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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Coronavirus

The Spoon team is working hard to bring you the latest on the impact of COVID-19. Bookmark this page for our full archive on the pandemic and how the food industry is embracing innovation to fight back.

On April 6th, The Spoon had a full day virtual summit on COVID-19 strategies for food & restaurants. You can watch all the sessions from our virtual strategy summit here.

You can also check out this COVID-19 resource page for food and restaurant industry.

We Asked Whether You Were Ready to Eat in Restaurants, and Boy Did You Answer

In our Spoon newsletter earlier this week, I relayed that despite restaurant dining rooms re-opening, I’m not ready to eat inside one yet. Knowing that I’m probably more anxious than a lot of people, I asked our readers to weigh in and tell me if they too were nervous about eating out.

And wow. Our readers did not disappoint. Almost immediately after the newsletter went out, response came pouring in. And they weren’t just “yes” or “no.” They were lengthy, thought out replies that ran the ideological gamut.

Because the response to this apparently hot-button topic was so overwhelming, I’ve excerpted some responses and posting them here. Want to add your two cents? Leave a comment below or send us an email.

I am on the other side of this debate and feel 100% comfortable that my immune system is strong enough to resist and or fight the virus. More importantly, if I do get the virus, I highly doubt I would die from it. -Rick

My personal comfortability dining out, as I have a number of times now, resides in my belief that either I needed to truly quarantine (no deliveries, no grocery runs, no human contact at all) or decide to accept the risk and venture into the public space. There is a very small middle ground where hypocrisy tends to exist. Since restaurants reopened, I’ve found myself far less concerned with sanitation than you would expect during a global pandemic and from someone with a biology degree and understanding of how viruses work. I’ve made a conscience decision to make myself physically vulnerable in an attempt at regaining the way of life I previously cherished. -Chad

I’d like to say I understand your fear of eating out but I don’t. Maybe it’s a generational thing. We’ve been out to eat every week since the God Emperor of NC allowed it. The experience is different with the staff often masked and menu smaller but the food was great hot and prepared as it should be versus soggy and less than the best in take out. People laughed, spoke and god forbid hugged. Time to get back to normal. -Jim

I was ready to eat at restaurants 3 months ago. There a gazillion viruses out there, there always have been – that’s why we have an immune system. The idea that we should not do anything because we might get a virus is stupid. People die every day from all  kinds of things, and if you really want to not go out or do anything until you are guaranteed to be safe you will never go anywhere, go check stats on car accidents. Life is not safe. Get over it and go out. -Jenni

I am nowhere near ready to eat at other restaurants nor am I even close I reopening my shop. I confess I have a privilege in that my business is not yet a bread winning income source for our family so I am not reliant on being open for salary, but what pressure must be on folx who are reliant! -Morgan

I can’t imagine feeling comfortable dining in anytime soon. I have ordered Domino’s pizza and they guarantee that after the pizza goes into the oven, no human hands touch it again. It’s slid into a pizza box and the box gets a seal on it. I also like their ordering process — you order and pay online, so when the app shows you your pizza is ready, you can zip in and pick it up and be back out again in seconds. -Leslie

Q: I’m Not Ready to Eat at Restaurants Yet, Are You?
A: I’ll be there as soon as I can get vaccinated. -Becky

I’m not so much concerned about contracting the virus, just find it really weird to have the teams at the restaurant all masked and gloved up. It’s a total put off and as such, I’d just rather cook at home or occasionally get take out. -Maria

I was in New Orleans during Phase 1 re-opening (25% occupancy at restaurants). I had excellent experiences at several restaurants—from mom and pop and white table cloth. -Robbie

