Keywords

Eating out, Sensory Priorities, Food choice, COVID-19, QSR, Social Distancing, Zero touch points.

Introduction

Restaurant industry went through many dramatic changes over the last few years such as emergence of fast food and fine dining, online orders and payment through various food ordering and delivery platform etc. This added a considerable convenience and comfort to the life of families and food lovers who . Impact of COVID-19 on eating out culture and sensory priorities. Academy of prefer variety of the specialty cuisines. Consumer decisions are driven by many set of parameters which are complex in nature (Lorenz & Langen, 2017).Foodies’ don’t need any occasion for exploring and trying out new options. Our young generation is driven by celebrating festivals and special occasions, hanging out and dating with the friends. This has become their regular routine which shaped up their eating out habits. Figure 1 shows the consumer preferences for eat out option wherein, the report has highlighted 75% consumers preferred for dine out option and rest 25% consumers were inclined towards take away and delivery option (NRAI IFSR 2019 report). Food and beverage (F&B) industry has witnessed unprecedented growth in recent years. The changing demographics, increased income, urbanization, digital revolution, use of technology, local approach of international restaurants in menus and changing consumer preferences are driving F&B sector.

According to National restaurant association of India (NRAI) India Food Services Report (IFSR) 2019, Indian food service industry’s market size is estimated at INR 4.23 trillion in 2018-19, out of which 35% market share is contributed by organized sector and a large share of 65% has been grabbed by unorganized segment Figure 1.

This sector has observed tremendous growth in last 3 years which grew at 11% Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during 2015-16 to 2018-19 (NRAI IFSR 2019 report) The size of the global food service market reached 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2020. This figure is forecast to grow to 4.2 trillion U.S. dollars in 2027, showing a CAGR of 2.7 percent from 2020 to 2027.

Restaurants with this folded growth are now staring at uncertain future due to pandemic COVID-19. F&B industry were the first one to get a hit after announcement of lockdown as it completely relies on the spot cash flows.

Gone those days when restaurants were used to flood with food lovers, diners who used to wait in long queue for experiencing those special moments with their friend and loved once in presence of their favorite food which can’t be replaced by getting home deliveries. For effectively managing those long waiting lines various operational strategies like table management models like mathematical model for revenue enhancement were suggested. Diners used to prefer eating out mostly on special occasion over online orders, getting home deliveries and take away. Dine out used to give motivation, gain pleasure and ultimately it used to have a long lasting impact on the quality life (Oh et al., 2014). But now social dine in has been replaced by social distancing (Yost & Cheng, 2021; Figure 2 indicates the impact of COVID-19 on Asian consumers eating habit, where eating at home is much more preferred by diners as compared to take away and food delivery option Nielson Study report, March 2020.

This study is an attempt to understand the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, which essentially demands social distancing, on growing culture of eating out in consumers and determinants of food choices/ restaurant selection.

Highlights

1) The present study contributes to the changing sensory priorities and eating out habits due to the COVID-19 pandemic, using the data from frequent diners, academicians and industry practitioners.
2) Major revolutions have been emerged in the dining habits of food lovers such as, zero touch points, contactless deliveries etc.
3) ‘Taste and flavor of the product’ was most preferable sensory priority for food selection before pandemic. However, this priority has been replaced by ‘hygiene, cleanliness, zero touch points and contactless order due to COVID-19 pandemic.
4) Newly emerged most preferred food choice variables include touch less consumer experience, sanitized restaurants, food safety certifications, contactless order, health and hygiene.

Based on the Highlights the Research Aimed

1) To study an impact of social distancing culture created by COVID-19 pandemic on eating out habits.
2) To explore various food choice attributes used by customers as selection parameters, pre and post COVID-19 pandemic.
3) To find out the most concerning factors for diners for selection of food items.

