By: Matleena Autio
In the beginning of a new year we are often optimistic about the future. The new year brings a promise of a new start. Now that promise is present perhaps more concretely and with more anticipation than before. Emerging trends in the restaurant business are of interest in the exceptional conditions, as well.
I doubt that anyone of us could foresee a year ago, what 2020 would bring along. The past year was especially hard on the restaurant business, and many food services have been operating like they were tossed around by a storm. The amount of customers have been more difficult to predict than before. New ways of operations have been implemented in a fast pace.
But we have survived. In these exceptional circumstances we might have found new possibilities, which we would not have noticed, if the operations had been running as before. As the streams of customers have gone quite, there is also more time to focus on the efficient deployment of existing resources. And more time to polish your processes ready for the more busy times.
The Pandemic Shows In The Customers’ Consumer Behavior
A few weeks ago I heard from a food service professional, that even more than before consumers appreciate easiness and quickness when preparing food. When I think of my own consumer behavior during last year, I believe she was right in her opinion.
Many of us work remotely at home, and lunches in a down-town restaurant have become relatively rare. When you have to prepare the lunch in your own kitchen during the lunch break, speed and easiness are truly appreciated. Not to mention those situations, when your endlessly hungry youngsters crash with no previous warning into home school and to the fridge, whenever the covid situation it requires.
Online ordering and home deliveries have become more popular last year, and the use of food-delivery apps has more than doubled (MarketWatch). In Finland, according to a study by the Finnish Hospitality Association MaRa, 13 % of the consumers intend to use more restaurant home-delivery services compared to the time before the pandemic.
Kitchen Management System Helps In Adapting To New Ways Of Operation
Ordering restaurant meals at home requires different ways of operation from the restaurants compared to serving customers dining in the restaurant. The Food Code in the US, for example, requires certain information for packaged food, such as the Ingredient Statement. Some states also require dating the products with best before, expiration or sell-by -information. Bringing this information to the customers is easy with the JAMIX Kitchen Intelligence System.
As predicting the amounts of customers has become more challenging, it is reasonable to minimize wastage by planning the production of food batches as efficient as possible. With the unique Food Bank functionality in the JAMIX Kitchen Intelligence System you can easily manage food that has not been sold. You can bring it up in the system, for example, when planning the production for the next day. In addition, if you plan and execute the sales and wastage registrations appropriately, it is easy to separate donated food from food waste.
Emerging Trends – Environmental Friendliness And Safety
In the latest World Wide Restaurant Trends survey (by Kespro, the Finnish wholesaler in the foodservice business) environmental friendliness, as well as health and safety have been pointed out as the emerging trends in the restaurant business. A reliable kitchen management system is of utmost importance when you want to ensure food safety. With the JAMIX MENU service you can easily bring the restaurant’s offering for your customers to see. In the service you can easily share information on the allergens, nutritive data, or the CO2 values of the menu items.
CO2 calculation is most definitely one of those things, that will take big leaps in the near future. The consumers have been getting more interested in this subject for long. Bit by bit there starts to be data for the calculations available. Interesting observation in the field of CO2 calculation is for example compensating the nutritive density of food items in the carbon footprint. Another one is the environmental footprint, which takes also other environment straining factors, such as the usage of water and soil, into consideration in addition to the green house gasses.
Successful Brightening Of Your Day Requires The Filling Of Your Expectations
According to the Finnish restaurant trends survey eating out has become an everyday thing. The most important reason for dining out was ”brightening your day”. Even if during the pandemic we could have brightened our days with restaurant food only in a limited way, the trend doesn’t seem to be going away. A survey by the Finnish Hospitality Association MaRa points out that the quality of food has come back as the most important factor effecting the choice of restaurant.
The customers actively search for information on the restaurants, and they set their expectations based on the information they have found. Customer satisfaction requires filling the customers’ expectations. It is very important that the information on the restaurant is up-to-date and comprehensive enough. And above all easy to find. With a kitchen management system the information related to your menu items runs fluently and directly from production all the way through to your customers.
Change In The Ways Of Operation Brings Along New Possibilities
The pandemic has changed at least my world view and behavior a lot, and not only with regards flying or wearing a mask. The spring to come will probably bring along a lot of things we could not have expected. I’m sure there will be good things, too. Change is always a possibility – maybe to change your ways of operation even better than before.
