The landscape of the food service business has been changed through all the public health restrictions we’ve seen in the past couple years in Canada – everything from total shutdowns to curbside delivery.
Before the pandemic, full-service restaurants – think of those as having wait staff, liquor licenses and so on – were the dominant players in the industry holding the largest market share.
By the end of 2021, they had been pushed back into second place and now those described as offering limited service – this is mostly fast-food outlets – hold the lion’s share of overall revenues.
Year-end figures from Statistics Canada show that because fast-food outlets with drive-thru windows were most well positioned to make the transition to a COVID environment, their share of the food service market rose from 44 to 51 per cent.
Signs that we were beginning to emerge from the pandemic environment were showing as last year came to an end. Compared to December a year earlier, for example, sales revenues in drinking establishments were twice what they were in December of 2020.
