Another deciphering of food trends by DEPUR Expériences. Although the pandemic radically changed our daily lives, many studies tend to show that our habits have gradually returned to "normal" since the end of the lockdown. However, lunchtime is still affected by structural changes in the way we work.

Repercussions of the Covid 19 crisis on the lives of the French :

• Moving away from city centres as a main residence
• Generalization of remote working (In France, during the summer of 2022, 17% of the time worked was done by remote working)
• Decrease in business travel

What are the impacts on lunch time?

The office remains the main place for the working population to have lunch: a place of social contact, the interest is all the greater during the lunch break.

Eating at the office:

• 54% of employees take their lunchbox with them or buy food at a nearby supermarket
• 12% use the company canteen
• 18% use takeaway solutions
• 11% sit down to eat at a restaurant table (a proportion that has fallen since 2019)
• 5% use delivery services (still a small percentage but steadily increasing in recent months).

Eating at home:

• 80% of teleworkers eat at home and/or go to the supermarket for lunch
• 3% go out to eat in restaurants
• 10% use takeaways
• 7% use home delivery solutions (this represents a new segment that is growing gradually).).

The number of players positioning themselves in the lunch market is constantly growing, driven by a rapidly expanding demand.

The different types of Lunch solutions:

• A catering supply rethought and developed by the historical players in collective catering such as Class Croute or Elior
• A digital canteen offer with foodtech players such as Frichti or Pop Chef
• A connected fridge product supply with Bolk or Foodles
• A dedicated delivery offer for the corporate world such as Seazon, Nestor or Popote.

To remember:

Even if teleworking is becoming more widespread, there is a desire to rehabilitate the office and the F&B offer is perceived as a vector of attractiveness by employers. But the dislike for traditional collective catering in companies has been accelerated by the pandemic. Restrictive for employees and costly for companies, it needs to be reinvented and must take into account the new global expectations of the F&B sector. New solutions must be devised to make the space dedicated to catering in companies profitable, particularly during non-lunch periods. Travel-related catering (airports, hotels, railway stations, etc.) is also affected by this drop in corporate travel activity and must capture new consumption moments.

Source : Food Service Vision study, Sial 2022