Food Carryout and Delivery: US Market Trends and Opportunities, 3rd Edition

Report Overview

Food Carryout and Delivery Is Ideal During a Labor Crunch: Restaurant staffing shortages are impacting the carryout and delivery market.

For consumers, food delivery and carryout are driven by convenience factors, while dine-in restaurant service is more about the restaurant experience and socialization. Delivery will be growing faster than carryout due to starting from a lower base of sales and continuing expansion in foodservice delivery options.

See our blog about the Future of Food Takeout!
Delivery and carryout can also benefit restaurants that are facing labor issues. For instance, a shortage of servers can challenge the restaurant experience by causing long waits for tables and service. Ordering food to pick up or getting food delivered can cut down on a potentially negative customer experience inside a restaurant.

Additionally, when delivery drivers are in short supply, automating delivery via drones, robots, or autonomous vehicles where available can make this option accessible and less expensive to customers who might otherwise wait a long time to receive an order.

With a focus on “what’s next” and current consumer trends, Food Carryout and Delivery: US Market Trends and Opportunities is packed with insights about consumers trends, behavior, and motivations to help food producers, foodservice companies, retailers, packaging firms, employers, and investors gauge consumer perspectives and find areas for growth in a competitive market.

Food Carryout and Delivery: US Market Trends and Opportunities delivers actionable predictions and recommendations designed to guide producers, retailers, and investors in making business decisions by providing data and insights about food carryout and delivery.

Scope

Food Carryout and Delivery: US Market Trends and Opportunities is the go-to source for a complete understanding of food carryout and delivery trends. This report combines Packaged Facts’ extensive monitoring of the food and beverage market with proprietary surveys, and evaluates current trends and future directions for marketing and retailing, along with consumer patterns during the pandemic and inflation era and across the broader food and beverage market.

This Packaged Facts report analyses the $727 billion food carryout and delivery market. Food carryout and delivery sales are projected to grow at an average rate of 5.1% annually through 2028.

Consumer demographics, perceptions, motivations, and behavior are examined as pertaining to food, diet choice, and use of food carryout and delivery options. Overall food and health habits and attitudes are also examined.

Total foodservice revenues are provided in billion dollars from 2018 to 2023, and projected from 2024 through 2028. Foodservice revenues are also segmented by type of establishment (eating and drinking places, which includes full-service restaurants, fast food restaurants, fast casual restaurants, other eating and drinking places; and other foodservice establishments) and by dine-in vs. off-premises dining (dine-in, carryout, and delivery).

This report also provides sales for the food carryout and delivery market in billion dollars from 2018 to 2023 and forecast from 2024 through 2028, segmented by carryout and delivery.

Additionally, the food carryout and delivery market is segmented by retailer category – fast food restaurants, fast casual restaurants, full service restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, and other retailers – for 2023; food delivery sales are further segmented by type of delivery (third-party vs. direct).

The carryout and delivery market includes foodservice operations, as well as sales of site-cooked/prepared, ready-to-eat, or ready-to-heat – in the case of refrigerated or frozen prepared foods that have already been cooked – single-serve and family-sized foods and beverages. Items in this report are often sold by retailers in a “grab-and-go” format, although foods and beverages that are made-to-order or packaged by consumers (e.g., pack your own salad at a salad bar) and taken off premises are included. Non-foodservice venues include:

• convenience stores

• direct sellers

• discount grocers

• farmers’ markets

• grocery stores

• home delivery and mail order companies

• mass merchandisers

• third-party/off-premises entities preparing or delivering food on behalf of these venues (e.g., ghost kitchens and third-party delivery services such as Instacart or Grubhub)

• warehouse clubs

All restaurant food ordered for carryout or delivery is included in the foodservice category since it is generally ready-to-eat and consumed on-demand; however, retailers sell a wide variety of prepared fresh and frozen foods, many of which are not made by the store (or a contracted “ghost kitchen”) in question and are thus not included. Store prepared/cooked items in single-serve portions or family portions that are eaten off-premises and are analogous to a restaurant meal are included, such as:

