The Future of Eateries
- Chandra Hu
- Sep 8, 2020
- 17 min read
Initial Introductory
Diet and dining are a major part of people’s lives. There is a big culture surrounding our food industries, which brings attention to how the ever-developing advancements of technology and innovation will accommodate to the future of eateries. Eateries, as its known, refer to cafes, restaurants and places to buy and eat prepared food. These are crucial in shaping up the overall economies of towns and cities as well as fulfil the human need for social connections (Feldman E., 2015).
The future of eateries is relatively potential to greatly change along with the ingenuities of society. As we fight to tackle social, economical and environmental issues, better well-being for general citizens and sustainable lifestyles are influenced by the behaviour of consumer society. Researchers of consumer society notice insight on peoples behaviours at restaurants and cafes to be neglectful of important priorities like health, education and famine (Astuti S. and Hanan H., 2012). For these reasons, I believe that more sustainable eateries - adapting ways that raise more positive awareness - is something that should be envisioned in our futures.
References:
Feldman E., (2015). Why the restaurant industry is the most important industry in today
Astuti S. and Hanan H., (2012). The Behaviour of Consumer Society in Consuming Food at Restaurants and Cafes
Week 1
Quotes and Links
“insight on people's behaviour at restaurants and cafes associated with the design of ... neglecting certain other important priorities, like health, education, famine ..”
“In addition to all the good food, eateries not only exist for public enjoyment, but they are also a source of vocational training for workers in the food industry and employment for about 10 per cent of U.S. workers.”
“Beyond the basic purpose of restaurants to provide food and drink, restaurants have, historically, fulfilled a human need for connection and shaped social relations. In 21st-century American life restaurants occupy an increasingly important place in shaping our overall economy and the nature and makeup of our cities.”
"Restaurants are the shared kitchens and dining rooms of densely populated cities."
Notes to inspire possible insights
Entrepreneurs will become more passionate about the restaurant industries and bring competition resulting in more innovation and forms of service.
Restaurants will only become more convenient to satisfy consumers and increase profits. It will be commonplace to have mobile payment terminals and delivery services as such technologies to aid these become more popular. There will be more autonomous and smart tools to help with minor tasks and restaurant management.
Restaurants will adapt complete sustainable means to reduce the industries ecological footprint. Resources will be saved, reused and recycled more prominently with the use of cleaner energies. This may be enforced by government bodies much like the ban on plastic straws New Zealand intends to implement.
Workplace culture will change to value the social issues that are currently silenced. The #MeToo movement has brought to light the injustices of inequality and sexual harassment, including the restaurant industry.
The rise of organic and locally sourced foods with the influences of social media will make healthy foods a more widespread and majorly adapted social commitment
Eateries will become a means of raising environmental awareness. Realfooding will be on every menu.
Eating less and better will be the norm. Many youths are adapting to healthy diets early due to the influences of social change and media.
Serving takeout and delivery will be commonplace as people increase consumption of pre-cooked products.
The reputation of restaurants will depend on their common sense.
There will be creative collaboration among all industries in which restaurants can enhance their service experiences
Data will be used to shape business models and serve to know customers upon arrival.
Week 1 Conclusion
Our eateries are impacted by food culture and technology. Technology can impact the convenience of restaurant and eatery systems, There is also the potential for me to research the aspects of automation, consumer behaviour and the impact of social movements on the modern food culture. Sustainability is also another factor that could be explored to inspire progressive insights. The notes of possible insights have informed me about my understanding of potential change and influences in the industry.
For this week, I continue to request for interviewers related to my topic of eateries and categories their expertise and relevance. I will make major design decisions based on the relevance of the resources I gather - dependent on the upcoming interviews, precedents or articles. The direction I head towards will also depend on these factors.
Week 2
Automation has been known to replace taxing and repetitive jobs. Although this has raised a lot of controversies like many fears of new technologies, the innovation brought along it has no doubt been beneficial for different economies as a collective whole. How has automation redefined the foodservice industry? Why is it useful? How has it been successful? These and other questions are what I wish to answer while researching this week.
