Qualitaly_118

AUG. SEP. 2020 V chopsticks and plastic cutlery (who needs them at home? wouldn’t it be appropriate to ask what is needed when ordering?). New solutions are also needed in packaging, both in design and materials. PriestmanGoode for example takes a traditional Thai design to create stackable containers that save lids. Deliveroo has launched a line of biodegradable, compostable and recyclable containers, while Just Eat with the Notpla startup offers cardboard containers made from tree and grass pulp coated with algae. ______________________________ BOX THE NUMBERS IN THE FIELD Group catering: 97 thousand workers in the educational, company and healthcare segments; 860 million meals a year provided; -67% total turnover between March and mid- May. Forecasts closing 2020 at 2.7 billion (compared to 4 billion in 2019). 61 thousand jobs at risk (source: Osservatorio della Ristorazione Collective Catering and Nutrition Observatory) Banqueting: 2,000 companies, 100,000 employees, 2 billion and 200 million turnover; in June -90% turnover. (source ANBC, National Banqueting and Catering Association) Smart working: in June, 90% of large companies, 73.1% of medium sized companies, 37.2% of companies with up to 50 employees and 18.3% of companies under ten. In three months, from 1.2% to 8.8% of workers. After the lockdown it fell to 5.3% (Istat) ______________________________ BOX IPSE DIXIT “Being “smart” means looking ahead, giving the right value to work, to good work, of everyone, from “working” to evening entertainment. The sector needs care and attention, also to avoid the pandemic of poverty, which is one of the most dangerous side effects of Covid-19”. Lino Enrico Stoppani, President Fipe ______________________________ AT PAGE 18 IN DEPTH Let’s get the ball rolling! Will home working really make lunch breaks disappear? It’s time to propose something innovative by Luca Vivanti - marketing expert and Ambassador of AINEM (Assoc. Italiana Neuromarketing) We have reopened, we have rediscovered the need to go out and share, we have understood that we need sociality. Because the human being is sociality, he is a “pack animal”, he needs to spend a part of his time together with other people and to see other people. Think of the deserted streets of last March and the unpleasant sensations you felt when you had to go out to get supplies of basic necessities. Now think of a square or a street, not crowded, but at least frequented by a fair number of people. How does it feel? Definitely positive. Lately, I happen to hear negative comments about “smart-working” - by the way, it’s a term invented by us Italians that in English doesn’t have the meaning we believed/thought it does - because this has drastically reduced presence in the offices and consequently lunch breaks in the nearby places. This is certainly true, but it should not be dramatized. On the contrary, it could also become an opportunity for revival. Surprised? Perplexed? Let’s think about what happened here too and how things might evolve. People were forced to stay home and first of all the very people working in offices who had little need of direct - physical - contact with the public. Beware, this was not their choice. On the contrary, it created anxiety, perplexity, disorientation. Why? Because of the lack, the impossibility, of those moments of sharing that the world of office work has sedimented over many decades: coffee breaks, meetings, requests for help from colleagues, moments of common reflection, etc. Then we got used to it a little and we reinvented some of these moments through digital conversation platforms. Now that we have started an almost normal life again, companies and societies are struggling to reopen their offices, insisting on working from home, more as a relief of responsibility than as a real necessity. Certainly, some organizational and management comforts have been appreciated by the workers and they would like to maintain them, but there are also many who have understood that they cannot work from home, because of insufficient, incorrect or maybe even no space. ALTERNATIVE SPACES One can imagine that little by little offices are becoming as populated as they used to be, but that there is also, and increasingly, a need for alternative work/study spaces to the usual ones or to one’s own home. So how can this need be intelligently exploited? Wouldn’t it be more practical to have a place close to home, to your children’s school, in your area of residence, where you can work comfortably, instead of having to travel long distances by car, train, public transport over medium/long distances from your home? Maybe not the whole week, but sharing the days between the needs of physical presence in the office with others “from home”. So, if this credible work landscape takes hold a little at a time, here is the opportunity to renew and better exploit the places for lunch break catering during the day. Offering other services, unthinkable until recently, but today potentially necessary, appreciable and above all innovative! A few years ago, a friend of mine, who is also a writer, even though this is not his main job, told me how he had solved his problem of writing in ‘holy peace’, not being able to do it either at home - too small and noisy because of his children - or at his main workplace. He asked a friend of his, a restaurateur, for a place in the morning or afternoon when the restaurant was closed and the restaurateur was in the kitchen preparing the lunch or dinner menu. All he needed was a coffee table and a chair in the corner, plus a WIFI connection to connect to the net. Three hours every day of peace and quiet, with the addition of a coffee or cappuccino and sometimes a glass of wine or beer. Since the kitchen filtered tantalizing scents from the kitchen, it was not uncommon for my friend to stop for lunch before going to work. Many of you readers, especially from big cities, know at least of the existence of the so-called co-working spaces, born in recent years in