How fast will fast food become? | ABC Overnights
Remember the local fish and chip store, Chinese restaurant, pie and sauce and chicko roll? Well, they like many other cultural norms, made way for their successor the mostly American hamburger and pizza format stores which 40 years ago heralded in a new way to eat-out and a new cuisine.
These store have done well and are still market giants and IBIS tells us that as of April 2015 McDonald’s held 16.5% of the fast food marketplace and sold $2.35 billion last year. KFC and Pizza Hit, owned by Yum! Restaurants, held 10.1% and turned over $1.43 billion last year and Subway accounts for 9.8% and had a turnover of $1.395 billion last year.
IBIS World Fast Food Services in Australia April 2015
But as with every other industry, these huge readily available food stores are feeling a tap on the shoulder as the next generation of food for sale hits our streets.
This prompted Rod Quinn of ABC Overnight’s to strike up another one of our regular early morning chats looking at the future of the fast food industry.
It seems that our tastes are moving gourmet, local and slow. We still want convenience but are willing to wait just a little longer for something that appears to be more nutritious and healthier.
Our existing big chains are trying to lead the charge by changing and extending their menus, but there other many new kids on the block offering a variety of new cuisines, new formats and new in store experiences. We’re seeing new stores, premium products, new floor plans, new ethnic foods, street carts and vans and a strong local community vibe permeating most of the in store marketing and look and feel.
Where to next for our fast/slow foods, this years top food trends, past food failures and successes and a quick tour around the world at what’s hot in take out foods and stores all made for a really great conversation and thanks to Dave, Mark, John, Bill, Tom, Greg, George, Pete, James, Ray, Geoff, Herb, Riley and Dale for calling and texting in and apologies to all the others that we couldn’t get to, this was truly a hot topic with lots of reminiscing, lamenting, questioning and hypothesising.
Have a listen to the segment now (45 minutes 26 seconds), share it around and join the conversation by letting me know what you want from the future of your fast food.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What are the technology signals transforming fast food and food service operations?
The technology transformation of fast food has proceeded along several parallel tracks since 2015: digital ordering (kiosk, app, and table-based) has been extensively deployed across major chains globally, reducing front-counter staff requirements while increasing order customisation and upsell rates; kitchen automation (automated burger assembly, fry robots, pizza-making robots) has been commercially deployed by several major chains with measurable productivity and consistency benefits; delivery has been transformed by platform aggregators (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Deliveroo) who have fundamentally changed the economics of food service by creating a new revenue channel while introducing a new cost structure; and the integration of AI in demand forecasting, inventory management, and menu optimisation has reduced waste and improved margins in ways that are invisible to customers but significant to operators.
Q: What does the fast food industry’s technology adoption reveal about service work more broadly?
Fast food’s technology adoption is revealing about service work for several reasons: it is one of the highest-volume, most standardised service environments, making it particularly suitable for automation of routine tasks; the pace of adoption has been driven more by labour cost pressure (particularly post-COVID when hospitality labour became scarce and expensive) than by pure technology capability; and the employment outcome has generally been task transformation rather than simple job elimination — the mix of tasks performed by front-line workers has shifted toward customer interaction, exception handling, and system oversight while routine order-taking and some preparation tasks have been automated. The pattern suggests that service work automation follows the same task-level logic as other sectors: routine, predictable tasks automate; judgment, relationship, and exception-handling tasks remain human.
Q: What are the genuine Ripple Effects™ of fast food automation for communities and workers?
The Ripple Effects™ of fast food automation extend beyond the immediate workforce: fast food and hospitality have historically been the entry-level employment pathway for young workers, new migrants, and people with limited formal qualifications — as these roles are transformed or reduced in number, the entry-level employment ladder becomes narrower; the geographic concentration of food service employment in lower-income areas means that job reduction in this sector has disproportionate impacts on communities with fewer employment alternatives; and the timing of the automation wave — coinciding with the post-COVID labour scarcity that produced wage increases for hospitality workers — means that the workers who benefited most from improved conditions in 2021-2023 may face the greatest technology displacement pressure in 2025-2030. The workers who bear the cost of the transition are rarely the same as those who capture its benefits.
Q: How can I book Morris Misel for a service industry futures, automation, or hospitality keynote?
Contact the team at morrismisel.com/event-organisers.
Remember the local fish and chip store, Chinese restaurant, pie and sauce and chicko roll? Well, they like many other cultural norms, made way for their successor the mostly American hamburger and pizza format stores which 40 years ago heralded in a new way to eat-out and a new c.
When signals like How fast will fast food become emerge, organisations that engage early have the advantage of choosing their response rather than reacting to events. That gap between those who prepared and those who did not is where competitive positioning is actually made or lost.
The most important question is not whether How fast will fast food become will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
