The wind of change

People are going to be more cautious about eating inside, therefore food trucks, vending machines and hospitality units with a terrace will become more popular. For instance New York is launching a programme called Open Restaurants, to make open-air eating more widespread. Ventilation will receive special attention in kitchens and restaurants. More and more places are offering contactless food order services in restaurants. In October the latest restaurant of US chain Chipotle opened: here guests can only order online or using a smartphone app.

As for the home delivery of food, kitchens that cook for taking the food away will have to transform their processes, adopt new technologies, etc. The concept of fast food restaurants requires efficiency. A growing number of guests don’t want to eat the food on-site; this has generated the new trend of fast food eateries becoming smaller, while their drive-thru, drive-in, take away and digital order services and the infrastructure serving them are getting bigger.

Earlier we reported the decline of the meal kit trend. Now the sales of these have surged. In Hungary, some of the higher-positioned places are testing this service, the big question is whether their 80-90 percent ready meal kits will raise the interests of their target group or not.//