WHAT TO EXPECT FROM FOOD SERVICE IN THE FUTURE?

In the light of the last two years, everyone in the food & beverage trade is asking how things will change for them in the near future.

According to a survey that involved two of the biggest players in the industry, Deliveristo and The Fork, 2021 will be the first step towards a new version of catering. 

Which aspects will change?

DELIVERY

In 2020, proposing a delivery service for a restaurant’s dishes, or opening a dark kitchen became a necessity to face the restrictions imposed by the total closure of all activities.

ln 2021 the trend continues, demonstrating that lots of restaurateurs have been able to maintain a stable delivery service after recently re-opening, but also that many of them are prepared to keep up a regular service for their clientele.

To organise an effective delivery service, restaurants have to align their methods of cooking and storing dishes, and to do so they need equipment specially designed to fit into areas dedicated to the preparation of take-away food. These are solutions that, for example, dedicate more space to areas for producing and preparing dishes, and less to the dining room.

This initial change does not just involve ways of cooking and serving dishes, managing and optimising kitchen workflow, but also the business’s communication and marketing, nowadays mainly developed on digital channels.

GROWING SUPPLY OF HEALTHY FOOD

Customers who are willing to continue using delivery services, alternating with classical lunches and dinners in their favourite restaurants, specifically demand healthy cuisine, a recent trend that is becoming more and more popular.

Therefore, consumers prefer healthy dishes prepared with selected, top quality ingredients, even better if locally sourced from organic, sustainable agriculture. But that’s not all: they choose restaurants that are committed to eliminating waste, combining the gastronomic value of their production with the ethical value of environmental sustainability in everything they do.

To be perfectly in line with this trend, a restaurant needs equipment that will bring savings in terms of consumption, time and food. GICO kitchens are designed to optimise every aspect of work in the kitchen, throughout the different stages of the workflow (from taking delivery of goods to storage, preparation and cooking).

INNOVATIVE, REFINED CUISINE

However, quality is not the only ‘ingredient’ required. In 2021 consumers are looking for refined, rare dishes. This trend includes, for example, the new ‘hybrid’ or fusion cuisine, such as the Nikkei style that merges Japanese sushi with the South American flavours of Peru.

These new food service formats, which are spreading to all large and medium sized Italian towns, work with unusual, refined ingredients whose preparation is different from the traditional Italian cuisine proposed until now.

This reveals a need to study equipment customised in both its layout and the appliances required to handle the different ways of managing workflows and different cooking methods adopted for this type of cuisine.

To face the changes in future food service, we at GICO have studied solutions that adapt well to the latest trends in the trade and we are ready for the change. Are you? 

See GICO’s Solutions