• items sold at sandwich/salad/soup bars

• fresh prepared meals sold via direct marketers/mail order companies/delivery companies in single servings or family servings that are ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat, including refrigerated items and items that are flash-frozen for shipment

• items sold at sushi bars

• items sold at hot food bars

• pizza (both whole pies and individual slices)

• rotisserie and fried chicken (often sold by the piece, as a whole bird, or in family meal containers)

• single-serve, ready-to-eat items (e.g., small cups of fresh cut fruit packed by the store and wrapped sandwiches)

The reasons for and implications of shifts in consumer perception and behavior are analyzed in the context of future market opportunities.

Additionally, Food Carryout and Delivery: US Market Trends and Opportunities has dozens of tables highlighting numerical survey data on consumer demographics and psychographics as well as numerous marketing photographs. This report goes in-depth on COVID-19 and inflation trends that have affected the food and beverage market.

Report Methodology

The information contained in Food Carryout and Delivery: US Market Trends and Opportunities was developed from primary and secondary research sources. Primary research includes interviews with food and beverage market experts; participation in and attendance at food industry events; and extensive internet canvassing.

Primary research also includes national online consumer polls of U.S. adult consumers (age 18+) conducted on an ongoing basis by Packaged Facts to analyze attitudes of consumers and their relevant food and beverage preferences.

Survey data from MRI-Simmons are used to analyze the demographics and psychographics of consumers.

Supplementing Packaged Facts’ exclusive surveys are analysis of the 2022 and 2023 Food & Health Surveys conducted by the International Food Information Council, which analyze consumer food purchase decisions, diet and lifestyle choices, snacking activity, and perception of health benefits in foods.

Use of Meal Kit Delivery Services

Corresponding with increased use of online grocery shopping services, some consumers also reported ordering more meal kits for home delivery during the pandemic. However, it is important to note that use of meal kit delivery services does not appear to be as “sticky” of a habit as general online grocery shopping, as the percentages of those reporting they were ordering fewer meal kits has often equaled or exceeded the percentages of those who were ordering more meal kits.

In December 2022, 17% of consumers reported they were ordering more meal kits than they had before the pandemic, while 16% were ordering fewer. Many consumers had changed their cooking habits and use of meal kits during the pandemic and were continuing their behaviors even as the pandemic itself was no longer having much of an impact on people’s decisions.

Meal kit delivery services may compete with prepared meal delivery services and other forms of meals received through carryout and delivery. They can be convenient for those who do not know how to cook but are trying to learn, as meal kits contain step-by-step instructions to prepare a meal. Meal kits can also reduce food waste and/or help someone adhere to a diet since all meals contain pre-portioned ingredients for the recipe at hand.

Though meal kits are more convenient than general grocery shopping since they reduce meal planning time and provide the ingredients, they still require a cooking step that prepared foods ordered for carryout or delivery do not have.

Market leader HelloFresh offers 30+ menu items each week for various interests, including vegetable meals for vegans, vegetarians, and other plant-forward consumers; “fit and wholesome” meals for health-focused people; quick and easy recipes for those who don’t have a lot of time to cook; and family-friendly meals that are “picky eater approved”.

2023 Trends Result from Inflation and Changed Habits

In 2023, holding off on dining out had less to do with the pandemic and more to do with changed habits and high food inflation. Eating out is often one of the first things that consumers cut or reduce when they are economically stressed, so it makes sense that some consumers may not be eating out as much as they did before the pandemic due to self-imposed cuts to keep to budget.

Additionally, some people who were ordering restaurant food for takeout or delivery instead of dining in during the pandemic continued these habits and ate more at home instead of out – no longer because of the coronavirus, but just as a continuation of these eating habits. For instance, some who started ordering a lot of restaurant foods from apps like DoorDash and Grubhub during the pandemic may now be used to this and prefer to eat restaurant foods at home instead of at a restaurant.