The Future of F&B
Between January and July 2020, 1,242 food and beverage (F&B) outlets in Singapore were permanently shut down, according to data from the Department of Statistics.
As compared to the F&B industry in the pre-COVID days of 2019 where the total sales value of F&B services topped off at $893 million — the total sales value of F&B services in 2020 comes in at just $705 million.
What is the direction in which the F&B sector is moving into?
In today’s post, we’ll be exploring this question.
Will there be a boomerang come-back for dining-in?
Restaurateurs the world over are expecting demand for dine-in to surge once the majority of the population gets inoculated and safe-distancing rules get relaxed.
“Restaurants are really going to be a light in darkness for people,” said Leslie Rabin, senior product manager with Chicago-based Datassential, a food industry analytics firm. “These are things that people feel — relaxation, joy and satisfaction — will bring them back to pre-COVID times,” Rabin said.
Based on surveys conducted between March and April of this year, “dining at my favorite sit-down restaurant” led among proposed post-lockdown activities that most excited Datassential respondents, growing from 41% to 45% of those surveyed in the period.
Speaking as an avid foodie myself, I still find myself abruptly waking up from midday naps wishing I could hang out with friends again at the comfort of our favourite cafe hangout spots, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
“Everyone has been talking about it,” Cheryl Henry, Ruth’s Hospitality Group CEO, said last week, according to a Sentieo transcript. “There’s certainly a pent-up demand.”
There is still one factor though, that foodies and Restaurateurs alike need to keep an eye on…
Vaccination For COVID-19 Against Anti-Vaxxers
On 10th August, dine-in at hawker centres and coffee shops will be allowed in groups of 2, for both vaccinated and unvaccinated persons. Groups of up to 5 persons will be allowed for all F&B establishments if all diners are vaccinated.
Things are looking to get back on track in the move towards normalcy. One of the key things I’ve learnt being on the frontline servicing DayOne users is that F&B establishments are taking this time to improve the digitalisation of their processes and ensure that staff training is still kept top-notch.
In fact, the drive towards the wider adoption of technology for staff onboarding, training, management and compliance has never been greater.
In the short run, operations has necessarily become way more adaptive to legislative changes that might come at the drop of a hat — based on the ebbs and flow of COVID cases in the community.
How will things look like for F&B moving forward?
First things first, F&B businesses which have been traditionally operating through old-fashioned yet successful methods relying on hand-written, manually-entered workflows will undergo rapid adoption of new technology. Online food delivery comes immediately to mind, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Staff training being conducted via mobile phone, quality checks captured via mobile and stored on the cloud and fully searchable, digitalised FAQs stored all in one platform are other examples of technological innovation DayOne has brought to our users.
Next up, a way to obtain skilled workers in the F&B sector who are able to serve customers with a high standard of service in short notice.
The pent-up demand for dining-in is real, but we never know how soon dine-in can open —or shut down. Business owners are caught between a rock and a hard place by not wanting to be overstaffed with high overheads when consumers aren’t able to consume. Yet, owners don’t want to be short-staffed when the floodgates open up.
The answer thus lies in being able to keep the engagement of staff high even when they might not be working as often as before. Another alternative is to speed up the onboarding process of new staff so that the supply of F&B frontliners can be quick to respond to changes.
Once again, technology is an integral part of the solution.
Finally, the managing of shops and the team will be more remote even though the running of it needs to still needs to be very much people-centric. Remote management, digitalised training and an emphasis on people-centric service are the way forward.
Before the year 2020, F&B businesses had every reason not to rock the boat. The pandemic had other plans and has been the catalyst for major change in this long-established industry.
Since you’re still here…
The DayOne team has been standing side-by-side with F&B, retail and businesses still very much situated in the physical world (think brick-and-mortar).
Apart from having a mobile application that can store all your businesses’ SOPs, FAQs, staff training and quality check records all on one platform, DayOne is also the tool to increase the ongoing engagement of your staff with your business.
Right now we’re accepting new businesses to use our platform completely free. Our campaign runs through the end of August, so if you’d like to use DayOne free-of-charge for your business, book a demo slot with our team and we’ll help you get things started :)
Till the next,
JT
