2026 식품외식산업 전망 [2일 차, 외식]

Business-Focused Summary (Food Service / Dining Industry Outlook & Execution Playbooks)

1) 2026 Global Dining Trends (Circana Korea – Kang Shin-hong)

Market dynamics (demand vs. pricing)

• Across major countries, customer counts are soft/flat (often declining YoY), while global restaurant sales still grow modestly (~2–3%).
• This suggests growth is driven mainly by price increases rather than traffic.
• Example logic:
  • Compared with 2019, average spend per customer rose ~10%
  • while customer numbers fell (~-8%)
  • with the spend lift attributed largely to pricing.

Retail + consumer affordability stress

• Consumers face higher inflation and food-price burden, reducing willingness to dine out.
• US example: the price gap between dining out vs. at-home widened (the talk cites a “x4.3 vs x3” style comparison).
• Key behavioral response:
  • Value seeking
  • shifting to more cost-effective channels such as QSR, meals-at-home, and private labels/discounts.

Channel shifts and winners

• QSR/fast-casual & delivery remain growth drivers even under affordability pressure.
• Korea (H1 referenced):
  • Overall dining-out customers down ~2% YoY, but some categories grew (notably cafés and burgers).
  • Burger chains: customer volume up about +5% YoY
    • supported by delivery and promotions.
  • Delivery share: rose to about 13% of the dining-out market
    • contrasted with ~7% pre-COVID.

Consumer motivations (examples)

• Motivations combine:
  • rising expectations for food quality
  • price/promotions continuing to influence choice.
• The talk highlights:
  • promotion-triggered customer increases
  • variety/order expansion when consumers buy at promo prices (not only higher volume).

Menu + product trend themes

Global growth themes

• Health & protein
• Flexibility (snacks becoming meals; flexible meal boundaries; off-the-go formats)
• Digital/loyalty-enabled convenience (ordering + personalization)
• Solo dining / “eating alone” growth

Specific product direction

• Continued interest in chicken/beef and protein-forward menu engineering.
• Beverage polarization:
  • Non-carbonated beverages rising (e.g., lemonade/energy/sports)
  • softness in some categories (coffee/slush/iced tea).

Framework: “4 forces” playbook (implied)

• Four consumption drivers:
  • Health & Protein
  • Flexibility
  • On-the-go / convenience formats
  • Single-person (solo diner)

Execution recommendations for operators (explicit strategy points)

• LTO (Limited Time Offers) as an inflow + repeat engine
  • Claims: companies increase LTO cycles
  • LTO is designed to bring new customers + return visits
• Digital ordering + brand apps + kiosks to lift satisfaction and repeat
  • KPIs cited:
    • ~30% of consumers said digital ordering improved satisfaction
    • ~64% report smartphone brand app presence/adoption
    • Korea digital order penetration ~23% of the dining-out market
    • kiosks cited growing to ~22% share (in the market view)
• Loyalty programs for retention
  • US chain context: ~42% of consumers are in loyalty programs (speaker expectation: importance rises further)

Standalone metric: solo dining market

• The talk cites APAC solo-diner spend as large and growing, including Korea’s solo dining scale (e.g., ~$156B / $220T won-equivalent referenced) with projected acceleration.

Outcome model: virtuous cycle

• A loop described in the talk:
  • Increase sales volume + AOV
  • Improve penetration / repeat frequency
  • Drive new-customer inflow via LTO + novelty
  • Use promotions/health/digital to improve unit economics

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2) Domestic 2026 Dining Trends (Management Research Institute – Yoo Eun-ok)

Macro: “stillness in motion”

• Direction remains similar to the prior/next year: no big rupture, but small adjustments continue.
• Trends coexist by country and generation rather than fully converging after COVID and inflation/recession.

