Direction Restaurant of the Future

BACKGROUND

The EIT Food Foresight Report from 2020 showed that agrifood sector in CEE proved to be resilient to COVID-19 pandemic and despite the general economic downturn kept stable production and sales levels. The only part of the value chain, which was heavily negatively impacted by the crisis and faced multiple challenges due to lockdown is HoReCa.

Restaurants often struggled to survive and had to change their working modes very quickly and adapt to new circumstances of running a business. At the moment a major shift is taking place. How can the hospitality sector implement sustainable management practices (e.g. more cautious food waste, plastic reduction, employees’ experience) when facing the pandemic crisis and all its implications? How to avoid reinforcement of the conservative approach, focused mostly on day-to-day survival?

EIT Food runs a co-creative research project “Direction: Restaurant of the Future”.

It is based on the scoping workshop with leaders of the HoReCa industry in Poland, qualitative interviews with chefs, restaurant managers, caterers, suppliers and even packaging producers to grasp the full scope of the HoReCa value chain as well as a co-creative session with chefs and restaurant managers to design new solutions for more sustainable Restaurant of the Future.

The activity held in Poland will provide background for the international dialogue in the hospitality sector.

MAIN PROJECT OBJECTIVES

We aim to find synergies between different stakeholders at the regional level and provide credible solutions, co-created with the representatives of the food business in order to support a shift towards sustainability.

The project has been carried out with the “bottom-up” spirit, involving stakeholders from the brunch so that they feel that the solutions developed are theirs and are not imposed by anyone.

• Showing directions of sustainable actions for industry actors
• Establishing a set of selected sustainable and responsible practices for the Restaurant of the Future
• Demonstrating effectiveness by showing the benefits to stakeholders in the ecosystem
• Showing in practice how to implement sustainable activities in the HORECA sector (first steps)
• Supporting local representatives of HoReCa business with instruments and measures to transform their food businesses and make them more sustainable in times of crisis
• Initiating international dialogue between representatives of HoReCa and exchange of good practices in the field of sustainability
• Preparing the ground for an opening to dialogue and exchange of practices with the EU.

The list of the sustainable practices together with the results of the qualitative research and co-creative workshop will be available for downloading from the EIT Food website.

Together with the participants of the activity we will present key insights and practices during several brunch conferences and international events such as:

• Great Taste Zero Waste on 12th October in Riga and online organized by CLC North-East in cooperation with Nordic Council, Danish Cultural Institute and Danish Embassy in Latvia engaging CLC NE’s Partner (Food Bank) and Baltics RIS HUBs
• TOP Creators on the 26th October in Cracow and online