From ‘dark kitchens’ to ubiquitous delivery brands and grocery on-demand, where, what and how we all eat is undergoing significant and rapid change. In a collaborative project, put together in partnership with McCain, we have been looking out to 2030 to explore and define how Off-Premise Dining might further evolve, and which of the multiple current trends are likely to stick? The emerging view is a first step toward answering the question. It reflects the key insights gathered from interviews and in-depth workshops with key industry stakeholders in Europe, the Americas and Asia, as well as the Future Agenda database and synthesised desk research. The fight for future market share is already well underway, and significant bets are being placed on a wide range of future opportunities; from health-focused vending machines, through increasingly sophisticated mobile apps, to personalisation of food flavours. With so many significant shifts taking place simultaneously across the entire off-premise dining value chain, there will inevitably be winners and losers. We hope our insights can serve as a jumping off point for further discussion as to where the winners might emerge. As with all Future Agenda projects, the aim is to challenge assumptions, identify emerging trends, and build an informed assessment of the changes ahead and their implications for strategy, policy, innovation and action. If you’d like to be involved and add your views into the mix please do get in touch james.alexander@futureagenda.org

1. The Future of Off-Premise Dining
The Emerging View
May 2022

2. CONTENTS
This document provides an emerging view of the Future of Off-Premise Dining,
built from foresights developed during an open foresight programme.
Context
The Emerging View
Questions and Feedback

3. CONTEXT

4. Off-Premise Dining
We define off-premise dining as anything that is not eaten in a restaurant or
prepared from supermarket ingredients at home.

5. Programme Objective
To identify and highlight alternative expert views and to provide an impartial,
balanced synthesis of how the future of off-premise dining may play out.

6. Use of Document
This is a provocation to stimulate further discussion and debate among
stakeholders.

7. Source of Views
This is based on insights from expert interviews, expert workshops in Asia and
the Americas, desk research, and the Future Agenda database.

8. Accelerated Change
The restrictions and fears of Covid lockdowns have accelerated a shift toward
Off-Premise dining that was already under way.
Sharp growth across all Off-Premise categories
Sharp rise in number of digital platforms, and use of them
Renewed consumer focus on health and hygiene
Shifting loyalty landscape with new platforms, apps and brands
Covid Acceleration
and consolidation
“64% of consumers do not plan to
return to their pre-pandemic
habits of dining in restaurants
within the next six months” –
Deloitte, Dec 2021
Underlying trends
“What’s the point in dining out
when we can have whatever meal
we crave delivered to our homes as
we watch movies on our giant
flatscreen TVs? Credit Netflix and
Amazon for shifting consumer
habits in a way that is significantly
affecting the restaurant industry.”
- Forbes 2018 (PRE-COVID)
Digital aggregation, ordering and payments disruption in Off-Premise
Grocery disruption (Ocado, GoPuff, Amazon etc.)
Changing consumer behaviours and attitudes toward Off-Premise
Big data collection and analysis (consumer, logistics, performance etc.)

9. WORKSHOP INITIAL PERSPECTIVE

10. Looking Forward
The programme has identified 6 thematic areas and 45 insights
covering multiple factors that are expected to impact
the growth and development of Off-Premise dining.
Future
Themes
Enhancing
Customer
Experience
Disruption
through
Digital & Data
Growing
Societal Value
Shifting Value
Chain Power
Changing
Consumer
Attitudes &
Behaviours
Driving Cost
Efficiency

11. Theme 1 – Enhancing Customer Experience
Customers demand more value from their off-premise dining experience.
Enhancing the customer experience becomes a key battleground.
Digital Restaurant Experiences
The Human Touch
East Asian Innovation
Branded Experience Packaging
Personalised Taste
Eatertainment
High Functioning Packaging
Last Mile Cooking

12. Digital Restaurant Experiences
Restaurants use digital technologies to create virtual dining experiences
bringing immersive content and social connection to Off-Premise occasions.

13. The Human Touch
As digital and data-driven experiences consolidate and perfect everything from
supply chains and food prep, through to ordering and delivery, those offering a
human touch or more social experience will stand out.

14. East Asian Innovation
Less constrained by Western signifiers of good food, and with strong traditions of
street food, innovation and accelerated digital adoption in a world of superapps,
East Asia leads devising new Off-Premise business models.

15. Branded Experience Packaging
Innovative branded food packaging concepts are increasingly adopted as a
means to deliver shareable, branded experiences into the heart of Off-Premise
dining consumer experiences.

16. Personalised Taste
The next iteration of data-driven flavour development, is the use of new
technologies to deliver personalised gustatory experiences at the moment of
consumption itself.

17. Eatertainment
Bringing the dining-in experience to homes and events; travelling restaurants, chefs
& waiters along with innovations in food delivery packages will fill nascent demand
for more entertaining off-premise dining experiences.

