The problem is real and measurable
Most venue menus live in PDFs, photos, or ordering apps. Search engines index those poorly or credit the aggregator instead of you. Meanwhile diners search with intent: a dish, a diet, a town. That traffic currently goes unanswered — or to whoever answers it first.
Won't AI just read PDFs soon?
Partly, yes — and we'd rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. Machine reading of images is improving fast. What it can't do is know whether a menu is current, whether a dietary tag is credible, or which venue in a town actually serves the dish today. That's what verification, dated stamps and 48-hour updates are for. Readability gets commoditised; trust doesn't.
Why the badge means something
Every Verified tag is applied under a written, dated standard, the same way in every town. Gluten-free tags are venue-declared and labelled as such — we never sell a safety claim we can't stand behind. One lazy tag in one town would devalue every badge in every town, so there are no lazy tags.
Why now
Town-level search authority compounds. The venues and towns indexed first are the ones later entrants have to displace. That's why the pilot is priced to fill fast.