Poles enjoy eating out
Eating out is becoming more and more popular in Poland, even 60-70% of Poles do so more or less regularly. According to the researcher GfK Polonia, the Polish gastronomy market was already worth PLN 36.6 billion in 2019, its value doubled in two decades, and the number of restaurants increased from 43,000 in 2000 to over 76,500 nowadays.
The year 2020 started perfect for online meal ordering services. January 1st is the most intense day of the year and it was not different this year. Portal Pyszne.pl, where you can order food from different restaurants, has reported that many restaurants had to employ additional people to deliver food and about 90% were to be opened on the New Year Day (out of over 7,000 platform partner restaurants). In the first half of 2019 users of this website made over 7 million orders with a total value exceeding PLN 338 million, an increase of 378%. compared to this period three years ago.
According to Piotr Kruszyński, the president of PizzaPortal.pl, half of the food will be ordered online in Poland in five years and the market value will be over PLN 5.5 billion. In 2020 the online market is to increase by 30%. Next to online orders, as GfK Polonia reports, restaurants are visited by 59% of Poles, which is a constant number in recent years. Nevertheless, the number of visits and especially the amount of money spent monthly there in 2019 increased significantly, the number of visits by 17.7% - to 4 visits per months, and the amount of money spent increased 22.6% to PLN 130.
According to the report called "We are growing green", 3.2 million of Poles did not eat meat during the month preceding the survey. The reasons for this decision are mainly related to the ideological approach to nutrition (e.g. veganism), but also to curiosity and focusing on new flavors. Restaurants respond to this trend, every chain has vegetable burgers in their offer, including the fast food chains such as Burger King or McDonald's. Bobby Burger introduced a vegetable meat replacement from Linda McCartney in 2019. There are more and more offers from American company Beyond Meat on the Polish market and the USA Impossible Foods company is applying for European approvals and wants to enter not only restaurants but also stores. Giving up meat or limiting its share in the diet is not just a fashion, but a global trend, related to both ideological issues and animal suffering and to the environmental impact. The survey conducted for portal Pyszne.pl shows that 1 million Poles are already vegetarians and vegans, and as many as 2 million are planning to go on a diet without meat. According to the IQS survey, also 43% of Poles, without giving up meat completely, have started limiting the consumption of meat meals. Arkadiusz Krupicz, co-founder and managing director of Pyszne.pl, confirms that smoothies and dishes served in the form of bowls are extremely popular in Poland, their consumption has increased more than 2.5 times over the past two years.
Polish consumers are increasingly satisfied with their finances, they feel safe in the context of employment and future earnings, they can afford savings, and more importantly for restaurants, they can spend them on consumption. It is a clear signal that potential customers have funds that they can spend on eating out so the restaurants only need to prepare an offer to meet the expectations of consumers.
Source: Rzeczpospolita