It’s a booming sector fuelling our busy lives. Healthy living and the catering services needed to meet demand is growing, not only in the UAE but globally.
Rarely has the phrase “convenience is king” been more apt than in the booming food-to-go and meal plan market.
A combination of factors – new ordering and payment technology, global food trends, changing dietary requirements and consumer demand for fast and convenient food – has helped to ignite a sector that used to be limited to sandwiches, burgers and sweet snacks. For example, the UK’s hot and cold ‘grab and go’ market is now valued at more than £20billion, roughly the gross domestic product of Estonia!
Consumers want “food on the go” at all hours of the day, and the pressure is on catering suppliers to innovate and craft delicious products and services that meet this growing demand.
Specialist catering services serving this market must provide varying services to their customers including:
- Meal plans that have long-term wellness goals in mind
- Snacks and treats that satisfy hunger pangs and cravings
- Nutritious light meals that are needed for lighter lunches and work engagements
- Nutritional and dietary advice to avoid the fads and yo-yo diets that are both unsustainable and unrealistic to maintain
- Vegan, lactose and gluten free foods
- Deliver all of the above in a highly professional service to consumers and corporate clients alike
The rise in consumer knowledge on food
When it comes to food, consumers are becoming more switched on and, although value for money remains their prime consideration, they are indeed willing to pay more for quality and service that delivers.
Innovations including meal plans and catering have an increasingly vital role to play in the UAE market with operators now catering to the varying requirements of their customers.
One critical obstacle to eating healthy is the time taken to not only produce and craft the meals themselves but what to actually make for themselves. Whilst it is true consumers are more food savvy, they still lack the knowledge to design and ensure that food is healthy.
Demand for healthy living growing in the UAE
One such company, Right Bite, formed in 2004 is an example of the rising trend in healthy eating that bridges the inconvenience of preparation. The pioneering company advocates maintaining a healthy lifestyle through educated food choices and by providing customised meal packages that are not only innovative, convenient and flavourful, yet deliver to their customers – whether for lunches, meals or larger corporate catering events.
Moreover, it is not merely a plethora of different eating choices that consumers in the UAE are searching for. The rise in veganism, vegetarianism, lactose and gluten-free-eating has also had an impact on our eating trends.
Not only are these foods nutritiously excellent, but they also contain fewer calories for those seeking to reduce the amount they eat. Avocado, beetroot, cauliflower, falafel, chia seeds, grains, rice and pulses are increasing base ingredients for these diets. Unlike fad diets utilising these ingredients in catering, meal plans make it easier to maintain.
The rise in specialist, healthy and ethical diets
This, in turn, has led to increases in consumers adopting pescetarian and flexitarian diets – eating fish or trying to reduce their meat, dairy and fish intake. These types of diets have grown 700% in the UK and 600% in the USA in the last three years, leading to a boom in both restaurants and cafes offering these foods; this trend is reaching the UAE.
Consumers adopt alternative diets due to ethical reasons, out of compassion for animals and disagree with eating them for human consumption.
Several religious groups follow a strict no-meat diet, and thus veganism and pescetarianism is a suitable and more natural diet to sustain.
Farming and fishing techniques cause extensive damage to the environment and the world’s oceans. Today’s millennial generation cite environmental concerns as a reason to avoid eating meat and fish. They aim to help by reducing meat, dairy and fish intake to avoid contributing to deforestation, natural gas emissions and damaging coral in the world’s oceans.
Change in consumer work patterns and on-demand eating
Changing working patterns and dining habits means office workers are a crucial market for specialist healthy catering services. Not only is there a shift towards healthier products, but there is also evidence that customers want a world of convenience, and to do that they need food delivered to them.
For Right Bite, this means supplying healthy food products promptly for their customers to eat for lunch or dinner. Furthermore, caterers are moving past the typical meal offerings and offering exciting snack combinations too, all ready-made and ready to deliver.
So, although calories are part of the equation, there is also demand for food products that are quick and easy to order. This speed of delivery may seem a burden for specialist healthy catering services, yet as the adoption of faster, transforming technologies develop, this is not the case.
Adopting the right technology, from mobile apps, POS restaurant systems, even to POS for catering services companies like Right Bite are not only transforming the lives of consumers but also their businesses, by adopting technology to satisfy this growing demand.
With the adoption of healthier eating, global living and food on demand to satisfy consumers ever-busy lives, the need for specialist healthy catering services in the UAE is only going to grow.
Businesses who don’t utilise newer, more cost-effective and faster technologies to meet this insatiable demand are going to be left behind, as competitors transform their POS machine hardware and POS system uae in Dubai and overtake them.
Words: David Bailey-Lauring
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