2012 FM Trendometer

EACH MONTH, Food Management analyzes and reports on the trends affecting the various onsite foodservice segments. We have seen them come and go for going on 40 years now.

Remember when HMR was all the rage? How about microwave tunnels in hospitals or QSR brands in schools? We do. Heck, we still remember when exhibition cooking was an emerging trend and the college c-store was a novelty.

In the chart above, we've noted some of the prominent developments affecting onsite dining right now as well as a few that seem to be peaking or fading, but the list is hardly exhaustive.

The technology field alone is brimming with possibilities: flexible LCD screens that extend what you can do with smart signage; RFID tags that may revolutionize shelf-life monitoring of fresh product; face-recognition and other biometric systems that not only will impact customer validation and POS but how employee time records are tracked; and of course contactless and cell phone based payment systems that may make not just cash but also credit and debit cards obsolete at some point.

Stay tuned…