My coworker/bestie, who I have worked with for most of my adult life, and ate lunch with (dining out when life was normal) on a daily basis. She is more a germaphobe than I am. And a mom. We both needed to get out. So, on this beautiful almost summer afternoon, we met at Tabloa in SoNo, and while I was at first very nervous, I soon felt very comfortable. Servers wore masks, cleaned table, handed out hand sanitizer if needed, and the meal and drinks were the most delicious food and beverages that I have tasted in a looonnggg time. Not only did it satisfy my taste buds and belly, but it fed my soul. I felt normal again, instead of afraid. It truly helped me in ways I can’t explain. I think everyone should, safely, go out to a restaurant for a meal al fresca. I’d be surprised if you didn’t feel the same sense of pleasure and relief. It’s truly worth the wait! -Kim

I’ve been venturing out fairly regularly (to the grocery store, a few rounds of golf/driving range, picking up wine in Woodinville) so I think I’m fairly moderate regarding “opening up,” but I would not choose to sit inside a restaurant right now. I may consider outside seating if it’s available, but if no outside seating is available, I would rather order food to go. The biggest reason is that if I’m eating out at a restaurant, I want to enjoy it and don’t think that’s possible now. I’d be thinking about social distancing and coronavirus the entire time. Plus, I understand that the restaurant itself would be better served if I ate quickly and allowed them to seat more tables. All this leads me to not want to go to restaurants until much later…and I’m not sure when that would be. -Ryen

I certainly won’t be going to any restaurant that isn’t strict on social distancing and hygiene. I’m conflicted because this industry is the main reason why I’m doing well in life, but I can’t just go back and pretend nothing happened. -Jona

Good for you, stay home the rest of your life, don’t go out and expose yourself to anything in this world and see how that goes for you. If you don’t want to support the restaurant industry then don’t. but take me off your email list because I don’t want to hear any more crap about how “afraid” we need to be of a virus that isn’t killing anybody that doesn’t have a compromised immune system. -Doug

I do not see myself enjoying a restaurant inside (or any inside venue for that matter) if I have to know if they wear masks in the kitchen (most do not, as they think they are healthy), if they will serve me with masks, if the ventilation does not bring me “air” from my neighbors even if we are two meters apart, if the plates, glasses and utensils have been touched by someone who may have had contacts with persons etc…. Sitting in a paper protection or plastic poncho I would have brought does not make me joyous. The risk may be low but I do not want to be a guinea pig. -Françoise

I’m sure this is not the last time we’ll talk about this. What are your thoughts about re-opening and eating out? Leave a comment and let us know!

Starbucks to Close Some Sit-down Cafes to Focus on Pickup-only Locations

Starbucks is accelerating its plans to shift many of its stores to a takeout-only format, according to an article today from the Wall Street Journal. The coffee mega-chain will “close, renovate, or move” 400 traditional cafes in the U.S. and Canada over the next 18 months and open 40 to 50 pickup-only stores over the next year and a half.

While the pandemic has accelerated the pace towards this to-go model, the shift itself isn’t new for Starbucks. In 2019, the chain opened its first Starbucks Now stores featuring very limited seating, an automated pickup system, and a focus on digital orders. And in a letter from the end of May, company CEO Kevin Johnson said the company would be reformatting many stores to cater to off-premises orders as part of its “Bridge to the Future” reopening plan. 

Starbucks has also claimed that 80 percent of its orders were to-go before the pandemic, hence plans to shift its model towards off-premises formats. As the WSJ said, Starbucks “expects that portion to grow as the pandemic changes commutes and routines.”

The company is focusing on New York City, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and other “dense urban areas” for the shift to pickup-only locations. 

Starbucks is also probably leading what will be a widespread trend in the restaurant industry. Dining rooms may be reopening, but they’re doing so at reduced capacity, and many consumers are still wary about actually sitting down in a restaurant. As well, a study released this week by Washington State University’s Carson College of Business found that a number of consumers won’t go out to eat until there are improvements in testing and tracing COVID-19 cases. Others are skipping the dine-in experience until a vaccine is found.

All those factors make to-go ordering a more important strategy than ever for many restaurants. Yes, the jury is still out on how much off-premises orders can make up in lost sales. And no, not every restaurant has the money and resources to completely re-outfit their stores to be more to-go friendly. But Starbucks helped create the coffeeshop culture that, up until a few months ago, was as commonplace as the grocery store. Now it’s leading the rest of us towards a to-go culture that will soon be as much a part of daily life as its cafes once were.

