The big blow-out, the all-you-can-eat buffet, the champagne magnum with sparklers, the banana split with extra cream – the on-premise has always been the place where the rules of watching what you eat, drink and spend don’t necessarily apply.
For many, a visit to a club, bar or restaurant at the end of the week was a reward for the toil of ‘being good’ from Monday to Friday, whether that meant keeping a check on spending, calories or units of alcohol. It was where abstinence went out of the window and extravagance reigned.
But that’s changing.
Consumers continue to prioritise health in their agendas in both in-home and, crucially, on-premise environments. In CGA by NIQ’s latest global research of over 30,000 on-premise visitors, we asked what dietary requirements they expect to see reflected in on-premise menus. As would be expected, vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free all ranked highly, but the first, second and third options were low-sugar, low-fat and low-calorie.
When asked specifically about drinks menus, one in seven on-premise visitors say that they would like nutritional information to be detailed, with the same proportion also wanting calorie information included before they make a choice. To contextualise, these figures are higher than those corresponding for listed glassware (11%) and seasonal drinks or monthly special drinks (14%).
This is perhaps why, over the Australian summer, one of the big hits of the warmer months in the on-premise was lower-calorie beer. Similarly, in the US, the hard seltzer craze was born from campaigns developed around healthier drinking with fewer calories. This is the same momentum behind the country’s burgeoning RTD category, much of it with lower-calorie options at its core.
Indeed, in our same global research, when questioned about the beverage attributes that are increasingly important in on-premise choices, ‘healthy’ ranked fourth of 24 elements (as it did last year), behind only ‘good value’, ‘high quality’ and ‘trustworthy’.
Does this mean that we should all look at how to reduce the calorie content of our products and market them for an on-premise market in which restraint, rather than excess, is the driving factor? Maybe.
Call me old fashioned, but my view is that the core role of the on-premise always was – and always will be – predominantly that of the little luxury.
Nobody forces the restaurant visitor out of their home to, in all likelihood, pay more for a less healthy meal than they could make with the ingredients in their fridge, because that just isn’t the point. We visit the sector because we want something out of the ordinary – a break from the everyday. If that means a few extra calories, so be it.
That’s why some of the quickest-growing – and most successful – operators around the world at the moment maintain a focus on indulgence. Be it the myriad of dessert chains increasingly catering to the ‘mini-luxury’ occasion, through calorie-loaded milkshakes and waffles, or the increasingly popular Brazilian-style rodizo buffets offering as much luxury meat as you can handle.
In drinks, meanwhile, on-premise operators bejewel their stellar menus with hints of indulgence, be that a fat-washed old fashioned or a brandy milk-punch made with lashings of delectable Madagascan vanilla cream.
Faced with these options, I know that my calorie counting would be thrown aside in an instant.
Of course, there’s a time and a place for moderation and abstinence – and with consumption occasions shifting to lower tempo and earlier parts of the day, this will continue to influence the on-premise and provide opportunities for brands that are able to play into the associated consumer need states.
Even I, a lover of great food (and lots of it) alongside gluttonous higher-ABV drinks, am partial to a good non-alcoholic beer. To tell the truth, I have far more healthy meals than ‘unhealthy’ ones when I go out.
However, when I choose to treat myself with a trip to a pub, bar or restaurant as a (well-deserved) reward, there’s only one option – and it’s not a low-cal, weak, poor-tasting option in the name of health. No thanks! I’ll have a sticky toffee pudding, please. Oh, and an Irish coffee with extra cream too.
I am in the on-premise, after all.
