More and more people in Germany are ordering food at home

The Bitkom e.V. has found that since the beginning of the Corona pandemic, more people are ordering food at home. Many are still working from home, and others are afraid of getting infected in restaurants. Surprisingly, traditional phone calls still outnumber online orders in most cases.

(Berlin) Whether it’s pizza, sushi, or a meal from a favorite restaurant: The outbreak of the Corona pandemic has prompted many people in Germany to order food online. While previously only 40 percent did so, now 53 percent report ordering ready-made meals online. This is the result of a representative survey conducted by the digital association Bitkom among 1,002 people in Germany aged 16 and older in June 2020. Specifically, 37 percent currently order their food from an online delivery service rarely, occasionally, or frequently – compared to 32 percent before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic.More than one in five (22 percent) order online or via an app through a platform like Lieferando, up from 14 percent previously. Seventeen percent order directly from the homepage of a restaurant nearby, which is 6 percentage points more than before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic (11 percent). “Many people are still working from home, and there are still concerns about the risk of infection when dining in restaurants. Ordering lunch or dinner at home is currently a good alternative: the food can be paid for online in advance, and delivery is contactless,” says Florian Lange, e-commerce expert at Bitkom. “Digital ordering options also provide restaurants with the opportunity to recover lost revenues due to the weeks-long closures of establishments.”However, traditional ordering of pizza, sushi, and more by phone is still used even more frequently: Almost half (48 percent) had at least occasionally ordered by phone from delivery services before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, while 54 percent do so now. Four out of ten respondents (41 percent) have called a restaurant to order food for home delivery, compared to 46 percent currently.Photo: Adobe Stock / Graphic: bitkomwww.bitkom.org