New Study Shows Why Re-Opened Restaurants Can’t Ease Up on To-Go Ordering

Over half of consumers are still not willing to actually eat in restaurants, according to new research from Washington State University that was sent to The Spoon. If stay-at-home orders are lifted, 61.67 percent of consumers are still won’t dine at a restaurant immediately, according to the new study. That’s still a boatload of people wary about going out to eat, but the figure is actually down 4.19 percent from two weeks ago.

The new research follows up on a previous report by WSU’s Carson College of Business released at the end of May. Both papers examine COVID-19’s ongoing impact on the restaurant and hotel industries.

Other notable numbers from this new report include:

  • 13.06 percent of respondents said it is “very likely” they will eat in a restaurant dining room immediately, up 4.4 percent from two weeks ago.
  • 24.79 percent suggested that they will only feel comfortable to dine in when their communities can better test, trace and isolate COVID19 cases.
  • 14.27 percent said that they will only feel comfortable to dine in at a sit-down restaurant when the COVID-19 vaccine becomes available.
  • 64.71 percent said various technologies at sit-down restaurants will be necessary in order to minimize human-to-human contact.

On that last point, the research lists contactless payments, digital menus, and service robots as a few of the technologies consumers would like to see in their local restaurant going forward, which is in line with many of the predictions about what restaurants will look like in a post-pandemic world. 

WSU’s new research also underscores the need for restaurants to continue with their off-premises orders even with dining rooms reopening. Would-be customers are clearly still wary about sitting down in a restaurant, reduced capacities remain in place for dining rooms, and there’s still no coronavirus vaccine available. All of which is to say, the restaurant industry has a long, slow recovery still ahead of it.

Everytable Is Using Delivery to Fight Food Insecurity During the Pandemic

A Los Angeles-based restaurant business is using delivery to better peoples’ lives during the pandemic. Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, Everytable has been delivering meals to those in need in Southern California. Company founder Sam Polk, a former Wall Street trader, told Bloomberg this week that since the coronavirus hit, Everytable’s volume has grown eight times.

Everytable, which was founded in 2015 after Polk left Wall Street, is a combination of social enterprise and restaurant business. The company’s grab-and-go concept sells healthy meals that vary in price according to the neighborhoods in which the restaurants are located. In other words, meals are made affordable to anyone, regardless of whether they live in an affluent part of town or a food desert. The company also has a subscription service and a smart locker business. All food is cooked in a central commissary kitchen before getting distributed via the company’s various sales channels.

Fighting the food desert problem is one of the main missions of Everytable. “Everytable was founded in the fight for social and racial justice,” Polk told Bloomberg. “After all ‘food deserts’ don’t just happen—they are a product of systemic and structural racism, community disinvestment, an economy that works for only a select few.”  

Assisting those struggling during the pandemic is part of that mission. Since the pandemic started, Everytable has been delivering meals to the homeless, elderly people that can’t leave the house, and community college students who would ordinarily rely on their school’s pantries. FEMA, with additional help from the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles is paying for the majority of the meals going to the needy.

In the U.S., one out of every eight people face food insecurity, including 13 million children, according to data from Feeding America. In some places, the pandemic has only worsened the situation for people living in food deserts. 

The pandemic has prompted a number of food-related businesses to find ways of getting meals to food insecure areas and individuals. One notable example is fine-dining restaurant Alma Cocina Latina, a Baltimore establishment that has transformed itself into something of a relief kitchen for the needy during the pandemic. It has assistance from José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen. Amazon, meanwhile, expanded the number of states where SNAP participants can use the tech giant’s site to buy groceries online. And a company called Foodie Card raised $1.5 million during the pandemic to further develop its business that in part supplies food banks.

