An article from Horizons

Foodservice is the new retail

It is widely recognised that the boundaries between out of home and retail food markets are blurring.

What is less well known are the factors driving this blurring. Reasons which are commonly put forward relate to lifestyle changes such as busy working mothers. However, this misses perhaps the major factor which is not generally recognised; it is to do with the role of the operator – whether retailer or caterer – in driving this change.

Without understanding what is happening it is difficult for operators and their suppliers to plan for the future. To do this we need to investigate the economic basis on which the out of home/retail blurring rests.