It’s a brave new culinary world. The question is: who wants to live in it?
Almost as if on cue, I received an email this morning whose headline screamed: “56% of Americans will think about eating at least one plant-based meal a week this year.“ They don’t mean salad, as a much larger percentage are already doing. They mean fake meat, which has been around since the Sixties, and embraced mostly by California hippies. What they needed to make this mainstream, was a generation large enough, like millennials, who are more concerned about the impact of meat on the planet. More important, these people were raised on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. If your cheese barometer is a packet of orange powder, can a delicious “burger” dripping fake meat juices be that much of a jump?
The other big change in “dining”. which in this context must be in quotes, is food delivery. Forecasted trends are puzzling. Grubhub, which has been around since 2004 and now has a lot of competitors (including Louisiana-based Waitr) has been in a downward trajectory for the last three quarters. This is due to oversaturation in the market, which has forecasters suggesting a merger for Grubhub. Waitr has similar troubles. After acquiring Minneapolis-based Bite Squad, its stock plunged, its founder resigned, and they are bleeding cash. What I can’t forget about Waitr is what one restaurateur mentioned a few months ago. She told us about a salesman in to sell them on signing up, promising a day when all her food would be delivered. She shook her head sadly and asked, “ Can you imagine?” What about all my employees? And I like to be here talking to customers. Why would I want that?” Such a situation would make her a “ghost kitchen”, a place that exists only to deliver food. No actual “dining” allowed.
One of the big dilemmas in this trend is getting enough people to drive food to customers. Not to worry. Drones are on it now, and parachutes. Yes, ...parachutes. But the real fun is in the app. Dominos discovered the power of the tweet and created an app that requires nothing of the “diner” but a pizza emoji. Click it and get a pizza. How does Domino’s know what pizza you want? You create a pizza “profile.” Tech wizards have gone one better, setting up AI to read your mind. It assesses what you really want to eat by scanning your eye movements. Soon it is at your door. This is no joke, but I really wish it was.
I find the DoorDash ads with someone slouched on a sofa awaiting food delivery depressing. What happened to meeting someone you want to be with and sharing a meal and conversation? To be fair, there isn’t a lot of “dining” happening at Wendy’s and Dominos and other fast food places. But I don’t want drones coming into my real restaurants to pick up food while I’m eating a real burger and talking to a real person.
Though these two trends have been around a long time, media attention has been strong in the last few years, driving sales faster than they would otherwise be. It's too early to tell how this will really affect our lives, but it hasn't filtered into our world in any big way, yet. We are safe. For now.