This study has been conducted in two stages. In first stage, literature review has been done to understand different variables influencing sensory priorities while selecting food and restaurant. At the same time various reliable sources like National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), Food and Drug Association (FDA), Nielson Company, Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) are used to get the current updates about the restaurant industry moves. Whereas in second stage, a questionnaire was designed based on the variables explored through the literature review and De Castro, J.M.,2004; Kearny J.,2010; Onwezen et al., 2012; Cabral et al., 2017; Dai et al., 2020.)

Literature Review

According to the previous study, Food Taste, food quality, sensory Appeals, health & convenience, ambience and hygiene were some of the prime parameters that were considered by diners before COVID-19 Pandemic. But COVID-19, reframed this scenario and now everything revolves around social distancing and hygiene which is the most concerning factor and might hit badly the restaurant industry. This study focus on exploring changing habits of diners and sensory priorities when it comes to eating out as, health and safety have now become priority for everyone.

H₁: Eating out habits will change as an impact of social distancing culture created by COVID-19 pandemic.

According to literature review, Food Taste Onwezen et al., 2012; sensory Appeals Prescott et al., 2002; Fotopoulos et al., 2009; Miloševi? et al., 2012; Rahman et al., 2013; Cabral et al., 2017, health & convenience Prescott et al., 2002; Miloševi? et al., 2012; Onwezen et al., 2012; Cabral et al., 2017) ambience and hygiene were some of the prime parameters, that were considered by diners before COVID-19 Pandemic.

Boesveldt, (2017) in their research paper gave a detail overview of how eating out behavior influenced by smell and taste. Odour or smell exposure induces appetite for the cued food, whereas taste play a major role in nutrient sensing system and help to induce eating rate with perfect food texture. Fisher et al. (2016), highlighted health concern in a long term period as a result of the food choices. Ready to eat or processed food preference over fresh and organic food leads to consumption of harmful ingredients or substances that could affect the health without consumers’ realization identified influence of context on food choice motives. FCQ was used to study essence and impact of various factors on food choice. “Price”, “Perceived quality” and “Freshness” of food dimensions were with highest cognitive salience, however “Convenience” and “Variety” were the most relevant dimensions for the consumption context studied role of ethnic food and it’s increasing worldwide demand. They identified five major significant factors influencing choice of restaurant, namely “Dining experience”, “Social status”, “Service quality”, “Food quality” and “Value for money”. According to Rahman et al. (2012), risk perception is the main emphasis parameter, based on which food choice determinants need to be explored to understand motives of food intake. Understanding a comparative analysis of food choice of adult population of rural Vs urban area, also highlighted very important information to all researcher and professionals highlighted passion for eating out and socialize. “Ambience and taste” for students, “Convenience” for dual income families were identified as primary determinants of food choice of consumers. He also focused on growing trends of green and organic food taken into consideration as health parameter examined consumers’ attitude towards healthy eating and their food choice factors. The most important factors explored were “Sensory appeal” (like “Tastes good”, “Good value for money”, “Keeps healthy”) “Price” and “Convenience”. Health was not important factor as their daily diet was healthy and more concern about weight control found that fast food intake frequency is not affected by awareness about healthfulness of fast food. But now COVID-19 brought health parameters on a priority & rest all falls in the list after health related parameters only. This give rise to the next hypothesis:

H₂: Food choice attributes used by customers as selection parameters will differ in pre and post COVID-19 pandemic.

H₃: Selection of food items will be controlled by the concerning factors due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Method

Participants and Procedures

A sample of 304 respondents actively participated in an online survey. A random sampling method was used for this survey due to pandemic lockdown. Survey questionnaire was forwarded to more than 375 respondents, who were above 18 years and prefer to eat out/dine out. Out of approx. 375 respondents, survey could fetch 304 (81.06%) valid responses. A unit of sample selected for this study was people who prefer to eat out. This study has focused on 6 of the Quick service restaurant (QSR) chains namely McDonald, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s Pizza and Subway. So as a sampling procedure those respondents who never been to the above QSRs, are excluded from this study.

