More than two years after the start of the pandemic, the backlash in the catering sector takes shape: in 2021, for the first time in recent Italian history, the recorded catering activities decreased compared to the previous year, reversing a growing trend that persisted for over 10 years, with 396,993 units compared to 397,700 in 2020.
The growth rate of activities, in fact, led to the first negative figure of the last ten years: -707 companies.
This is what emerges from the processing of the Catering Observatory of the RistoratoreTop agency on Movimprese data from Infocamere, presented in Bologna on the occasion of the first Food Expansion Mastery.
The data on companies registered with the Chambers of Commerce is accompanied by the almost lack of growth in the course of 2021 of companies active in the sector, 340,610, or only +46 compared to 2020, and the lowest number of new catering businesses registered in the last decade: 8942. "This photograph, which is part of the forthcoming analyzes with the 2022 Catering Report - explains Lorenzo Ferrari, president of the Catering Observatory - confirms how much the effective consequences of the pandemic on the restaurant sector, net of the obvious and massive decrease in total turnover, can only be read today. Last year we shared a figure that told of a 'hibernating' sector, so much so that in 2020 the catering activities ceased were only 22,692, the 'best' figureof the last 10 years, although we expected an immediate massacre ".
2022 will inevitably be the year of the restart - it was stated -, the zero point from which to imagine a resumption of the growth trend that stopped after more than a decade, a topic to which the next Catering Forum scheduled for October will be dedicated. .