What the takeaway and delivery boom means for restaurant operators

The closure of restaurants during the pandemic drove huge growth in demand for home delivery of meals, meal kits, and recipe boxes. Now that venues are open again, our consumer survey suggests that this growth will continue.

That will leave restaurant operators with some crucial decisions to make about the future of their businesses.

Embracing multi-channel by offering the right mix of eat-in, takeaway and meal kits, promises enormous growth potential.

Firms will need to identify their optimal routes to market and understand how to make their proposition stand out from the crowd. They’ll need to decide how best to manage kitchen capacity and the logistics of delivery.

Our ‘Food for thought’ report reveals the latest consumer insights and habits around takeaways and looks at:

1. Getting the right channel strategy
2. Working with third party platforms
3. Differentiation - standing out from the crowd
4. A geographical approach to brand building and accessing customers
5. The importance of knowing your customer

• Average spend per person per year rose by 42 percent over two years: from £452 in 2019 to £641 in 2021.
• 76 percent of respondents ordered takeaways in the last year – up from 66 percent in 2019.
• 61 percent view the restaurants they ordered takeaway from positively and will visit them in future.
• When selecting a restaurant for takeaway, 65 percent of respondents said quality of the food was the most important factor in their decision making. Followed by 55 percent who said price.
• Nearly one fifth said they would order more takeaway in the future if there were more healthier options.
• 17 percent had ordered meal kits from restaurants or recipe boxes from a dedicated provider since the start of the pandemic.

Get in touch if you would like to discuss the survey or report in more detail.