Operational reality: industry under margin pressure

• Four-word summary of difficulties (speaker phrasing):
  • Rising prices
  • Rising raw material/labor costs
  • Intensifying competition
  • Sales decrease / profit decline
• Operator responses:
  • labor-cost and food-expense control
  • applying food-tech (automation/efficiency) rather than only increasing output

Behavioral segmentation for sales strategy

• The analysis connects dining frequency by mealpart (breakfast/lunch/dinner/late-night/snacking) to:
  • where frequency fell and cost-per-visit rose vs. last year
  • implications for pricing, menu planning, and promotion cadence

Trend-derivation methodology (explicit process)

• Playbook described:
  • Collect ~10–25 relevant keywords from online/offline channels
  • Extract ~100 keywords, then group into categories
  • Tiered expert + country analysis:
    • North America/Japan/China + other countries (global)
    • brand/marketing/space/tech themes
  • Final prioritization:
    • experts across 4 groups (by business-owner category)
    • assign weights → produce a ranked list for “Dining Out to Watch in 2026”
• Representative watch items included:
  • Survival-style dining (recession spending behavior)
  • Authentic gastronomy / trust via credible reviews
  • Healthy dining (low/zero, protein-forward, wellness + gourmet pairing)
  • Cost-effectiveness (value emphasis; “chips”-style reference appears in transcript)

Actionable operational implications

• Menu design
  • growth of single-serving menus and non-face-to-face dining methods
  • expansion of zero/low/alcohol-free options (especially for younger generations)
  • alcohol-free offering expected to rise (data cited: ~320% increase in restaurants offering no-alcohol options)
• Brand / marketing
  • improve the quality and quantity of authentic reviews
  • scrutinize/verify influencer content
• Management tech
  • AI/food-tech for review response, menu translation, menu boards, and even high-level prep/robot cooking examples

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3) Industry Polarization Diagnosis & “Self-Level Diagnosis” (DataWatch – Nice Jinny)

Problem framing

• Restaurants face polarization:
  • top performers capture disproportionate sales
  • bottom stores struggle
• Core cause analysis (asymmetry):
  • consumers form “search/choice” habits as prices rise
  • “where to go” becomes increasingly fixed/algorithm-driven
  • many operators focus on generic branching instead of strategic differentiation

Business model diagnosis framework (implied “stage assessment”)

• For stores in crisis, results occur only when the operator executes with feedback and revision.
• Only about ~1% of stores “see results”
  • speaker estimate contextualized to ~800,000 restaurants (≈ ~8,000 famous stores)

Market metrics and KPIs mentioned (Korea)

• Delivery mix example:
  • hall-centered market still matures; delivery continues growing
  • peaked at ~16.5% during COVID
  • later 13–12%
  • expected to return toward ~16% by 2025
• Polarization quant model:
  • market split into top 10% vs bottom deciles
  • top 10% stores capture a large portion (speaker notes up to ~50%+ in some industries)
  • particularly extreme in pizza/hamburger/coffee-like sectors

“Door width” logic (actionable guidance)

• Operators must judge entry feasibility:
  • Narrow-entry industries (top-10% dominance):
    • pizza, burger, coffee-like categories
    • bread/certain Western formats
    • “hard to break in”
  • Wider-entry industries (specialty know-how/value):
    • high-trust quality/familiar taste sectors
    • examples include certain protein or specific traditional dishes
• “Basics-first” philosophy:
  • stores often fail by not executing fundamentals (taste/ingredients/value/store experience)
  • doing only basics leads to average outcomes, but basics must still be done correctly

Practical example: store diagnostic + fix

• Consulting case: a tripe specialty restaurant
  • monthly sales cited around ~10–13 million won (speaker also referenced an approximate ~18–20? range before setting targets)
• Diagnostics identified:
  • mostly dinner-only, but timing mismatched with customer demand
  • customer demographics misaligned (men/women in 30–40s vs actual target)
  • menu/alcohol mix and pricing undermined value (portion and after-meal add-on pricing mismatch)
• Proposed changes:
  • adjust positioning and target demographics
  • correct alcohol offering mix and improve value-for-money
• Emphasis: the fix is based on data + review/behavior patterns, not just brand story

Tooling / process

• “Diagnostic table” concept:
  • determine who/whom, when, where, what, how much, why for each store
  • cross-check via a referenced platform/service (“Compass”) using:
    • review data by time/day
    • gender/age patterns
    • competitor comparisons
• The “8 questions” table is presented as the core consulting playbook for diagnosing gaps.

