Back in 2020, food service certainly was one of the earliest and hardest-hit casualties of the coronavirus shutdowns. With restaurants forced to close for in-person dining, many dairy companies had to pivot away from food service orders to meet rising retail demand.
As customers returned to in-person dining, they also came back with new ideas around eating out. According to Marshall Reece, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Associated Milk Producers Inc., New Ulm, Minn., 2022’s consumer has a different mentality when dining in restaurants than before the pandemic.