Data Analysis and Results

Normality Check

The collected data was first subjected to check the normality where, values of skewness and Kurtosis were calculated. Maximum absolute value of skewness = 1.898 and maximum absolute value of Kurtosis = 3.738. As recommended values are skewness< 2 and Kurtosis < 7, hence data normality is verified.

Reliability Check

The Cronbach’s alpha for the 17 items is 0.904 (Table 1). This suggests the high internal consistency among the items.

Table 1 Reliability Check With Cronbach’s Alpha
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha	Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items	N of Items
.904	.879	17

More than half respondents were female with 52.3% and 47.7% were male respondent. Demographic classification according to educational qualification highlights more number of postgraduate in the respondent with 54.3%, whereas under graduate & graduate respondents were 20.1% and 19.1 % respectively. There were very few respondents of HSC and Other (Ph.D & professionals) qualification with 3.3% each. Occupation category highlights more salaried respondents with 44.2%, followed by students with 42.4% however self-employed, professional and homemaker respondents were comparatively less with 5.6%, 6.3%, and 1.3% respectively. Out of the respondents 35.2% were married and 64.1% were unmarried. Additionally, on the basis of income level, respondents were classified in four categories which include respondents with income (In Indian Rupees) of up to 20000 (12.2%), 20000-50000 (26.3%), 50000-100000 (27.3%), 100000 above (34.2%) (Table 2).

Table 2 Demographic Characteristics Of Respondents (N=304)
	Participants	(%)		Participants	(%)
Age			Occupation
18-25 Years	163	53.6	Student	129	42.4
26-35 Years	66	21.7	Salaried	135	44.4
36-45 Years	63	20.7	Self Employed	17	5.6
46-55 Years	10	3.3	Professional	19	6.3
56 and Above	2	0.7	Home Maker	4	1.3
Gender			Marital Status
Female	159	52.3	Married	107	35.2
Male	145	47.7	Unmarried	195	64.1
Edu.Qualification			Income
Upto HSC	10	3.3	Upto 20000	37	12.2
Under Graduate	61	20.1	20000-50000	80	26.3
Graduate	58	19.1	50000-100000	83	27.3
Post Graduate	165	54.3	100000 and Above	104	34.2
Other	10	3.3

Descriptive Analysis

Cronbach alpha coefficients were used to assess the internal consistency of the various constructs. Sensory priorities with 10 items forms a very important construct with a very high Cronbach alpha of 0.965, which shows a very high internal consistency among the items in construct. Second construct, Safety assurance with Cronbach alpha of 0.720 also has a very good internal consistency whereas health parameter construct has lowest Cronbach alpha that is 0.510 Table 3.

Table 3 Descriptive Statistics Of Variables
Items	Mean	Std. Deviation	Cronbach’s Alpha
Sensory Priorities-
Touch less customer experience	1.98	1.284	0.965
Up to the mark sanitization level	1.86	1.287
Sanitized public places in restaurants	1.87	1.309
Food Safety Certifications	1.99	1.307
Zero touch contactless order/ Personalized service	1.95	1.322
Hygiene and cleanliness / Ambience	1.66	1.264
Safe Dining experience / Cost efficiency	1.91	1.256
Healthy food menus	2.20	1.284
Fresh and hygienic food / Variety of menu	1.67	1.267
Self-service kiosk	2.23	1.331
Safety Assurance
Open kitchen restaurants to ensure hygiene and sanitation.	1.64	.817	0.720
Less no. of table and seating capacity	1.88	.916
Display CCTV camera / live video to confidence	1.54	.735
Restaurants applying all precautionary measures and NOC certifications.	1.58	.689
Health Parameters
Social distancing following restaurants	1.45	.633	0.510
Hygiene preference over specialty of restaurant	1.31	.542
MNC preference over local food	2.75	1.113

1-5 scale is used to assign average importance by respondents being 1 is strongly agree & 5 is strongly disagree. At an individual level, hygiene preference over specialty of restaurant (1.31) & social distancing following restaurants (1.45) are the most importance assigned items. Rest all items are also considered as important having average importance between 1.54 to 2.23 except one item, Preference for MNC over local food with neutral response.