18. High-Functioning Packaging
Innovative packaging solutions allow new classes and types of food to be added
to the menu of consumer choices for off-premises dining.

19. Last Mile Cooking
The confluence of AV, automation and packaging improvements enables the
final cook to take place en-route to the consumer ensuring that food arrives in
perfect condition.

20. Theme 2 – Disrupting Through Digital and Data
Increased insight and connectivity enable more relevant and more personalised
services to be delivered.
Viral Menus
Data Driven Flavour
Just-In-Time Grocery
Transparency & Misinformation
Hyper Transparency
Rise of Pick-Up
Virtually Global

21. Viral Menus
Off-Premise orders are decoupled from traditional restaurants. On-demand
deliveries from ghost kitchens enables chefs, influencers and/or data platforms
to rapidly capitalise on digital virality.

22. Data Driven Flavour
Big datasets of consumer feedback, attitudes, behaviours and preferences drive
machine learning and AI in a race to develop perfect flavours and experiences
for each dining occasion - maximising the value per transaction.

23. Just-in-Time Grocery
The traditional grocery model of selling items for consumers to assemble fades.
Grocers increasingly provide meal solutions for their customers, wherever and
whenever they want it and are ready for it.

24. Transparency and Misinformation
Consumers demand absolute transparency around health impacts,
sustainability, price, provenance etc. At the same time, the crisis in trust around
information leaves a moral maze for brands.

25. Hyper Transparency
Consumer and sector demand for end to end food provenance and associated
data expands to include the entire journey from soil and farmer to preparation
and the final mile.

26. Rise of Pick-Up
Pick-up will become a key part of the future off-premise landscape where
consumers are able to pick-up food in locations they are already in e.g. enabled
by heat lockers, or subscription services to offices.

27. Virtually Global
Virtual brands, digital marketing channels, remote AR/VR training, automation,
robots and ghost kitchens allow brands to scale quickly into multiple regions and
markets without the need for risky investments in real estate and logistics.

28. Theme 3 – Growing Societal Value
Customers and Government demand that off-premise plays its part in responding
to climate, environmental, health and welfare challenges.
Health Enhancing Food
Food Waste Regulation
Sustainable Off-Prem Packaging
Food Inequality
Viva Locavore
True Cost
Patchwork Regulation

29. Health Enhancing Food
Consumer and political agendas align around the need to address unhealthy
diets. High salt, high sugar & high fat foods are targeted by consumers and
regulators. Personalised ‘health menus’ become a key driver of choice.

30. Food Waste Regulation
Addressing food waste becomes a corporate and policy imperative driving
innovations in supply chain monitoring, circular food production and greater
regulation, affecting consumption patterns e.g. smaller portion sizes.

31. Sustainable Off-Premise Packaging
As Covid recedes the primacy of convenience gives way to concerns over the
tangible environmental impacts of increased Off-Premise dining. Fast moving
brands move quickly to address consumer and regulatory demands.

32. Food Inequality
As the food industry prioritises food personalisation for the haves, the have-
nots, with limited access to technology, healthcare and good food, face a
deterioration of food security and quality.

33. Viva Locavore
As planetary pressures increase, so too does the social pressure to do and be
seen to do the right thing. People increasingly choose diets consisting only, or
principally, of locally grown or produced food.

34. True Cost
Pressure to account for the true cost of of food and food systems on economies,
environment and society increases. Hidden impacts, from diet-related disease to
biodiversity loss and precarious livelihoods come into sharp focus.

35. Patchwork Regulation
Regulators continue to struggle with a fast-evolving tech landscape and gig
work organised through digital platforms. A patchwork of regulatory regimes
emerges, affecting prices and business models in different Off-Premise markets.

36. Theme 4 – Shifting Value Chain Power
New entrants and new possibilities alter the value chain power dynamic.
Value shifts towards the consumer.
Platform Power
Market & Loyalty Fragmented
Virtual Brands
On/Off Premise
Dark Kitchen Dominance
Blurring Categories
Auto-Pilot Opportunities
Brand Fightback

37. Platform Power
Superapps integrate functions in single platforms: From browsing kitchens, and
menus, to booking, ordering and paying. They take an increasing share of the
food consumption value chain - and others (e.g. alcohol, pharmaceutical etc.)

38. Market and Loyalty Fragmented
Post-pandemic dining patterns are likely to reflect other digitally disrupted
markets with a fragmented landscape providing greater consumer choice and a
shift in loyalties away from brands and towards the digital platforms.

39. Virtual Brands
Virtual brands begin to define the Off-Premise space by allowing kitchens to
diversify menus and reach new market segments and separating restaurants
and chefs from the economics of bricks and mortar.

40. On/Off-Premise
Speedy, personalised food delivery, coupled with cityscape ambitions and
emboldened independents, leads to a proliferation of community eating spaces
that mirror traditional food courts but with greater choice and creativity.