Fighting this food insecurity means finding ways to give everyone adequate access to nutritious foods. That these companies are able to utilize delivery, commissary kitchens, and other aspects of food tech to get healthier food to more people will hopefully inspire others to do the same, now and long after the pandemic subsides.

Working From Home is Adding to Some Restaurants’ Struggles

The uptick in telecommuting could be contributing to a decline in foot traffic for some restaurants as the industry slowly enterers a recovery phase. Jack Li, founder of research firm Datassential, said at NRN’s recent Restaurants Rise conference that the effectiveness of remote work for many companies could lead to a dramatic shift in foot traffic for restaurants located in commercial areas. Think lower traffic volume at lunchtimes and some sales at breakfast.

“If you pull consumers out of an area because they’re not going to offices to work, you make it very challenging for restaurants,” he said.  “That will have a very large impact on what recovery looks like,” Li said.

He also cited some telling restaurant industry stats during the talk. Right now, 11.5 percent of U.S. restaurants are not open. Of those, 3.3 percent are permanently closed and 8.2 percent are temporarily closed. Li said some of those temporary closures could turn into permanent closures.

While those figures aren’t completely the result of more folks working from home, telecommuting has at least some impact. As NRN noted: “This will be especially harmful to restaurants where office workers outpace residents. And, it also explains the high rate of temporary closures in urban areas where restaurants rely on office or commuter traffic.”

One thing that could help is the rise of a new kind of corporate catering. Today, Uber Eats announced Vouchers, an extension of its corporate meal program that lets companies customize meal plans for both individual workers and large-scale events. Those meal plans rely on restaurants to provide the food.

For some businesses, that could add incremental revenue at a time when dining rooms are open at reduced capacity. But that depends on where the restaurant is located. Those in more residential areas stand to benefit from the mass telecommuting happening now. For those in financial districts or areas where office workers outpace residents, closures may remain longer and recovery will come slower. 

Uber Eats’ New Vouchers Let You Buy Remote Lunches for Those on Your Virtual Sales Meeting

Uber for Business announced today the launch of Vouchers for Uber Eats, which lets businesses customize their meal plans for employees and customers to meet any scale, whether it’s an individual’s lunch or a 1,000-person virtual event. The program is an expansion of Uber’s corporate meal program, which launched earlier this year, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Uber fast-tracked the expansion of Uber Eats for corporate meals earlier this year, shortly after the pandemic forced shelter-in-place orders and many employees started working from home. That program allows companies to customize meal options for remote employees via the Uber Eats app. Through a dashboard, company admin can set rules around when their workers can order meals and how much they can spend.

Vouchers expands on this, allowing companies to get even more granular about how they manage corporate spending on meals. Today’s press release outlines a few uses for Vouchers, including providing meals for attendees of large-scale virtual events, treating potential clients to lunch at virtual sales meetings, and virtual lunch gatherings for remote employees.

Via the aforementioned dashboard, companies can set controls on the start and end dates of a voucher, set limits on the number of orders, as well as use existing features like ordering times and spending limits. 

They’re not the only third-party food delivery service to be eyeing the corporate catering space as a way of diversifying. DoorDash offers a similar program that includes corporate versions of the DashPass, the service’s monthly subscription service. Grubhub Corporate also offers individual and group orders for companies. 

For many, working from home is here to stay, even with states’ economies slowly reopening. That makes the concept of corporate food delivery a lucrative business to be in right now for these third-party services. And with the U.S. now officially in a recession, tools like Vouchers let companies spend as much or as little as they want to on corporate meals, allowing them to offer aspects of catering without expensive, long-term commitments.

This customizable approach to corporate catering could also be an important asset to offer long into the future. There’s no knowing yet how many workers will actually return to the office and whether traditional catering will even have a place in that setting. Scores of employees all hovering over the same buffet table doesn’t exactly sound appetizing in the sage of social distancing, and it’s possible companies won’t even have the in-person numbers to justify huge orders like they used to. A sliding-scale option with a focus on virtual get-togethers could become the norm going forward.

