positioning them as an all-in-one solution for restaurants, canteens, and food service chains across Germany.

The Challenge: Marketing Without the Agency

FoodGenius's vision was ambitious: a fully automated marketing tool that would let restaurant owners create professional content with just a few clicks. Weekly lunch menus, promotional offers, social media posts for Instagram and Facebook, even WhatsApp updates, all generated automatically from data already in the system.

After evaluating multiple creative automation platforms, the team selected CHILI GraFx. "Many tools are very complicated to use, even after integration," says Caroline Schmidt, Lead Developer at FoodGenius.

Building a Fully Embedded Solution

The integration, led by Schmidt and a team of four developers, went beyond simple API connectivity. FoodGenius built a comprehensive solution combining CHILI GraFx's backend API for automated asset generation with the Studio SDK embedded directly into their platform's frontend.

"FoodGenius remains the leading system," Schmidt explains.

On the backend, we use the GraFx API that connects with our endpoints. On the frontend, we integrated the Studio SDK to display assets in real-time and give customers the opportunity to adjust text or images if they want to.

The team also built a custom media connector linking CHILI GraFx to FoodGenius's centralised asset library, a single database serving all customers with strict access controls. "The connector integration itself was pretty easy," Schmidt notes. "The most complex part was the authentication and access control, which we solved by sending custom headers containing tokens."

For the complexity of the project, the integration proved manageable. "We only had specific points to clarify where we needed support," says Schmidt.

From Data to Delivery in Clicks

The resulting workflow transforms how restaurant operators handle marketing. When a FoodGenius customer creates a campaign, they simply select their products, choose output formats, and set the date range. The platform automatically populates design systems with menu items, prices, and promotional details, then generates assets for every required channel.

"We generate assets automatically," explains Schmidt. "Customers get their data – like a lunch plan or weekly menu – and we automatically fill in the template variables. Then we create outputs for different channels: images, PDFs, digital displays, and website content. We even automatically post to social media, like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp."

What makes the implementation distinctive is the balance between automation and control. While most assets are generated hands-free, customers can still fine-tune results using the embedded Studio interface before publishing. This hybrid approach addresses a common challenge in creative automation: the need for occasional human refinement without abandoning efficiency gains.

Early Results and the Road Ahead

With the platform launching to the broader market in February 2026, FoodGenius's pilot customer – a restaurant chain with multiple locations – is already seeing significant benefits. Previously, their central team created all marketing assets manually in InDesign or Figma, then distributed them to individual locations.

"Now every location has their own FoodGenius instance," says Schmidt.

The impact extends beyond time savings. Local teams feel more ownership over their marketing while central management maintains brand consistency through controlled templates. It's a model that scales efficiently: adding new locations requires only distributing existing templates rather than expanding creative resources.

Looking ahead, FoodGenius plans to push automation even further. "I can imagine increasing automation so customers add a special price and the asset appears directly, completely automatically," Schmidt says. "We're also exploring auto-generated vouchers that can be printed or used digitally via QR code."

A Partnership Built on Integration

For FoodGenius, embedding CHILI GraFx wasn't just about adding a feature, it was about fulfilling a core promise to their customers: simplifying restaurant operations at every level. By treating creative automation as infrastructure rather than an add-on, they've created a seamless experience where marketing happens almost invisibly alongside daily operations.

As independent restaurants and food service chains increasingly seek technology that reduces workload rather than adding to it, FoodGenius demonstrates how deeply embedded creative automation can transform not just marketing output, but the entire relationship between hospitality operators and their brands.