A staff member wearing a protective mask serves dishes at a restaurant in Gwangju, 330 kilometers south of Seoul, in this file photo taken on July 21, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — The cleanliness and sanitation of restaurants are influencing consumer choice as much as taste after the pandemic outbreak, a survey showed Sunday.
According to a survey conducted by the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Trade Corp. (aT) of 1,341 consumers between 20 and 69 years of age who ate out more than 10 times over the past month, 94.3 percent of the respondents picked ‘taste and quality of food’ as the most important factor in their choice of restaurant, followed by cleanliness and sanitation at 92.1 percent.
Respondents were allowed to give multiple answers.
In a survey conducted in 2019 before the COVID-19 outbreak, food taste and quality ranked first with 71.6 percent, followed by price at 46.2 percent, location at 38.4 percent and cleanliness at 22.7 percent.
Although it’s difficult to simply compare the results of the two surveys due to different response types, the importance of restaurant cleanliness has increased significantly over the past couple of years.
“Demand for safe dining has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic,” the aT said.
Even when picking restaurants to eat alone at, the importance of cleanliness stood at 91.1 percent, higher than food taste and quality at 90.8 percent.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
