In just a few short years, there have been many changes in the food and beverage industry, and one of the driving forces behind this is digitisation.
Digitisation has helped the industry become far more efficient. For example, it has reduced the time it takes to order your meals and then pay for them at the end. It has enabled people to read hundreds of reviews at the click or tap of a button. It has helped minimise waste, improve stock-taking, and so much more.
How is digitisation important for the food industry?
From a customer’s perspective, the digitisation of the food industry has helped in the following ways:
- Has enabled contactless ordering
- Has enabled contactless payments
- Has enabled customers to leave reviews of their experience
- Has enabled customers to check other people’s reviews before going to the restaurant
- Has enabled customers to check the restaurant’s current food standards/safety rating
- Has enabled customers to learn more about the food and where it has been sourced from
How does the business owner benefit?
From a business owner’s perspective, digitisation has improved the stock-taking and ordering process. Restaurant owners are now more organised than ever before and can keep track of their stock in real-time with the latest and most advanced systems that are easy to use. It also helps cut down on waste.
They can respond to good and bad reviews in real-time and act accordingly. Owners can also use the data and statistics gathered by their systems to respond to certain emerging trends. Also, business owners can communicate more directly with their customers and serve them more quickly than ever.
A closer look at some of the ways digitisation is helping to shape and improve the industry
If, for example, you wanted to play an online slot machine called Funky Fruits but didn’t know where to find the game to play, you could type the words ‘where can I play Funky Fruits‘ into your preferred search engine, and it would bring up a list of trusted online casinos that currently have this game in their slot section.
Thanks to digitisation, you can also now do the same with restaurants when trying to find your favourite global cuisine. For example, you can now type ‘Eat Chinese Food’, which should then bring up a list of Chinese restaurants in your local area.
Thanks to contactless table service, customers no longer have to wait in lengthy queues to order their food and drinks, they can wait at their table. There’s also hardly any waiting around to pay your bill after you’ve finished your meal because of contactless payments. Customers can now whip out their smartphones and pay in seconds. Just ten years ago, this wasn’t possible.
It means that customers can spend less time waiting around, plus it also means that more customers can potentially visit the restaurant on any given day.
Reviews are now instant
Back in the day, it could take up to a week or more for a review to be posted, and they were generally only ever seen in the local newspaper. Today, it’s completely different. Instead of waiting until you get home to write a review of your experience, you can now do it in real-time, and it’s not just readers of the local newspaper who will see your review.
Also, many people like to take pictures of their meals and put them up on their socials. Amazing pictures of delicious food and positive reviews can benefit restaurant owners, just like pictures of disgusting-looking food and negative reviews will have the opposite effect.
In other words, thanks to digitisation, there’s nowhere for a restaurant owner to hide. They have to get it right every time, without fail. Before a customer even steps foot in a restaurant, they can check the reviews for that establishment, which means they no longer have to guess whether it will be a good restaurant or not.
Customers can also get a better feel for the restaurant by taking a few minutes to find out its current food standards safety rating.