Report: Restaurant Transactions are Inching Towards Improvement for Major Chains

Restaurant transactions are improving — for some. Today, the NPD Group said customer transactions at major U.S. restaurant chains saw a slight uptick for the week ending May 31. Transactions at these chains declined by 18 percent compared to the same period one year ago. That’s a 3 percent week-over-week improvement.  

NPD has been providing regular updates on restaurant transactions for a number of weeks now as dining rooms slowly reopen and the restaurant industry as a whole continues to grapple with the unprecedented disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Other notable numbers from this latest report include:

  • Restaurants in states where dining rooms are still closed had the steepest declines [—DECLINES OF WHAT?—]. For New York and California, that was negative 34 and negative 27 percent, respectively. 
  • By contrast, transactions in Kentucky, which was allowed to reopen on May 11, saw a 2 percent decline.
  • Full-service restaurant chains saw a negative 37 percent decline, which is a 15 percent increase from the prior week.
  • QSR chains saw a 16 percent decline in transactions versus 18 percent in the previous week.

David Portalatin, NPD food industry advisor noted in the release that the foodservice industry is “solidly in the re-start phase,” and that it will only be in a true recovery phase when all states reopen their dining rooms. Only then can we start to make “a detailed assessment of how many permanent restaurant closures there are and how that will affect what the industry will look like as it re-emerges.”

At least 3 percent of restaurants have already permanently shuttered due to the pandemic. Many of those have been independent restaurants, though some chains have also had to shut down locations.

And while we may not know exactly what the future restaurant industry looks like, one thing we can count on is more off-premises orders. Pretty much everyone, from family sit-down chains to fine-dining restaurants, are encouraged to continue offering to-go options to customers. Some chains are even launching to-go-focused concepts, while others are turning to the ghost kitchen concept to fulfill more delivery orders.

How big a role off-premises will play remains to be seen, and we likely won’t have a clear idea of that until more states reopen dining rooms. For now, delivery, ghost kitchens, virtual restaurant concepts, and other off-premises strategies have yet to prove themselves as real lifelines for businesses.  

Thermomix Takes High-Touch Sales Method Virtual Amid Surging COVID-19 Usage

If the Thermomix sales process were a recipe, it’d feature lots of product demos, in-home mixers and healthy smidges of handshaking and pep talks sprinkled in.

Throw in a pandemic, though, and suddenly you’re left with a recipe bereft of its primary ingredient: in-person sales.

I caught up with the CEO of Thermomix North America Kai Schäffner and the VP of consumer experience Ramona Wehlig to talk about how a company famous for direct sales model has been faring at a time when people can’t get together.

According to Schäffner, the company has had to move entirely to virtual sales during the pandemic, a move that wasn’t all that difficult since it was something they’d been thinking about doing for some time.

“We were planning to make a major move next year towards virtual sales,” said Schäffner. “Coronavirus decided for us. So we took two to three weeks to move all North America to virtual. We started in Canada and the US, and are now fully virtual in Mexico.”

The virtual consultations are available by appointment via the website and, like so many meetings nowadays, are conducted using platforms like Zoom.

The company is also using cooking classes, with some led by regional managers on Zoom and also Facebook Live to reach a national audience. Below is a Thermomix demo on how to make keto friendly biscuits.

This transition to a virtual sales process comes amid a worldwide surge in usage for those Thermomixes already in homes.

“Usage has been rising from 30% to 100% depending on the country,” said Wehlig, “We have seen the highest increase in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Poland where usage has been doubling.”

Usage of the multicooker’s digital recipe platform, Cookido, has also surged, with 2.3 million daily cooking sessions during the quarantine period.

With quarantines starting to come to an end and many places around the globe slowly trying to resume some level of normalcy, I asked Schäffner if the company would get back to doing in-home sales consultations and he said yes, slowly, but it would be ultimately up to the comfort level of the sales consultants and prospects.

“It’s a choice,” he said, but admitted the in-home experience will always be better.

“The experience is totally different. The testing, the feeling, the touching. All of those points you can do better in your home.”

