Younger consumers have remained committed to restaurant dining during the pandemic, helping stem the shift away from foodservice overall in the past year, according to a presentation by The Hartman Group, held Wednesday.
“Restaurant food remained an integral component of everyday eating, particularly among younger generations,” said Shelley Balanko, senior vice president at The Hartman Group. “Gen Z adults and millennials did not experience a decline in restaurant-sourced occasions, highlighting younger generations’ dependence on restaurant food, even in the face of a global pandemic.”
Gen Z adults age 18-22 actually sourced more of their eating occasions from restaurants in 2020, at 30 percent, compared with 28 percent in 2019, The Hartman Group said in its “Eating Occasions 2020” report. Millennials’ share of restaurant occasions was about the same, at 33 percent in 2020, versus 34 percent in 2019, while older consumers’ restaurant-sourced eating occasions dropped more sharply.
The share of overall consumer spending on food from restaurants had been steadily increasing for many years, overtaking retail spending shortly before the pandemic shut restaurants down across the country last March. The trend was sharply reversed almost immediately, The Hartman Group noted, citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau. By April of last year, consumers were spending about 70 percent of their food dollars at retail, and only 30 percent at restaurants.
As the year progressed, “cooking fatigue” set in and consumers gradually increased their share of food spending at restaurants, as they became more comfortable dining out and sought to support their local foodservice operators.
Restaurant spending also became more deliberate and less spontaneous in 2020, The Hartman Group found. Only 31 percent of restaurant-sourced food occasions were decided upon within an hour of eating, down 11 percent from 2019. In addition, the availability of third-party delivery was a much more important attribute when selecting a restaurant.
As Americans increased their sourcing from restaurants throughout the year, they also accumulated more leftovers, the report found. More than a quarter of eating occasions in 2020— 6 percent—involved leftovers, and 59 percent of those involved food or beverages from restaurants.
Among other trends Balanko highlighted from the Eating Occasions 2020 report:
• Although consumers sourced more of their eating occasions from restaurants, their overall patterns of daily meal and snack consumption throughout the day remained largely unchanged in 2020. One exception was a decline in late-night snacking—only 19 percent of consumers reported having a daily late-night snack last year, compared with 24 percent in 2019. The Hartman Group attributed this to younger consumers spending less time socializing in bars and restaurants at night and parents home with children all day going to bed earlier.
• Eating out of habit and boredom increased in 2020, particularly for morning and after-dinner snacks. “The after-dinner snack is more likely to be consumed out of both habit and boredom, as consumers turn to food, in many cases, simply to fill the time,” said Balanko.
• Consumer interest in eating healthy was most evident in the morning meal and snack occasions. Functionality was particularly important in the morning snack occasions, when 52 percent of occasions included foods or beverages that had a specific health benefit, up eight percentage points from 2019. “The pandemic drove and continues to drive a heightened emphasis around ‘the food as medicine’ approach to eating, alongside an increasing demand around functional foods and beverages that support health, in particular those geared toward immunity,” Balanko said.
• Some retail food shopping patterns persisted. Even though stock-up food shopping trips not involving restaurants increased during the pandemic, more than a third of eating occasions involved same-day sourcing in 2020, and more than a quarter involved a special trip to the store, Balanko said.
“This indicates that behaviors can be difficult to change, when consumers are used to getting what they want, when they want it, even in the face of a global pandemic,” she said.
Related: Pandemic Trends Carry into 2021; Consumers Treat Food As Medicine During Pandemic.