Notes for Insights on Urban Eateries and Automation
Automation helps to make things more efficient, while also being safer and cheaper for businesses. There is a reduced risk in injuries, such as burns for fast-food workers. Automation helps by reducing the amount of training required to onboard new people. Businesses will resort to automation to increase revenue and profits, as one of many technological strategies to keep up with high operational costs and increasing competition. "Efficiency is everything"
If every restaurant had automation to assist their business, the traditional empathetic relationship between a server and consumer may be desensitized, which could build up to have adverse effects on the mental well-being of society as a whole.
Autonomous cars can make a breakthrough for delivery services, saving on drivers, risks with driving, and being overall more convenient for both the buyer and seller.
A new system of fast-food chains using automation has prospects to create more employment by keeping more business open. Human intervention will continue to be essential in the food industry. Citizen will need to up-skill themselves to become more valuable to a company.
Automation with data and machine learning would be able to make personalised customer services to increase the efficiency and quality of the experience. People can be automatically recommended favourite dishes, making hospitality less prevalent in the food industry.
As automation becomes cheaper, machines that can make food autonomously will become a bigger part of peoples lives, partially replacing home-cooking and making autonomous cooking an ideal cheaper quick fix outside of home as well (i.e. vending machines).
Automation as a servicing machine/rubbish sorter in the food industry will become a way to sort and reduce waste and wasteful packaging.
Automation with making food will be an alternative to cooking.
Automotive technologies are slowly replacing repetitive jobs and workers are becoming more like maintenance workers than cooks. It is already apparent that part-time workers are paid to assemble food and not truly cook.
Planning my Interviews - Questions to ask
Behaviour Consumer Specialists
What are the needs changing compared to the past and now? (what trends?)
How do you think that eateries influence the behaviour of consumers? Do you think that it has a major impact? How does this differ from restaurants to fast-food chains?
Urban Consumers
What used to attract you to a restaurant/cafe and how has that changed now?
Why do you go out to eat? For what occasions? Why do you prefer going out instead of eating at home?
How do eateries influence you? What importance do you place on them?
Employees
So what's your work? How do you usually serve your customers?
Is your workplace motivated by societal movements (e.g. has a goal/mindset for sustainability/diet/social change/or any other etc.)? What other values do they enforce? What are your thoughts?
What's expected of you as a representative worker? Do you agree with them?
What sort of consumers do you typically receive?
What do you think makes your workplace special? Is there a specific reason why you chose/continue to work there? Expand why or why not?
In the future, how do you think or wish cafes and restaurants will change?
Week 2 Conclusion
Automation has proven to increase the efficiency of eateries in the assembling and cooking processes. There are prospects in making technology work with eateries to become more productive – the Fork Pay being an example. Not only this, but automation can make being sustainable easier.
There has been interest in these automotive products but not all have been widely used because of its price and context of use. Automation is more apparent in other industries, such as the autonomous cars in the car industry.
This week I was able to schedule 2 interviews. I did receive 2 replies from other experts however they did not reply after my follow-up. Terence will be interviewed as an Urban Consumer. There were also other UoA students who I could've interviewed as urban consumers as well but I felt having one representative was enough. Kerushah is going to be interviewed as a 4-year employee of the Vegan Revive Cafe at Lorne Street.
Automation will be one topic I will consider as my potential final insight. The research has taught me about the extensive and impacting outcomes on user experience and efficiency that technologies can provide. Whether the technology is positive or negative is also something I can seek feedback on.
I will also see other branches of interest, based on the interviews I have scheduled for Terence and Kerushah, where I can gain valuable insight and opinions surrounding the future of eateries and how their situation is.
Week 3
Interview with Terence
She is attracted to a restaurant because of their food, environment and convenience
convenience is a big concern - it depends on how easy it is to get to a place.
The place she lives in really impacts her decision to go out to eat as well. She'll go out to eat to socialise, for activities and for the environment.
Dining out provides me with a large variety of food. Introduces to new food
"...the time we can spend with my friends. When we can sit down and eat together or drink a cup of coffee or something like that. Restaurants do provide a very good place and time for me to socialise with people. When it comes to meeting up with people.. we usually meet at a restaurant or cafe for dinner or lunch..."
Restaurants provide a very good opportunity to socialise and get closer to people
Restaurants influence her fashion style
Eating out also inspires her to cook herself and be more money-wise instead of spending it on an expensive meal. She does not value expensive meals.
