Restaurants

Pandemic drives foodservice and food retailers to digital transformation

Picture courtesy of Panasonic Corp. of North America.

December 18, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a majority foodservice and retailers to focus on digital transformations, according to a Panasonic Corp. of North America survey.

The new study reveals that one in four food services and food retailers now view their companies as tech-forward early adopters, up from one in eight prior to the pandemic.

The research is a follow up to a previous study conducted by Panasonic shortly before the coronavirus outbreak. In late 2019, Panasonic conducted a food industry pulse survey in association with Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. The survey found that more than half of food services and food retail executives believed that transformational technologies enabled them to attain a significant competitive advantage. As the new study shows, businesses within the industry now see an urgent need to rapidly adapt to changing customer behavior and demands.

Key findings include:

• 100% of the survey respondents said COVID-19 has increased the urgency to adopt transformational technologies.
• 85% have experienced what they consider to be a very large. impact on their business as a result of health and safety concerns.
• 71% cited digital transformation as very important to business agility, more than any other factor.
• 78% indicated that contactless payments are in much greater demand, resulting in the adoption of a number of solutions including food lockers for pick-up, facial recognition kiosks and vehicle/license plate recognition.
• 53% believed their customers are more willing to opt-in to personally-identifiable recognition technologies for the sake of convenience and personal safety.

The survey respondents believe many of these behavior shifts propelled by the pandemic will last for at least the next 12 months or more. With consumers motivated by a new set of priorities – such as safety, self-service and preferred delivery methods – businesses must rethink the way they do business and experiment with new ways to meet changing demands.

For an update on how the coronavirus pandemic has affected kiosks, click here.