The restaurant industry has been significantly impacted over the last three years, owing to factors like inflation, recession, changing consumer preferences, and global disruptions (yes, the COVID-19 pandemic). Though restaurants have been able to roll with the punches, thanks to technological innovations – certain restaurant industry trends are likely to be the game-changers in 2023.
So what are the key ingredients of this secret recipe the you can use to cook a resounding success in 2023? Let’s find out!
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Top 6 Restaurant Industry Trends in 2023
Without further ado, let’s have a look at the 6 food trends for 2023 that are going to revolutionize the restaurant industry:
1. Health and hygiene are imperative
Today, consumers are becoming increasingly cautious of their nutritional habits, owing to their awareness about the link between their diet and the risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiac issues. They are also concerned about the cleanliness of a restaurant from time immemorial, which has become rigorous – all credit to the pandemic.
So how do you implement health and hygiene, one of the most significant restaurant industry trends? Here are a few suggestions:
- Provide the nutritional information of your menu items, and enlighten your calorie-cautious customers!
- Offer options to your patrons to customize their orders based on their dietary requirements and preferences.
- Implement contactless dining at your restaurant. You can observe best sanitary practices by reducing physical contact, with the help of QR codes. From providing digital menus to processing contactless payments, you can create a safe and self-reliant dining experience for your patrons.
2. Reduce your expenses, renew the environment
Global warming, climate change, ecological unbalance – these factors have become increasingly relevant to your customers. What if there was a way to reduce your costs as well as your restaurant’s carbon footprint? Well, there is!
Taking steps towards more sustainable and eco-friendly practices is not only good for the environment, it’s also beneficial for your business. Customers who observe your efforts to ensure the least environmental impact are drawn to your offerings, thus helping you build a strong and positive brand image. Environmental sustainability is one of the new restaurant industry trends that, when properly implemented, can ensure steady business growth.
Here are a few ideas to improve your restaurant’s sustainability:
- Utilize recyclable or biodegradable materials for packaging. These materials can include cardboard or bioplastics, that can be easily recycled or composted after use.
- Practise lean inventory management. You can forecast your demand using robust analytics software, optimize your inventory levels and ensure that you’re not carrying any excess stock. Through this strategy, you can also reduce spoilage of ingredients, resulting in sustainable waste management.
- Adopt energy-efficient lighting and devices to reduce the electricity costs for your restaurant. Many modern kitchen appliances come with energy star certifications, which can help you reduce your power consumption. Another method of conserving energy is to install LED lighting at your restaurant, which have a longer life span than the traditional incandescent lighting.
3. Omnichannel experience = Omnipresent delight
You must focus on delivering an omnichannel guest experience for your customers. An omnichannel experience refers to the delivery of a seamless, integrated, and uniform experience across all channels and customer touchpoints. Simply put, this means that your customers should be able to connect with you consistently, whether they’re placing an order online, or dining in at your restaurant. You must identify the best technology to integrate across multiple touchpoints while focusing on crafting a personalized experience for your customers.
To deliver a delightful omnichannel experience, here are a few tips:
- Invest in a good restaurant point-of-sale (POS) system that allows you to integrate with other aspects of your restaurant, such as kitchen operations, online ordering and delivery, and customer relationship management.
- Use your restaurant data and analytics to understand your customers’ preferences. You can also promote and recommend the menu items that best match their requirements.
- Ensure that you provide consistent quality, service, and attention to detail across all touchpoints.
- Maintain good communication across all your channels, and prompt your customers to provide feedback – to help you understand the gaps in service and improve continuously.
4. Innovate your marketing strategies
Innovative marketing is going to be one of the crucial restaurant industry trends in 2023. Many famous restaurant brands apply a combination of traditional and newer digital marketing techniques to create awareness and communicate their offerings. There are several approaches and potential strategies that you may use to stay ahead of your competition.
Here are some of the strategies that you can follow:
- Building a digital presence: Creating a digital presence is the foremost strategy to stand out in the crowd. You can use social media platforms to promote your restaurant, reach a wider audience, and also nurture a loyal community.
- Collaborating with influencers: Food influencers play a significant role in driving footfalls to a restaurant. Identifying the right influencer and partnering with them to generate awareness for your restaurant can help you attract customers.
- Partnering with other businesses: You can also partner with your neighboring retail business and create mutually beneficial, customized offers. Using this technique can help you build good relationships with other businesses as well as with your customers.