Discussion on Analytical Results

Eating out Habits (Hypothesis 1)

The study reports (NRAI IFSR Report, 2019 and Nielson Report, March 2020) shared in this research paper as a base to showcase the shifts that happened in eating out habits due to the Covid -19 pandemic. As per NRAI IFSR Report 2019, a tremendous growth has been observed in last 3 years at 11% CAGR, wherein 75% of the diners preferred dine out option as compared to the rest 25% consumers who used to prefer take away and delivery option. Suddenly the pandemic changed the entire scenario overnight. Social distancing replaced social dine in. As per the study report of Nielson company (March 2020), diners all over the Asia gave an indication that their eating habits may get change permanently due to this pandemic situation. People are giving more preference to eat at home instead of take away ordered food /delivery option.

To test the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on consumers eating out habits, a paired sample t-test was conducted. Eating out habits are measured in the terms of frequency of visit, before and after lockdown happened due to COVID-19 pandemic. A paired sample t test was conducted to evaluate whether there is a statistically significant difference existed between the means of frequency of visit, before and after lockdown happened due to COVID-19 pandemic Table 4.

Table 4 Paired Samples Test
		Paired Differences					T	df	Sig.     (2- tailed)
		Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
					Lower	Upper
Pair 1	RES_VIS_B4LKDN – RES_VIS_POSTLKDN	-1.243	1.886	.108	-1.456	-1.031	-11.494	303	0.000000

Significance value of paired sample t test was 0.000 which is < .05 with 95% of confidence level.

The result of the paired sample t test were significant with P value of 0.000 which was less than 0.05, indicating that there is a significant increase in mean ( 1.243) and Std. Deviation( 1.886), with 95% confidence level. This indicates that eating out habits of the customers might get reshaped and reframed due to COVID-19 which essentially demands social distancing. Prior to COVID-19, majority of diners used to prefer social dine in option instead of take away or deliveries of food (NRAI IFSR Report, 2019). COVID-19 pandemic replaced social dine in opportunities with social distancing threat for an unpredictable time period. The COVID-19 pandemic & imposed restrictions are becoming the prime reason for closure and severe losses beared by the overall restaurant industry (Brizek et al., 2021).

Sensory Priorities of Food Choice before and after Pandemic Conditions (Hypothesis 2)

Spider charts are used to explain the priorities of food choice attribute before & after pandemic conditions. Major 7 attributes were selected to explore consumer preferences towards these sensory priorities while selecting a food of choice before and after Covid -19 pandemic conditions. Taste and flavour of product, Food Quality and presentation Style, Healthy and nutritious food options, Hygiene and Cleanliness maintained by staff, Hot serve and freshness of food, Zero touch point and contactless order, Ambience / Decor at restaurants.

Spider Chart (Figure 3) for Sensory Priorities for Food Choice Selection (Before Lockdown) indicates clearly that prior to lockdown, taste and flavor of the product(116 respondents) was the first selection criteria, followed by Hygiene and cleanliness maintained by staff(98 respondents).

Second choice preferred by consumer was Food Quality and presentation Style(85 respondents), Hygiene and Cleanliness maintained by staff(71 respondents) whereas third choice was Healthy and nutritious food options(89 respondents), Hygiene and Cleanliness maintained by staff (63 respondents) Figure 3.

Spider Chart (Figure 4) for Sensory Priorities for Food Choice Selection (Post Lockdown) indicates that post lockdown, Hygiene and cleanliness maintained by staff (129 respondents) was the first selection criteria, followed by Zero touch point and contactless order (79 respondents). Second choice preferred by consumer was exactly opposite of before lockdown period. Hygiene and Cleanliness maintained by staff (86 respondents), Food Quality and presentation Style (62 respondents) whereas third choice was Healthy and nutritious food options(94 respondents), Hot serve and freshness of food (64 respondents) and Food Quality and presentation Style was the least preferred attribute for the customers post lockdown, which was the first priority for customers before lockdown. Hot serve and freshness of food and Ambience / Decor at restaurants were the last preferences for the customers Table 5.

