No more solitary meals at the cantoche!
From this Wednesday, the day which marks the gradual return to the company of employees with the end of 100% teleworking, we will be able to sit down with several in company restaurants.
With the acceleration of vaccination and the drop in the number of contaminations, the distancing measures governing collective catering taken in March will be lightened, as stipulated in the new protocol published by the Ministry of Labor.
Suspended since the second confinement in October, the jars and other "moments of conviviality" can also be organized "in strict compliance with barrier gestures, the wearing of a mask, ventilation measures and the rules of distancing".
Ideally, the government's new health protocol recommends holding these events with a maximum of 25 people, in outdoor spaces.
Guests separated by a meter
Among the new features is the possibility of “having lunch alone or in a group of a maximum of 6 people, coming together or having booked together, in order to limit the number of contacts. »At the same table, each seat must be separated by one meter. And each occupied table must be placed at a minimum distance of two meters from the others "unless a removable wall ensures a physical separation", specifies the protocol. In all catering rooms, the gauge is limited to 50% of the capacity. In the queue, and for any movement within the restaurant, the guests must "respect a distance of one meter", and keep their mask.
In the field, the implementation of this new protocol could however turn into a headache, especially as among the leaders of this sector plagued by the crisis, the social plans have followed one another, raising fears of a complex return day for its employees.
A test before the start of the September school year
Proof that professionals in the sector are waiting to know what the level of affluence in companies will be in order to implement the entire protocol, several chefs and collective catering employees interviewed this Tuesday noon by Le Parisien - Today in France did not yet know the details of these new measures.
In other restaurants, sometimes at a virtual standstill for months, employees were busy updating the premises, disinfecting, and preparing orders. "The protocol is complicated to set up but we are seasoned thanks to the various stages that we have already known", assures the general delegate of the national union of collective catering, Esther Kalonji.
At Sodexo France, the director in charge of hygiene, Philippe Conties, explains: “This period will serve as a test to prepare for the start of the school year in September.
"For the specialist, who is counting on the arrival of the summer holidays to" limit the flow ", one of the big difficulties will concern" aeration, since the air must be renewed every five minutes ".
A measure "simple to implement when the season permits", but which could prove to be more complex depending on weather conditions.
The other point of difficulty concerns the cleaning of the partition walls.
"It must be carried out systematically after the passage of each consumer", he explains.
Take-out meals on the rise
In order to limit the number of customers seated and the multiplication of control measures, professionals rely above all on the growing appeal of take-out meals in click and collect.
- a measure provided for in the protocol.
According to Patrick Boisseau, market director at Elior, "the take-out sale outside or at his office represents 15% to 80% of orders depending on the company, and this figure is growing," he reveals.
An organization of the future?
Among the new services that collective catering groups are democratizing to respond to these changes is increasingly the possibility of ordering meals in advance via mobile applications.