She does not really care about the sustainability motives as it does not affect the meal - if the food tastes good.
She believes sustainable restaurants are a good direction for restaurants. If it became a trend it would be better for the earth but for myself personally, I don't really care about it.
Would you think this would be more of a social commitment in the future? (to be sustainable) "It really depends on how people around react to this situation. If people around me are not concerned about this topic than I might as well just not concern myself... but if people around start to concern around this topic than I might just change my lifestyle as well and it'll slowly become my responsibility."
Dining out encourages her to think more about cooking because of the price. Sometimes it's not worth it.
She believes having things automated is more convenient and does not bother real people, however there still needs to be people around to help people who do not know how to use the technologies.
Human interaction is important depending on the type of eatery. Like fast food, you don’t go for the people or the atmosphere but for the food. Human people are important for communities as well. Because the people make the place special.
Money is an influence for whether she dines out or not.
In hong kong, most of the time it was cheaper to cook at home. But it also depended on which restaurant you go to and what you are cooking at home.
She values, convenience, atmosphere, context
Interview with Kerushah Moodley
- So what's your work? How do you usually serve your customers?
I worked as a café team member at Revive Café, front of house and sometimes back of house. I initially greet the customer, so they know we have noticed them, and I am ready to serve them. Once they have decided what size and salads/ hot meal they would like, I prep it. Once I get to the till I check if they want anything else. Once they pay, I tell them to enjoy their meal/ have a good day etc. If the café isn’t busy, I try to engage in conversation, so the customers feel welcome and get to know us. This ensures great customer service and keep them coming back.
- What sort of consumers typically go to Revive?
Overall, we mostly get female customers/ vegan. However, Lorne street café usually gets more students than business/ other people. And Wyndham street café usually gets business/ corporate customers. Saying that we get a few non-vegan customers here and there.
- Is Revive motivated by societal movements (e.g. has a goal/mindset for sustainability/diet/social change/or any other etc.)?
Revive is motivated by healthy lifestyle and veganism. We value the 8 keys to healthy living: Nutrition, Exercise, Water, Sunshine, Temperance, Air, Rest and Trust. We also try to make vegan food exciting and have a range of different meals that change. This gives people a different view on veganism that is not just boring salads. And we try to ensure the team get along and communicate, because if they do customers sense the happy vibes in the café. I think all these values are important and encourage customers and employers to live a healthy lifestyle. Especially when there aren’t a lot of health fast food places.
- What do you think makes Revive special? Is there a specific reason why you chose/continue to work there? Expand why or why not?
I think having a variety of vegan hot meal, salad, drinks and desert options makes revive special. There’s not a lot of places you can run in quickly and grab food during a short break etc. Also, we have a range of groceries that are reasonable price. My main reason for working at revive café was because it was convenient for university. However, overtime I enjoyed working with the type of people we hire (friendly and outgoing) it gives the café a good environment to be in. (although it changes often). Also getting to know my customers/tourists/regulars has really influenced my socialising and customer service skills. We try to have a professional yet friendly cafe environment. And revive encouraged me to eat healthier and make healthy decisions (sometimes ).
- What's expected of you as a representative worker? Do you agree with them?
I am expected to wear correct uniform, friendly/ approachable, have good customer service, good team member, reliable, punctual and responsible. I do not fully agree with uniform reason being in summer hats get to hot and aprons are not fun to wear. However, I do agree with the qualities we should have. Especially in a small café you are left alone sometimes so you need to ensure customers are getting served to the best of your ability. And making sure your duties are done well and on time. If one employer slacks off the rest of the team must put in more work. Which can be hard when there may be 2 people on a shift or when it gets busy. Resulting in bad customer service because there is an unhappy team or food is not prepared or café is not cleaned.
- In the future, how do you think or wish cafes and restaurants will change?
Mmmm... I think with Revive we are lucky because although there are stressful times, we still try to have fun and get to know each other. I think it is important for cafes to ensure their team members are happy and not to stressed. Cooking/ preparing food is stressful enough. And customers can sense when an employer is rude/ not interested in being there. Resulting in bad reviews and losing customers.
And having deals/ discounts/ loyalty cards/ new food are key to grabbing new customers/ ensuring customers keep coming back.