A comparative study of sensory priorities as in Table 5 indicates,

Table 5 Sensory Priorities Of Food Choice Before And After Pandemic Conditions
	1st Choice		2nd Choice		3rd Choice		4th Choice		5th Choice
	Pre	Post	Pre	Post	Pre	Post	Pre	Post	Pre	Post
Taste and flavour of product	116	58	40	17	36	37	42	60	23	61
Food Quality and presentation Style	24	12	85	62	63	46	62	50	28	63
Healthy and nutritious food options	29	19	44	50	89	94	36	55	30	30
Hygiene and Cleanliness maintained by staff	98	129	71	86	33	28	69	48	11	3
Hot serve and freshness of food	19	6	35	29	50	64	53	54	88	70
Zero touch point and contactless order	10	79	12	57	20	24	23	23	54	34
Ambience / Decor at restaurants	8	1	17	3	13	11	19	14	70	43

1. Before lockdown, Taste, flavor of the product and hygiene, cleanliness maintained by staff were the 1^st priority options for majority of customers. At the same time, Hot served fresh food and ambience/ décor at restaurants were the last priority for majority of customers.
2. Post lockdown, 1st priority of customers, i.e taste and flavor of the product was replaced by hygiene, cleanliness and zero touch point and contactless order and that became the 1^st priority for majority of the customers. Hot served fresh food continues to be the last priority for most of the customers whereas food quality, presentation style and taste, flavor of product are also last priority for most of the people.

Prior to COVID-19, the most preferred variables by the diners were, Food Taste Onwezen et al., 2012 ), food quality sensory Appeals Prescott et al., 2002; Fotopoulos et al., 2009; Milošević et al., 2012; Rahman et al., 2013; Cabral et al., 2017), ambience and hygiene. As the entire world is struggling for survival now due to COVID-19, customers preferred to have hygienic food over tasty, quality food with zero touch points and contactless order Table 6. Keeping these things in mind, restaurant operators might bring few changes in their menus which cope up with all requirement and travel safely without compromising on taste when it comes to takeout or delivery option. Due to these sensory priorities which are revolving around hygiene & soci

Table 6 Rotated Component Matrixa
	Component
	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4
Touch less customer experience	0.918
Up to the mark sanitization level	0.912
Sanitized public places in restaurants	0.9
Food Safety Certifications	0.885
Zero touch contactless order	0.884
Hygiene and cleanliness	0.882
Safe Dining experience	0.88
Healthy food menus	0.838
Fresh and hygienic food	0.837
Self-service kiosk	0.774
Open kitchen restaurants to ensure hygiene and sanitation.		0.795
Less no. of table and seating capacity		0.744
Display CCTV camera / live video to gain confidence		0.711
Restaurants applying all precautionary measures and NOC certifications.		0.594
Restaurant visit before lockdown			0.765
Restaurant visit post lockdown			0.754
Frequency of home delivery/ take away/ drive through			0.685
Social distancing following restaurants				0.778
Hygiene preference over specialty of restaurant				0.69
MNC preference over local food				0.513

al distancing, many new initiatives and transformation might witnessed by restaurant industry like limited seating capacity, avoiding buffet system and raw food like salad, lime, disposable menu cards, touch less payment system.