“Cooking,” said Schäffner, “is about tasting.”

Thailand’s SPACE-F Opens Applications for Its 2020 Accelerator and Incubator Programs

Asia-based food tech startups, take note. SPACE-F, an accelerator and incubator program in Thailand, is now taking applications for Batch-II of its program (h/t Green Queen). The program works with Southeast Asian startups working to improve a number of areas across the the food and be industries.

Batch-II, which officially kicks off in October 2020, will consist of both an accelerator and incubator program.

SPACE-F was founded in 2019, making it a relatively new entrant to the food tech accelerator/incubator space. Program founders NIA, Thai Union PLC, and Mahidol University have partnered with ThaiBev for Batch-II.

The biggest differences between accelerator and incubator programs has to do with the stage of growth participating companies are at. Accelerators tend to work with early-stage companies looking to grow, while incubators tend to host companies that might not yet be ready to commercialize. (Read our full breakdown of the differences here.)

Reflecting those differences, SPACE-F’s program invites companies with compelling prototypes and ideas to apply for its incubator, while startups wanting to join the accelerator should already have a product/technology and customer traction. The accelerator runs four months, and the incubator runs 9–15 months, depending on the specific company. 

All participants will be working to solve challenges in the food industry, though SPACE-F’s range of areas is quite wide. Alt-protein, restaurant tech, manufacturing, novel ingredients, and food safety are just a few of the areas listed on the SPACE-F website. 

Participants will receive equity-free investment (a specific sum isn’t named), mentorship, networking opportunities, and access to SPACE-F’s facilities. That said, SPACE-F notes on its site that because of COVID-19, at least part of the program will take place virtually. As is the case with other startup accelerators and incubators, when and how any in-person sessions will take place will depend on the changing nature of the coronavirus crisis. 

Applications for SPACE-F are open until July 12, 2020.

Watch: Chef José Andrés Video Chats with Dr. Fauci About How to Re-Open Restaurants

What kinds of masks should staff wear? Should they use gloves or hand sanitizer? What should you do if a positive case of COVID-19 hits your business? These are just some of the questions that Chef José Andrés had for Dr. Anthony Fauci about safely re-opening restaurants during the pandemic.

Chef Andrés hosted a video chat with the epidemiologist today on Instagram and asked a bunch of straightforward, practical questions for the now-famous epidemiologist. It’s a good watch for any restaurant owner looking to open back up and even for restaurant goers to better educate themselves before heading back out to eat.

It also covers a lot of what we’ve been wondering about ourselves here at The Spoon as we begin the slow process of emerging from the pandemic.

Allset’s Tech Gives New Meaning to the Concept of Quick Service in the Restaurant

Not so long ago, the idea of ordering your food before you got the restaurant then sitting down in the establishment’s dining room to eat it felt unnecessary. Why go to a restaurant dining room at all if you’re in that big of a hurry? Why not hit the quick-service chain down the road if you’re that badly in need of quick service?

Flash-forward to now, and being able to order ahead is becoming a must-have for restaurants, in or out of the dining room.

This is what Allset, a company based out of San Francisco, wants to address. In addition to currently offering a bundle of contactless features restaurants can use during this current restaurant industry upheaval, the company also allows customers to order food ahead of time for any type order, whether they’re eating in the dining room or taking it to go.

More than ever, restaurants are finding they need to offer high-tech order-ahead features for both in-house and off-premises meals, and that both speed and minimized human-to-human interactions are important parts of that process. Some companies — third-party delivery services and a slew of restaurant-tech products — offer these things for pickup and delivery orders, but they typically come at a high cost and don’t include any solution for the actual dining room.

Allset doesn’t have any significant competitors when it comes to offering a package that addresses every restaurant experience, which is probably a big reason demand for the service is up. Over the phone this week, CEO Stas Matviyenko said the company has been busier than ever as restaurants scramble for solutions to help them navigate the new normal. “[The pandemic has] changed the way people dine, the way people want to dine. The way restaurants have to serve people [has] changed dramatically.”