41. Dark Kitchen Dominance
Dark kitchens become the dominant model delivering the right food in the right
places to satisfy off-premise consumer demand, especially away from urban
centers. Brands come and go, products evolve, but kitchen operators remain.

42. Blurring Categories
Traditional dining and restaurant categories break down in the face of constant
innovation in the industry, changing cityscapes and consumer exploration. This
forces a more consumer-centric view of consumption.

43. Auto-Pilot Opportunities
Auto-piloted driverless vehicles present entirely new dining possibilities.
They create a new kind of venue for consumption that combines
with a mechanism of delivery and/or pick-up.

44. Brand Fightback
As customer data is lost to delivery aggregators and superapps, brands fight
back by launching their own consumer platforms with unique value and lifestyle
propositions. Smaller players struggle to keep up.

45. Theme 5 – Changing Consumer Attitudes and Behaviours
The shift in what, where and how people eat continues.
Hybrid Working
Demographic Shifts
Priorities vs Cost of Living
Data-Enhanced Consumers
Growing Customer Expectations
New Palettes
15-minute Cities
Subscription Off-Prem

46. Hybrid Working
Working from home, or in satellite shared-spaces, away from centralised offices,
changes food consumption patterns. Breakfast and lunch deliveries increase
and the opportunity for home-prep boosts grocery on demand.

47. Demographic Shifts
Infrastructures and supply chains in markets such as sub-Saharan Africa reach
greater maturity. Business models and consumer behaviours, in a fast-growing
population, leapfrog established patterns of Off-Premise market growth.

48. Priorities vs. Costs of Living
Rising costs of living focus food and beverage choices on price and value. Big
value-based brands continue to grow Off-Premise market share despite
consumer concerns around health and sustainability.

49. Data-Enhanced Consumers
Consumers that may lack knowledge of how to cook with different ingredients
at home, are empowered by digital data platforms to make better choices
around flavour, health and sustainability at the point of ordering.

50. Growing Customer Expectations
Customers will expect more from food-delivery services. Speed, accuracy,
variety and restaurant-quality meals, even after transit time, will begin to sift
winners from losers in the Off-Premise space.

51. New Palettes
Consumer demand for sustainable foods, healthy foods and tasty deliverable
foods are driving innovation; from less palatable insect-based food, through
plant-based meats fun appetisers. Palettes are likely to change.

52. 15-Minute Cities
Beyond headline ambitions of communities in which all necessary amenities lie
within a 15-minute walk radius; the movement incorporates greater community
consciousness, integrating healthy activities and local, social interactions.

53. Subscription Off-Prem
Economics and the need for brands to retain customers leads to more
subscription services, with the potential of new value propositions that shift
costs to a different mental space (more like monthly gym memberships).

54. Theme 6 – Driving Cost Efficiency
Margin pressure forces more focus on technology and networked or local
resilience to improve cost economics.
Autonomous Delivery Robots
Smart Hot Vending
Kitchen Robotics
Data Driven Efficiencies Backstage
Smaller Storefront Footprints
More Localised Sourcing
Sharable Off-Prem Ecosystems

55. Autonomous Delivery Robots
Consumer demand for food delivery continues to grow as autonomous robots
and drones reduce both the cost of serving the last mile, and the time between
food preparation and consumption.

56. Smart Hot Vending
With many traditional vending machine problems solved, smart vending
innovations bring new consumer value propositions around healthier eating,
convenience, personalisation and location to the Off-Premise landscape.

57. Kitchen Robotics
Driven by consumer uptake of digital ordering and payment platforms that are
dissociated from restaurants; automated food preparation entices restaurateurs
with the possibility of enhanced speed, scale, hygiene and precision.

58. Data Driven Efficiencies Backstage
As for consumers, digital platforms providing major efficiencies to Off-Premise
brands through real-time aggregated data from different sales channels and
throughout supply chains, disrupt traditional loyalties and relationships.

59. Smaller Storefront Footprints
Increasing rents, more off-premise dining, and a proliferation of small
entrepreneurs seeking to enter the F&B market, all drive smaller restaurant
footprints catering as much to off-premise dining as on-premise.

60. More Localised Sourcing
As war and pandemics reveal the vulnerabilities and fragilities of the global food
supply chain, we will see more localised sourcing, encouraged by government
incentives aimed at more sustainable supply webs.

61. Shareable Off-Prem Eco-Systems
Just as digital tech allows the creation of personal/curated eco-systems of
consumption (e.g. news and music), shareable ‘playlists’ for off-premise dining, with
food brand combinations defining lifestyle choices, will develop.

62. QUESTIONS AND FEEDBACK

63. Your Perspective
We would very much welcome your contribution, feedback and critique to
help improve the foresights, prioritise those of most significance
and identify any gaps in the view presented here.

64. Future Agenda, 84 Brook Street, London W1K 5EH +44 203 0088 141
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