Revive Cafe Motives - sourcing from their website
These interviews led to a review of Consumer Society
Consumer society is the result of modernisation in communities. This emerged as a social effect that had created new societal values - influenced by external media and peer groups. Experts also explain how people invest in goods that are not produced for basic needs. Consuming food is judged by the lifestyle need of social relations and culture. However, due to the shift into urban lifestyles, this consumer culture also neglects important priorities like health, famine, education and so forth.
Consumption behaviour is influenced by the design factors of the serving facility and atmosphere; the two types of consumers or eating places – the first consume the food served and the second consume according to the place.
The social role of food has always symbolised different cultural messages. In modern social life, it is representative of ourselves, our place and other mundane personal qualities. Along with this, eating activities has made food a source of entertainment to generate new experiences that overcome boredom. This has developed food consumption into a cultural industry and elaborate success of restaurants and other eateries.
I also had a look at The Whole Foods Market
The Whole Foods Market is a supermarket chain ethical sourcing produce with minimal packaging and demonstrate other sustainable practices. As their eatery, each market has a Salad Bar which services a range of healthy foods; local options of vegetarian, vegan and non-vegetarian meals; encourages the climate-conscious mind-set and makes customers think more about their lifestyles.
"Nearly seven in ten millennials spent more on food than on travel in the past year. A majority of millennials surveyed considered themselves to be “adventurous” eaters when it comes to food, and more than 60 percent make an effort to cook new dishes."
"A majority of millennials want to know where their food comes from and how it is sourced. Transparency in food sourcing is important to more than 65 percent of millennials, particularly for fresh meat and seafood. More than half of millennials will pay more for products that have adopted animal welfare standards and prefer to buy those responsibly sourced."
There is debate on whether eating organic is truly healthy since retail prices are much higher than conventional food when they are labelled organic. Additionally, a lot of organic products are shipped and this is not as sustainable as buying from locally sourced markets.
Whole Foods advocate to make use of the promotional deals and to bulk buy when it is reasonable.
More Precedents
Notes for Insights - based on these precedents
As tools improve, technology magnifies our capabilities to increase the importance of our expertise, judgement and creativity. Jobs with added value contribute more to the society as a whole. Jobs may be eliminated by automation however there are opportunities opened to harvest the material and technological abundance available.
Education investments impact the levels of happiness for a country as a whole. This is decided by us and our institutions.
What has powered our economic growth is the result of each individuals personal advancements, allowed by the reduction of meaningless jobs and the opened path for education.
The food industry is one of the most wasteful industries in the world. There are different types of waste - time, space, energy and waste itself.
Being sustainable means refusing, reusing, recycling and reducing every means of waste. Taking responsibility for what we eat, shop and how we dispose of if it is a way to become sustainable.
Pioneering businesses leading system changes across the seven pathways, overcoming barriers gaining strategic advantage. This is not simply an individual business risk pose as a disruptive risk to farmers and businesses and inaction will result in the food system risking its collective license to operate.
The food challenge to replace meat with meat-alternatives may be key to solving the agricultural implications of meat, but finding meat alternatives are demoralising to the conscious of being a herbivore.
The drastic increase of greenhouse gases is produced mainly by the major oil and gas producers.
Wealth is directly related to the carbon emissions per person, with a better standard of living. In this case, a method of reducing the use of products heavily producing non-ecological effects would liberate the need of fossil fuel and non-sustainable dependency.
The richest countries have greater responsibility for an effective transition to low-carbon emissions.
There is a risk of wrongly advertised sustainability where so-called 'sustainable' products or services are not sustainable at all.
Week 3 Conclusion
My interviews have pointed me to different directions to explore the context of eateries. Terence has led to a deeper analysis of consumer behaviour and urban design as I sought to learn of how environment plays with consumers of a platform. She has also given helpful feedback on her opinions of technology and automation. Kerushah has reminded me of the importance of healthy diets and the impact that having a positive mindset can have on the type of shop it is as well as the stakeholders and consumers.
People are attracted to eateries because of the design factors - food and atmosphere. If eateries upheld a framework for positive behaviour then better communal environments would most likely have ensued.
The next step - I will refine the insights on the three topics automation, health and urban design based on the research I have undergone in the past weeks.
Week 4
This week I look to develop my final insight from distilling the precedent researches and other case studies from the previous weeks. These will be compared to a set of questions to help my major design decision on the final one.
