BentoBox brands worldwide, released its 2021 Restaurant Trend Report, a data-forward look at what trends are influencing the future of restaurants. Amidst supply chain disruptions and unprecedented worker shortages slowing recovery in 2021, the report looks at what’s next for 2022.
Restaurants Evolving as Employers
In June, 75% of restaurants called hiring and retaining staff their top business challenge — nine times higher than in January. The expiration of federal unemployment benefits did little to solve this issue, because this issue can only be solved from within. If restaurant owners want to hire and retain staff, they need to make restaurants a better place to work. Expect new ideas and strategies to emerge throughout next year.
Automation Solving Staffing Issues
Even with higher wages, better benefits and healthier workplaces, staffing levels may take years to normalize (if they ever normalize at all). Allowing technology to handle more tasks — especially tedious ones, like keying in orders — allows restaurants to operate with fewer, happier, higher-paid employees. Restaurants began embracing this during the 2021 staffing shortage, and will likely continue moving forward.
Creative First-Party Data Solutions
“If you think of a restaurant tech stack as the human body, data is like blood. A system with poor circulation is therefore limited.” This idea, which an unnamed restaurant operator shared with Joe Guszkowski of Restaurant Business, captures the industry’s growing embrace of data-driven solutions. As restaurants reclaim ownership of the online guest experience, expect them to develop new ways of synthesizing, analyzing and reacting to the first-party data they capture.
Evolution of Food Delivery
Offering direct online ordering and providing a reliable delivery experience used to be key differentiators. As those things become more like table stakes, restaurants are searching for new ideas to make their off-premise offerings stand out. Areas to watch next year include packaging innovation and ultra-fast delivery, the latter of which has begun taking shape with the rise of 15-minute grocery delivery apps.
Rise of Alternative Menu Items
Eleven Madison Park, the Manhattan restaurant that some have called the best in the world, sent a jolt through the industry when it announced in May that it was transitioning to a meatless menu. It was the largest, but far from the only, domino to fall in the industry’s shift toward more sustainable menu items. Will diner demand for meat, dairy and other ingredient alternatives hit a tipping point in 2022?
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