Kiosk ordering, Curbside, 3rd Party Delivery, Ghost Kitchens, Shop-in-Shop and Robots. The world is changing faster and faster and getting more digital by the minute. Because of the pandemic, restaurants were forced to disrupt. Running profitable restaurants in 2022 is not an easy task.
Staying up to date with the everchanging consumer behavior usually equates to smart investments in digital strategies and modern technology. The pandemic has forced restaurants to disrupt,choosing technology and new ways of working to a point where we reached a new normal. We’re talking about modern cutting-edge technology that have changed consumer behavior as well as restaurants operations. Since the food-industry is changing by the minute, predicting trends is not easy. What we can do is to share our key learnings from 2022 and trends we think you should look out for in 2023.
By using kiosk ordering, restaurants have let the staff focus on production and service, and enable higher throughput and bust the queues. Even though the demand for kiosk ordering went down in the beginning of the pandemic, kiosk ordering is now on the rise again and an obvious strategic choice for every fast-food chain.
Most consumers prefer to order through 1st party ordering channel according to a freshly published survey by Sense360. As a response to that, restaurants are now exploring D2C solutions and its benefits as owning the relationship with the customer, getting more insights about consumers data and better margins.
The rise of smart curbside has made us see a changed behavior in consumers. With the pandemic, its adoption got a definite boost. Curbside is a viable solution for many restaurants when social distancing is needed as well as when the consumers is on their way somewhere else and need a fast and reliable solution.
Whether the restaurant is selling burgers, pizza, salads or sushi, many restaurants are short-staffed, facing the outcome from the pandemic. Earlier on during the Covid-19 restaurants had to slash staffing because of lockdowns with cut hours and streamlined operations. Restaurants now expect it to stay that way, by using modern technology to plug gaps and adapting to a new consumer behavior and put staff where they are needed the most.
In the beginning ghost kitchens had a unique opportunity that differed them from restaurant owners who have a traditional storefront. Ghost kitchen have now also given traditional restaurants the opportunity to offer the same menu in the suburbs. Meaning they can increase revenue when serving delivery-concepts through ghost kitchens as well as through the traditional storefront.
Restaurants are no longer dependent on city locations, when consumer behavior have changed, and delivery-concept in suburbs has grown. By locating restaurants along highways for example, restaurants can meet their consumers when on their way. The restaurant can at the same time significantly bring down their rent.
Restaurants in retail- and grocery stores is a rising trend to watch 2023. You can expect more dining options to pop up inside your favorite retail store and grocery store.
Robots and Automation haven’t reached the level of importance even though the knowledge have been around for a while. The benefits of increased efficiency and profitability, as a response to staff shortages, inflation and labor costs are starting to get more evaluated by restaurant owners.
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