Allset, which was founded in 2015 by Matviyenko and Anna Polishchuk, started as a service for dine-in restaurant experiences. Users could choose a restaurant via the Allset app, order and pay for their meal ahead of time, and have their meals ready within about five minutes of their being seated at the restaurant. The company added a takeout component to the business in 2019, a fortuitous move considering the entire industry went off-premises a few months ago. 

As Matviyenko explained to me, Allset was actually working with a contactless pickup solution before the pandemic hit. Seeing inefficiencies in the usual pickup order process — flagging a staff person down to notify them of your arrival, waiting around for the order — the company started offering a way for restaurants to streamline that process. The “ideal” experience, he said, would be for a customer to order and pay for their meal, find their food in a designated pickup area, and be able to grab it and go without ever interacting with staff. Allset actually raised $8.25 million to further develop this concept at the end of March, just as dining rooms were shutting down.

But just because the industry is leaning heavily on off-premises nowadays doesn’t mean Allset is forgetting about the dining room. Matviyenko suggests that a technology like theirs is actually more important nowadays. Restaurants — which have always operated off thin margins — now have to contend with lower sales because of reduced capacity requirements in their newly reopened dining rooms. They will want to turn tables faster in order to get more transactions on a day-in, day-out basis, and one way to do that is to cut down the time a customer has to wait between sitting down and actually getting their food. As well, there are people who would just prefer to grab a quick bite for lunch without eating it from a takeout box, and this is an area Allset has always served. 

It doesn’t hurt that the restaurant menu format is also changing, thanks to reopening guidelines that suggest businesses use digital menus. Baking pre-order into that digital format seems just mere steps away, rather than the giant leap it would have been pre-pandemic.

Currently, Allset is waiving all commission fees for restaurants, and the app is free for customers to use. Matviyenko said since the COVID-19 crisis began, they’ve been getting much more interest from restaurants large and small. Moving forward, he says he expects to see the company grow much faster than before.

NPD: Restaurant Chain Transactions Down From Last Year, Digital Orders Up

New data from NPD Group is a real good news/bad news situation for restaurants. The bad news: for the week ending May 24, total major restaurant chain transactions declined 18 percent compared to the same time period last year. The good news? That’s up 25 percentage points from the biggest decline in transactions during this pandemic (-43 percent for the week ending April 12).

Of course, a big reason for that growth is that more cities and states began re-opening towards the end of May, so more people could once again actually go into a restaurant.

An NPD press release breaks the numbers down further, writing:

  • Major full service chain restaurant transactions declined by -42% versus same time year ago, a +7 point improvement from the prior week’s decline of -49% from year ago.
  • Transactions at quick service restaurant chains were down -17% in week ending May 24 compared to same week year ago, improving from the -20% decline in the prior week.

Another couple of interesting tid-bits from NPD’s recent data is that drive-thru, mostly at QSRs, made up almost half of all restaurant occasions, and that digital orders grew by 106 percent in April compared with last year. NPD says that digital orders now account for 20 percent of all restaurant occasions.

If you’ve been following my colleague Jenn Marston’s writing, this growth in digital orders and off-premises dining shouldn’t come as a surprise. In her excellent weekly restaurant tech newsletter this past Friday, she covered recent Black Box data that showed takeout orders are going back up. As Jenn wrote:

Presumably, people got excited about going back to restaurants instead of ordering takeout, then realized what a pain in the a$$ dine-in service is going to be for a long time to come. Guidelines vary from state to state in the U.S., but almost all of them include reduced capacity, reduced party sizes, no buffets, and in some cases a mask requirement. Add to that the trepidation most of us wear with our masks these days anytime we set foot in public, and it’s not exactly a recipe for a packed house.

As more cities and states ease shelter in place order, and summer gets into full swing, we’ll move from guessing about how consumers will react to restaurants’ re-opening and into hard numbers around what they are actually doing. Data like this from NPD helps chart those movements.