TRENDS – INFLUENCES – CHALLENGES AT POST-COVID ERA

Continuing from our first e-meet blog article, we will pass over and try to analyze the next day of the pandemic for restaurants and dining businesses for global and local impact.

This current period that we are all living, including the post-covid era, will be a total reformation of food systems and chains. All this imbalance that has been caused from the exaggerated demand of products, due to panic that has been created, leads to change of production operations, to change to items of production and the whole supply chain.

Its now time to seize the opportunity of creation of sustainable food systems. The Farm to Fork strategy, which belongs to the wider part of green alignment and evolve of European Union, is a long term vision for more sustainable food systems.

Those systems need to be reconstructed. Specialists worry regarding the weakness of our current food systems. Pandemic has brought up t surface huge global weaknesses. In the other hand, there are also good news, in which, cities exchange practices on how to face pandemic and how to build sustainable and safe food systems.

Regarding Farm to Fork strategy of European Union, we below quote its four ambitious goals:

1. A reduction by 50% of the use and risk of chemical pesticides and the use of more hazardous pesticides by 50% by 2030
2. A reduction of nutrient losses by at least 50% while ensuring that there is no deterioration in soil fertility. This will reduce the use of fertilizers by at least 20% by 2030
3. A reduction by 50% of the sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture by 2030
4. And reaching 25% of agricultural land under organic farming by 2030

Finally, this strategy consists of access to faster broadband by 2025 and activates digital innovation, for all agricultural areas.

Regarding restaurants respond to pandemic and post-Covid era, there are few tips to show the correct way in the path for the following day:

• Restaurant should be safe for the guest both in operation and view
• Greater reservations flexibility, wider reservations possibility through reservation channels, like websites and applications
• Review of amount of charge for non-show guests
• Restaurant floor plans for larger distances between tables
• Staff behavior preparation to guests with symptoms or potentially ill, through more PPEs, accurate verbal language and be able to provide more napkins and tissues in case needed
•  Disinfection of the table and condiments each time a guest finishes meal and leaving the restaurant
• Identification of opportunities for cost reduce, like sales analytics through POS terminals and collaboration with next door restaurants
• Always updated for any possible stimulus options by local municipalities and governments
• Wider invest to marketing and promotion, through advertising of holiday events (Christmas, Easter etc.), social media campaigns, email campaigns
• Creativity during the preparation and operation of the above mentioned  campaigns, like work from home lunch specials, cooking classes etc.
• Support delivery and take away
• Prepare a budget and stick on it
• Organization and constantly monitoring of stock and inventories
• Reduce food waste
• Reduce food cost through menu review and recipe analysis
• Staff training to new conditions, knowledge, in order to become the original competitive advantage
• Embrace new technology
• Negotiations with suppliers, based on previous healthy relations
• Less energy waste, helping both your savings and planet
• Consult your bank for any assistance
• Maintain a staff “skeleton” that will be your fundamental for future and invest on that

At the end of this blog article, we will mention the new trends that they are here to stay or to accompanied us for the upcoming period of time:

• Delivery
• Pop-up events
• Healthy kitchen, plant based, bio products based, fermented food based and rich in probiotics, that boost your immune system, stabilize mood and reduce stress
• Around the world on a plate, like street food adjustments, more rustic ingredients and presentation
• Global recognition and expansion through retail selling of your restaurant’s products
• Digital menus and QR codes
• Ghost kitchens, which means restaurants that operate out of the kitchen, without dining area, like kiosks, food trucks etc.
• Flourish of vegan kitchen with vegan menus, considered as climate friendly. Livestock contributes 14.5% of the total annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions globally. So, being vegan often is quoted as the one and most meaningful things someone can do to help contain climate change, by eating less meat, even through some events like Meatless Mondays etc.
• Flourish of non-alcohol cocktails

World is changing, pandemic changes us and will change us, many of our habits will eclipse, most of them that we know, may not appear again, so we have to adjust to each new condition with positive thinking, interest to meet a new environment, RENEWAL!

Some may find this welcomed, some others not, but we all have to admit that renewal is here and exists!

Thanks for reading

FnBpedia Team

Sources:

https://blogs.imf.org/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world/

https://ecdpm.org/talking-points/can-covid-19-create-momentum-sustainable-resilient-food-systems/

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_885

https://sevenrooms.com/en/blog/restaurants-minimize-covid-19/

https://restaurant.eatapp.co/blog/reduce-restaurant-expenses

https://www.touchbistro.com/blog/restaurant-cost-saving-covid-19/

httptps://www.chefstore.com/blog/2020/06/5-trends-that-will-shape-restaurant-industry-in-2021/

https://joinposter.com/en/post/restaurant-trends

https://www.ktchnrebel.com/foodservice-trends-2021/