Covid, “22 thousand bars and restaurants closed in 2020”

In 2020 over 22 thousand public establishments, bars and restaurants closed compared to the 9,190 that opened, a negative balance of over 13 thousand companies. This is what emerges from the Fipe-Confcommercio Catering Report 2020. Forced home by lockdowns, Italians have increased their domestic consumption, with food spending increasing by € 6 billion in one year. A lot, but not enough to compensate for what was lost in public establishments, where consumption fell by 31 billion euros. A fact that certifies how Italians have spent less, especially for higher quality agri-food products (wine, oil, elaborate dishes), commonly consumed more in restaurants. In terms of per capita expenditure, we went back 26 years to 1994, the Report still shows. Pandemic and restrictions have also changed the relationship between consumers and public businesses. If in July 2020, the period in which the locals returned to work at a good pace, breakfast represented 28% of overall consumption opportunities, in February 2021 the percentage rose to 33%. The exact opposite of what happened with the dinners, which went from 19% to less than 11%. On balance, in February of this year, breakfasts, lunches and mid-morning breaks made up 87% of the occasions for eating away from home. While the evening activity has completely disappeared. Last year “we lost 243 thousand permanent workers, mostly young people and women despite the blocking of layoffs”, notes the vice president of Fipe Luciano Sbraga who underlines: “Many of them are they are discharged to find another job. They could not live with layoffs, often paid late “. Refreshments also end up in the sights of the vice president of Fipe: “23.7% of companies did not have them, because the bureaucratic mechanisms have cut them out. Ateco codes, closures and other impediments have made them the exodus of refreshments”. to 2021 it opens in a complicated way for public establishments. In mid-March, before the new red zone imposed following the third wave, more than 75% of businesses were partially open, 22% were closed despite planning to reopen ‘one day’, 2% will never reopen and we will go to add to the bars and restaurants that have already closed. In the first quarter of 2021 the confidence index on the future for catering entrepreneurs collapsed compared to the same period of 2020: -68.3%. Today 84.3% of entrepreneurs are betting on a recovery in the sector, subject, however, to the end of the emergency. According to the interviewees by Fipe-Confcommercio, 2021 will still be a year of decreasing turnover, on average by 20%. 66% of the managers of large companies in the supply chain (industry, distribution and catering) expect a recovery no earlier than 2022-2023, while 27% think that only in 2024 there will be a real reversal of the trend. the uncertainty that the owners show towards the future. 33.4% of companies have no idea what 2021 can reserve for them. Another third of companies believe that certainly in 2021 they will face a further reduction in revenues, 2%, in line with the prospect of not reopening, declares that no turnover will be achieved in 2021.