IS FAST CASUAL GOING TO REPLACE FAST FOOD?

 The eh! ONLINE #13 selection

Fast casual, which appeared in the United States in the 2000s, is a fast and healthy way of eating that allows consumers to eat a healthy meal without wasting their time. It is a rapid, healthy and relaxed way of eating. At the crossroads of the traditional restaurant and fast food, fast casual creates a new positioning on a market that lacked alternatives between two very distant entities.

Traditional restaurants have been challenged by fast food, which appeared in the 1950s. A way to have lunch without wasting time. Nevertheless, the meals are of a much lower quality and less diversified, offering a monotonous, fatty and industrial food that we qualify today as junk food.

Fast Casual has found its place and responds to a real need of consumers to eat as quickly as in a fast food restaurant but with a quality equal to that of a restaurant. The French market is one of the most adapted for this market since the population, very attached to the “good eating” had to acclimatise with globalisation to the short lunch breaks between two meetings on a corner of office. Nevertheless, it is a compromise. Reducing the time of the lunch break yes, but eating fast food every lunchtime no.

Several chains have established themselves in this sector and particularly in the business districts. No need to eat a sandwich or an industrial burger to be on time, you can eat a good salmon steak with fresh vegetables without sitting for hours!