Corona caused restaurateurs to lose nine billion euros in sales

The catering industry lost a total of around 9 billion euros in 2020 and in the first half of 2021, as the location advisor Regioplan announced in a press release on Thursday.

While sales in restaurants and bars in 2019 were around 12 billion euros, in the crisis year 2020 they fell by 4.4 billion to 7.6 billion euros, which corresponds to a drop in sales of around 37 percent. The prospects for 2021 are similarly bleak, according to the regioplan. In the first half of the year, sales collapsed by 4.6 billion euros. However, the decline in sales did not affect all areas of the catering industry equally. While night restaurants and mountain huts often suffered total failures, catering companies for health facilities, for example, did not experience any loss of sales, according to the location consultant.

The bankruptcies in the catering industry have halved to 360 in 2020, but due to state subsidies and the temporary changes in bankruptcy law, there is a backlog that will continue in 2021. Regioplan therefore expects to “catch up” and around 1,400 bankruptcies in the catering and accommodation sectors in 2022.

Delivery services in particular benefited last year. Their importance will continue to increase in the coming months, among other things through the expansion of “ghost kitchens”. These are virtual restaurant brands that are developed by delivery services and given to pubs. A pizzeria can, for example, offer burgers or burritos in addition to its own dishes – under a different name. As a result, the delivery services would no longer just take over the logistics for the catering industry, as before, but would become actual competitors in the industry, according to Regioplan. The delivery service Mjam announced in February that it would set up several hundred such “ghost kitchens” across the country in 2021.