Concerning factors for Selection of Food Items (Hypothesis 3)

Exploratory factor analysis was performed using principal component analysis type of extraction method with varimax rotation method. Rotated component matrix signifies 4 components with cutoff point of 0.40. First Component, which is highly correlated with sensory priorities with 10 variables, signifies that there is high loading with high correlation among the factors. Touch less customer experience (0.918), Up to the mark sanitization level (0.912) and Sanitized public places at restaurants (0.9) are the variables with the loading more than 0.9. Apart from these variables few other variables with high loading are food safety, zero touch contactless orders, hygiene, healthy food. Second component is highly correlated with safety assurance with 4 variables having high correlation with each other which includes open kitchen restaurant (0.795), seating arrangements with less number of tables (0.744) and display of CCTV/ live video (0.711). Restaurant with precautionary measures and NOC certification variable (0.594) is with average loading in construct. Third component is highly correlated with eating out frequencies (before and post lockdown) with 3 variables and have less correlation with rest of the component. Fourth component is highly correlated with health parameters with 3 variables which include social distancing as a more important variable than social dine in (0.778) and preference to MNC over local food with least correlation (0.513).

Table 6 indicates data suitability for the structure detection in factor analysis. KMO measures of sampling adequacy are 0.905 which is > 0.5 and it is significant. This indicates that factor analysis would be useful for the data. In Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity, P value is 0.000, less than 0.05, which is also statistically significant. There are 4 components explaining 66.399% total variance. Factors having eigenvalue more than 1 are considered significant. So, the results indicate that there are 4 distinct construct with the eigenvalue more than 1 out of 20 component.

Sensory Priorities

To identify the load of each attribute of Food and restaurant selection & its relationship with the other factors, factor analysis was performed (Table 6). Touch less customer experience is a factor with the highest loading. It indicates that out of all sensory priorities, considered for the study, Touch less customer experience is the top priority attribute for the customers.

In first construct, all rest sensory priorities such as up to the mark sanitization level, sanitized public places, certified restaurants, zero touch / contactless order, hygiene, safe dine in, healthy food, fresh and hygienic food and self-service kiosk are highly correlated. Past study indicates Food Taste Onwezen et al., 2012), sensory Appeals like taste, smell, food presentation, nice look Prescott et al., 2002; Fotopoulos et al., 2009; Milošević et al., 2012; Rahman et al., 2013; Cabral et al., 2017) and ambience, hygiene as important sensory prioritfies ; which now replaced by touch less experience, sanitization level, hygiene for an unpredictable time due to pandemic.

Safety Assurance

In second construct, four factors formed a construct namely- restaurants with open kitchen to ensure hygiene, restaurants with reduced number of tables and seating capacity, restaurants with CCTV cameras and live video and NOC certificate to gain customer’s confidence. Majority of the restaurant studies have been done on sensory appeals, health parameters whereas Food safety parameters and risk perceptions (Rahman et al., 2013; Cabral et al., 2015) were also focused in few. Safety assurance of diners has become priority need now due to COVID-19. FDA, FSSAI working on requisite certifications required to gain confidence of diners by giving them safety assurance.

Eating Out Frequencies and Home Deliveries

Third construct includes eating out frequencies before and after lockdown and frequency of home delivery /take away/ walk through. According to NRAI IFSR Report 2019, majority of diners used to prefer social dine in option instead of take away or deliveries of food prior to COVID-19 pandemic whereas result indicates major preference towards take away or home deliveries due to COVID-19.

Health Parameters

Last construct includes 3 factors with and they are- social distancing, hygiene and preference towards MNC over local. Restaurants many times have been questioned for their hygiene maintenance & sanitization standards. COVID-19 pandemic showcased the cracks and gaps that need to be filled specially in unorganized restaurant sector. Health and hygiene parameters Prescott et al., 2002; Milošević et al., 2012; Onwezen et al., 2012; Cabral et al., 2017) focused on healthy menus, nutrition, vitamins and mineral contents of food. But COVID-19 pandemic made all restaurant owners to think and revise their operating ways. Health ministry recently released Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all restaurants. As a result diners can now witness contactless ordering instead of menu cards however your favorite flowers, candles would be replaced by sanitizers.