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4) Financial Lens: Sustainability Through Cost–Volume–Profit + Rotation (Finance advisor – Lee Jae-yong)

Core framework: CVP + break-even

• Profitability explained via cost-volume-profit:
  • profit rises only after break-even volume
  • because costs don’t start at zero (rent, salaries, fixed expenses)
• High fixed costs create high hurdles:
  • failing to reach break-even leads to large losses

Food service as a “platform/rotation game”

• Beyond ingredients, success depends on:
  • revenue rotation (store throughput)
  • AOV / pricing strategy
  • store expansion rate vs quality + operating capability
• Example comparison:
  • Starbucks-like vs other coffee chains
  • some models show lower store-level operating profit despite strong growth due to factors like rent, labor, and price points
  • others show higher margins based on accounting/revenue recognition or franchise-like economics

Growth sustainability warning

• Expansion without backend competitiveness can create “sand-fortress” risk:
  • heavy growth driven by marketing or franchised store burden can deteriorate brand quality
• “End state” described:
  • best brands earn customers’ repeat behavior → turnover improves → procurement efficiency rises → margins stabilize

Virtuous cycle concept

• The repeat-visit + turnover loop is presented as the sustainability engine.

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5) Franchise Success Fundamentals: “Standardization + Quality Control System” (Food Service Co. – CEO Jo Kang-hoon)

Franchise quality playbook

• Three pillars:
  • Standardization
  • Recording / documentation (manuals + tracking)
  • Assetization (turn know-how into systems/B2B solutions)
• Core idea:
  • franchise success isn’t mainly branch count—it’s customer-trust preservation through systems

Quality control process (explicit 5-step model)

1. Structured design (manuals, structured standards)
2. Execution entity clarity (quality happens through people; manuals alone aren’t enough)
3. Operational support + monitoring (oversight during execution)
4. Continuous manual–field gap reduction (iterate based on real variance)
5. Prevent “nobody concentrates” failure (maintain focus and reinforcement to avoid neglect)

Practical regime examples

• 3-minute routine, 3 times a day quality diagnosis
• scheduled rhythms:
  • weekly/monthly/quarterly/semi-annual checks
• customer control charts using:
  • new customers, repeat customers, lost customers
  • categorization to verify satisfaction

Quality as brand promise

• Quality is treated as:
  • the brand’s promise
  • a trust accumulation mechanism
• Referenced framing: expected quality vs differentiated attractive quality (Kano model)

Failure mode

• Manuals can become “recipe-centered,” causing stores to copy mechanics without internalizing brand philosophy.
• Manual content must include “why,” not only “how.”

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6) Online Marketing & Trust Acquisition: Shift from Search to Discovery (WaitingList – Kwon Woo-jeon)

Problems with current online marketing

• Marketing costs are excessive (keyword bids + influencer fees + “receipt/proof” requirements).
• Conversion rates fall as consumers become more skeptical (“smart consumers” don’t fall for generic promos).
• Too many channels create operational confusion (“marketing widow”).

Framework: discovery marketing vs. search marketing

• Contrast:
  • Search marketing: bid/compete for visibility (e.g., Naver/paid search)
  • Discovery marketing: attract via content discovery/social feeds (users pulled in by content)
• Recommendation implied:
  • reduce dependence on paid visibility
  • invest in content that travels (virality/discovery) to improve trust and efficiency

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Cross-Cutting Actionable Recommendations (Consolidated)

• Design for value under inflation: menu engineering that delivers “good value for money” even as price levels rise.
• Use LTO + personalization to drive inflow and repeat:
  • LTO → novelty → new customers + return visits
• Operationalize “health + protein + flexibility”:
  • snacks-as-meals
  • protein-forward items
  • low/zero and sugar-free/low-sodium variants
• Build a data-driven diagnostic routine:
  • use competitor review/time/day/gender-age patterns to align positioning, timing, and value
  • run basics audits: taste/ingredients, portion/value, environment comfort, cleanliness, speed
• Implement a quality-control system for multi-store growth:
  • standardization + execution monitoring + continuous gap reduction + simple daily routines
• Shift marketing mix toward discovery:
  • reduce reliance on expensive search ads
  • build trust through content discovery and authentic review ecosystems

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Presenters / Sources

• Park Seon-young (host)
• Kang Shin-hong, Director, Circana Korea
• Yoo Eun-ok, Director, Management Research Institute
• Nice Jinny, DataWatch (DataWatch manager; presenter)
• Lee Jae-yong, Finance Minister Lee Jae-yong / consulting & finance perspective (lecturer)
• Jo Kang-hoon, CEO, Food Service Co., Ltd.
• Kwon Woo-jeon, Representative, Waiting List (online marketing)