Harlo wins Technology StartUp of the Year for the Midlands
Harlo has been named Technology StartUp of the Year for the Midlands at the UK StartUp Awards 2026, recognising its work helping hospitality operators manage allergens and publish live digital menus.
By Chris Conaghan
Chris Conaghan
Harlo has been named Technology StartUp of the Year for the Midlands at the UK StartUp Awards 2026.
The award recognises early-stage businesses across the UK that are building something meaningful in their sector. For Harlo, it is a proud moment and a useful bit of validation for a very practical idea: allergen management and menu publishing should be much easier for hospitality teams to run.
Harlo was created to help restaurants, hotels, cafés and hospitality groups move away from static PDFs, spreadsheets and manual menu updates. Instead, operators can manage live, branded, guest-facing menus that keep allergen information clearer, more current and easier for guests to access.
The platform is built around the reality of hospitality. Menus change. Ingredients change. Suppliers change. Guests customise dishes. Teams need information they can trust during service, without having to chase the right version of a document or manually cross-reference several different places.
Harlo brings
menu publishing and allergen management
into one live system, giving operators a cleaner way to manage information and guests a clearer way to find what they need.
Chris Conaghan, founder of Harlo, said:
- "“Winning Technology StartUp of the Year for the Midlands is a really proud moment. Harlo was built to solve a very real problem in hospitality: making allergen information easier to manage, easier to publish and easier for guests to trust.
- The hospitality industry moves quickly, and too much important food information still lives in static documents or processes that are harder to maintain than they should be. Harlo exists to make that simpler for operators and clearer for guests.
- To have that recognised by the judges means a lot, especially at this stage of the business.”
The judges highlighted Harlo’s practical approach to improving allergen management in hospitality, noting how the platform replaces static PDFs and spreadsheets with live,
branded digital menus
that update in real time and reflect dish customisations.
Harlo is already working with hospitality brands including Byron, Brother Marcus, Lucky B’s Hot Chicken, Black Goo and the Kaleidoscope Hotel Group, supporting teams with allergen management, menu publishing and clearer guest-facing information.
Following the Midlands win, Harlo will now go forward to the UK StartUp Awards national final at Ideas Fest, taking place in September 2026.
There is still plenty to build, improve and refine, but this is a lovely moment for Harlo and a strong signal that hospitality is ready for better tools in this space.
About Harlo Harlo is hospitality software for allergen management and digital menu publishing. Built for restaurants, hotels, cafés and multi-site groups, Harlo helps operators replace static PDFs and manual processes with live, branded, guest-facing menus that are easier to manage and clearer for guests to use.