Conclusion

COVID-19 has twisted the scenario of restaurant industry and brought uncertainty & unpredictable tomorrow due to the reshaped eating out habits of the customers. These eating out habits in the terms of frequency were analyzed with the paired sample t test to check the changes in eating out habit due to COVID-19 which signifies the changes in frequencies of eating out habits of customers prior and post lockdown. The present work highlighted on the qualitative insights on eating out habits and customer priorities towards the food choice attributes as an impact of COVID-19 pandemic. Sensory priorities of diners towards food selection i.e. prior and post lockdown were analyzed through spider charts. Before lockdown, Taste, flavor of the product and hygiene, cleanliness maintained by staff were the 1^st priority options for majority of customers whereas post lockdown, 1^st priority of customers, i.e taste and flavor of the product was replaced by hygiene, cleanliness and zero touch point and contactless order and that became the 1st priority for majority of the customers. Factor analysis was performed to check reliability of most preferred food choice variables which includes ‘touch less customer experience’, ‘sanitized restaurants’, ‘food safety certifications’, ‘contactless orders’ and ‘health and hygiene’. This indicates that restaurants need to reframe, restructure their SOPs and strategies to gain the confidence of the customers as COVID-19 may have a long lasting effect & show repercussions in many more ways than thought.

Due to the pandemic, restaurant industry fronting an existential threat and posed various challenges ahead for the survival, wherein revenue is dropped down to zero. Now it has become a need of hour that restaurant industry should gear up with the innovative ways of approaching and reaching out to the customers considering health and hygiene at a priority and following all the social distancing protocols. According to a survey about visiting restaurants after the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown relaxation in India, about half of the respondents had the fear of catching the virus from the restaurant and also did not want to spend on eating out (Statista Research Department, 2021). Respondents with a high perceived risk, less product interest and less perceived profit from Online Food Delivery (OFD) services, are less likely to place online order.

To deal with changing eating habits of diners and selection criteria for restaurant and food choices, restaurant industry should implement few strict norms which would be beneficial for survival in the long run and make the restaurants future ready to facilitate the smooth operations in the industry. The best practices that need to be implemented by industry are:

Social distancing (Seating arrangements, Ordering queue, entry and exit in restaurant, while using washrooms). Cleanliness and sanitization (Regular sanitization of tables, chairs and gathering areas, Staff with gloves, mask and hair cap, regular hand wash , sanitizers placement at entry gate and on each table) healthy habits (Wear mask, Regular hand wash and use of sanitizer, Zero touch eating experience). Customer friendly operations (Digital menu card, digital payment, less waiting period, quick serve). Home deliveries and pick up (Zero contact/ contactless deliveries, online payments and avoid cash on delivery option, drive in services) As we expect basic framework and SOPs need to be followed by restaurants, government also should extend the helping hand to the restaurant industry as due to frequent lockdowns, restaurant industry is suffering huge losses & need capital for reopening procedures as well.

Limitations and Future Scope of Study

This research paper has got few limitations which need to be addressed by further researchers. This study focuses on QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) chains only whereas; researchers can study the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on Casual, Fine Dine Restaurants and majorly on the unorganized food industry as well. This research paper referred variables from Food Choice Questionnaire, literature review and few food and research related associations. Eating out habits and concerning factors for food selection may vary in unorganized food industry that from Quick Service Restaurant chains due to entirely a different set of customer base. This study topic may give different results and outcome at different locations with different demographic factors and variables. Based on these studies and changing dining out preferences, one can think of developing ideal service model for a post pandemic restaurant industry.

Acknowledgement

The researchers are grateful to all the respondents for their enthusiastic participation in the study in spite of the pandemic.

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for profit sectors.

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Received: 19-May-2022, Manuscript No. AMSJ-22-12045; Editor assigned: 23-May-2022, PreQC No. AMSJ-22-12045(PQ); Reviewed: 06-Jun-2022, QC No. AMSJ-22-12045; Revised: 08-Jun-2022, Manuscript No. AMSJ-22-12045(R); Published:10-Jun-2022