- Personalizing offers and discounts: Customers consistently seek experiences that are tailored to their preferences. You can create customized offers and discounts based on their purchase behavior. You can also personalize recommendations based on customers’ tastes and dietary preferences. You can also implement loyalty programs to reward repeat customers.
5. Reduce friction in customer service
Technological innovations have revolutionized the restaurant industry in more ways than one. Restaurants are constantly adopting digital solutions to reduce costs, refine efficiency, and revamp the customer experience. This trend is expected to continue in 2023 as well. To stay ahead in the game, you need to automate your restaurant’s daily operations in every aspect by acquiring the right technology.
Here are a few technological innovations that your restaurant must have:
- Online ordering system: With an online ordering system in place, you can encourage your customers to place orders online through your website or your own online ordering mobile app. This can help you streamline your order management and accelerate your pace of order processing.
- Kitchen display systems:Kitchen display systems (KDS) eliminate the need for investing in paper and printers in your kitchen. An order placed at your restaurant can be directly routed to your kitchen staff via a KDS by simply integrating it with your POS system. You can eliminate manual errors and ensure a smooth operational flow by adopting a KDS for your restaurant.
- Mobile payments integration: With mobile payments integration, you can enable your customers to pay for their meals using their smartphones. Not only are mobile payments faster when compared to cash or card payments, but they also minimize the risk of fraudulent transactions.
- Self-service kiosks: Self-service kiosks help customers to place their orders and pay for them without staff assistance, and are commonplace in quick-service and fast-casual restaurants. Aside from reducing wait times, they also help in cutting down labour costs, as there is less reliance on staff for taking orders and processing payments.
6. Exploring other revenue streams
To improve your restaurant’s profitability, you can venture into secondary sources of income by leveraging your restaurant’s capabilities. Relying solely on one revenue stream may not be viable. With the help of technology and novel marketing ideas, you can expand your business six ways to Sunday – without an exorbitant investment!
Here are a few ideas to create new revenue streams:
- Investing in cloud kitchens: Investing in a cloud kitchen, or a ghost kitchen, is one of the wisest decisions you can make in the current business environment. Cloud kitchens require less investment compared to a dine-in setup, and they also possess the capability to process multiple takeaway and delivery-only orders placed online. They also help you expand your reach, reduce overhead costs, and make faster deliveries.
- Host kitchens: A subset of cloud kitchens, the concept of a host kitchen is relatively new. Though similar to a cloud kitchen, a host kitchen allows restaurants to prepare meals for other restaurants for online orders only. One of the emerging food service trends, this helps you generate higher revenue.
- Branded merchandise: You can offer branded merchandise to generate awareness and increase your revenue. For instance, if you run a bakery, you can offer easy-to-make cake recipes, branded aprons, etc. at a certain price.
- Offering catering services: You can also offer catering services for special occasions and events such as birthday parties, weddings, festival celebrations, corporate events, and much more.
- Private labels: You can sell your own branded products directly to your customers, e.g., condiments, spices, and beverages. Aside from generating additional revenue, this can also contribute to your brand building efforts.
So far, we’ve covered the top 6 restaurant industry trends that you will observe in 2023. To recap:
Now that you’ve understood the know-how of each trend, the next step is to choose the right technology to help you adapt on the fly. Luckily, your search ends here!
Gofrugal ServeEasy – Your Friend for Every Trend
Gofrugal ServeEasy is a robust restaurant management system that helps you implement the best practices for all restaurant industry trends anticipated in 2023 accordingly. Some of our beneficial features to help you embrace the latest food service trends are:
- In-built inventory management system which helps you track your packaging materials easily and minimize food wastage
- Menu management feature which enables you to design and manage menus based on your customers’ preferences, with the provision of displaying the nutritional information
- Integration with Gofrugal OrderEasy to build your online ordering app, and with Gofrugal GoDeliver to enable you to guarantee a delightful experience for every delivery made
- Dedicated Restaurant CRM software which helps you build tailored campaigns, and a dedicated feedback app to know what your customers are thinking
- Integration with Gofrugal’s KDS for faster order processing and better customer engagement, and ServJoy – an order-taking app with features to record and edit KOTs on the go
- 150+ reports based on real-time information to help you generate valuable insights and make decisions backed by solid data
With Gofrugal’s wide range of restaurant solutions, you can earn maximum profits with minimal staff and training required. Adopt Gofrugal today, and become the trendsetter of the restaurant industry!