Initial Descriptions - Insight Through Automation
Automotive technologies are slowly replacing repetitive jobs and workers are becoming more like maintenance workers than cooks. It is already apparent that part-time workers are paid to assemble food and not truly cook.
Companies value efficiency to keep their businesses productive, cheaper and also reduces the risk of injuries.
A new system of fast-food chains using automation has prospects to create more employment by keeping more business open. Human intervention will continue to be essential in the food industry. Citizen will need to up-skill themselves to become more valuable to a company.
Automation with data and machine learning would be able to make personalised customer services to increase the efficiency and quality of the experience. People can be automatically recommended favourite dishes, making hospitality less prevalent in the food industry.
As automation becomes cheaper, machines that can make food autonomously will become a bigger part of peoples lives, partially replacing home-cooking and making autonomous cooking an ideal cheaper quick fix outside of home as well (i.e. vending machines).
Automation as a servicing machine/rubbish sorter in the food industry will become a way to sort and reduce waste and wasteful packaging.
Initial Descriptions - Insight Through Healthy Motives
With the rising awareness and government action of sustainability in our industries, the future of urban development will have zero carbon facilities as a method to incorporate sustainable lifestyles. There will be importance placed on encouraging individual action and responsibility on circular solutions.
Vegetarianism will occupy a greater norm in the future, with a larger selection of meat alternatives on every menu to defy the ecological impacts of agriculture meat.
Consumer behaviour is influenced by design factors of food and convenience, If restaurants and cafes adopted healthier menus then it could influence positive and climate-conscious behaviours from consumers.
Initial Descriptions - Insight Through Urban Design
The future of living will be mostly apartment complexes and cramped spaces. Restaurants, as places for people, maintain our connection to society and the world. With the continuous development of technology and urbanisation, there will be a greater dependency for individuals and businesses to invest in connections for the future, thus making public spaces vital for urban integration.
With the rising awareness and government action of sustainability in our industries, the future of urban development will have zero carbon facilities as a method to incorporate sustainable lifestyles. There will be importance placed on encouraging the individual action and responsibility on circular solutions.
Final Refined Insights
1. Automation is redesigning the balance between empathy and efficiency in restaurants, cafes and other eateries.
2. Healthy eating is catering the way to climate-conscious menus – influencing the modern consumer culture – and creating better communal environments.
3. Restaurant management built around sustainable circular solutions is redefining what is means to be responsible.
Week 5
Healthy eating is catering the way to climate-conscious menus – influencing the modern consumer culture – and creating better communal environments.
Being a major part of life and trends, we can question how modern cultures accommodate the future of eateries; cafes, restaurants and other bought services for prepared food. These are crucial in shaping up the overall economies of towns and cities and fulfil the human need for social connections.
Food culture is directed by the regional context of an area. Globalisation has allowed a diverse variety of food cuisines available in most urbanised towns and cities.
Many restaurants and cafes have made a climate-conscious effort to adopt an environmentally responsible image for diners. This would include the simple things like using reusable or paper cutlery to ethically sourced ingredients. However, not all eateries have fully incorporated sustainable or circular solutions in their facilities.
People generally place importance on the ecological footprints of industries, but most take minimal responsibility and undermine other issues of our consumer society. Consumer behaviour is often influenced by design factors of the serving facility and atmosphere; to consume the food served or consume according to the place.
Although they are not vocal about being sustainability-focused, the initiative of a healthy image through vegan food spreads positive awareness for us to be conscious of what we eat. This is also beneficial in reducing the carbon footprint of agricultural pollution. Being healthy is implicated by a positive mindset which also creates happier environments for the community.
Eliminating meat and greasy options off every menu is illogical to assume. However, having a health-conscious menu that is balanced with healthy options is a way to establish as a climate-conscious eating place. We can see how the mindset and environment of eateries influence the mindset of modern consumer culture, letting individuals think more about sustainable and healthy lifestyles.
Following healthy values like the eight keys are likely to change the design factors of food and atmosphere to a certain degree. This influences a climate-conscious mind-set and makes customers think more about their lifestyles. Above all, providing healthier menus and clean spaces for the public brings people out of their homes and encourages a guilt-free place for social connection.
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