Skip to content
‹ Back to IndustriesFood & Beverage

How the Pandemic Reshaped Restaurants’ ECommerce Business

Food is serious business. Now, on The Main Course, host Barbara Castiglia will invite insiders on the front lines of food to share their expertise, strategies, and forecasts for navigating the ever-changing restaurant industry.   The pandemic has turned many industries upside down, including the restaurant sector. While farsighted restaurants had digital plans on their future roadmaps before…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Food & Beverage teams put it to work with Customer Stories & Case Studies.

Promoted content from The Main Course on MarketScale.

Share

Free workspace

Turn your Food & Beverage expertise into content.

Record interviews, organize footage, and write with AI in a free MarketScale workspace. Qualifying companies also get one professional video edit a month. No credit card.

Try it Free

Food is serious business. Now, on The Main Course, host Barbara Castiglia will invite insiders on the front lines of food to share their expertise, strategies, and forecasts for navigating the ever-changing restaurant industry.

The pandemic has turned many industries upside down, including the restaurant sector. While farsighted restaurants had digital plans on their future roadmaps before COVID-19 struck, lockdown was a gamechanger. Square, which builds business tools to help sellers of all sizes start, grow, and run their operations, has been instrumental in helping restaurants make the necessary pivot to eCommerce solutions.

“The steady drumbeat of the restaurant industry was that they needed to adapt” – David Rusenko

Barbara Castiglia, Host of The Main Course, was joined by David Rusenko, Head of eCommerce for Square, to talk about the increasing importance of eCommerce in the restaurant world, in no small part due to the coronavirus. “In many ways, the pandemic brought us further into the future, faster,” said Rusenko. When San Francisco issued its first shelter in place mandate, Square was quick to help businesses pivot and rewrite their roadmaps. Rusenko said that within 48 hours, restaurants were able to offer curbside delivery, and within a week, delivery functionality.

Square instituted a full online platform that allows restaurants to have a direct channel to accept orders and transactions online, without paying commissions on the third-party marketplace. It also created a self-serve QR-ordering system that allows customers to split tabs, order their meals, and perhaps another cocktail, all from their phones. In short, these platforms ramped up restaurants’ overall efficiency while attracting customers, creating new experiences, and growing businesses. “The steady drumbeat of the restaurant industry was that they needed to adapt,” he said. “The industry was faced with a dire situation. We wanted to be there and support them as quickly as possible.”

A New Episode is Served Up Every Tuesday and Thursday!

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale

Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

The Main Course

Part of this channel

The Main Course

Where restaurant and food industry insiders talk real business.

Visit the channel

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Food & Beverage starts with a company putting its plant managers, quality leads, and R&D teams on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Processors and grocery buyers vet suppliers hard, and your operations people are the ones who can satisfy them.

Book DemoSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.
B2B Weekly

The week in Food & Beverage, and sixteen other industries, every Monday.

Ten stories, one-line takes, five minutes. Free.

Food & Beverage: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Food & Beverage buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free plan

You just read one Food & Beverage expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your plant managers, quality leads, and R&D teams into the articles, video, and social content Food & Beverage buyers are searching for. Create a free workspace and see it with your own people. No credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What you get, free

Your own MarketScale workspace, up to 10 people
One professional video edit a month for qualifying companies
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
$0. No credit card. Company confirmation required.

More Food & Beverage Insights

MetaNovas says Orphic can generate a CPG project proposal package in about an hour

MetaNovas says Orphic can generate a CPG project proposal package in about an hour

MetaNovas says Orphic can turn a product brief into a complete proposal package quickly; in an internal test it produced one in about an hour versus roughly two weeks of cross-team work (Business Insider).

  • 01Orphic’s most concrete claim is cycle time: MetaNovas says a multi-function proposal package went from roughly two weeks to about an hour on a real ingestible beauty brief (Business Insider).
  • 02A Veeva QualityOne-sponsored report published via PR Newswire said 82% of respondents are consolidating older systems or moving from best-of-breed solutions into unified platforms to standardize data and processes for AI readiness (PR Newswire).

Sep 22, 2026

Leased modular cold storage trims upfront costs 20% to 30%, Titan Cold Storage says

Leased modular cold storage trims upfront costs 20% to 30%, Titan Cold Storage says

Titan Cold Storage's Søren Skov Mogensen, writing in Food Logistics, says leased modular cold storage units cut upfront construction costs 20% to 30% and can cut operating energy costs up to 30%. Newmark reports U.S. cold storage vacancy rising while demand grows. For food supply chain planners, the deciding variable is confidence in demand: steady, long-term load still favors a permanent build, while volatile peaks favor leased capacity.

  • 01Rising vacancy and rising demand at the same time, per Newmark's 2H 2025 report, means the U.S. cold storage market has spare space and a shortage of the right space; the useful question is now what kind of capacity, where, and for how long.
  • 02A 2023 Frontiers study of 67 cold stores found field energy use ran up to 30% above laboratory conditions, so a lease quote should be judged on the provider's measured fleet energy data, not on rated performance.
  • 03Leased modular units fit operators with a stable baseline and volatile peaks (harvest compression, plant renovations, rerouted supply); Titan's own author says permanent construction still makes sense where demand is long-term and steady.

Sep 18, 2026

Hain Celestial is selling most of its international business to AURELIUS for $323 million

Hain Celestial has signed a definitive agreement, announced Sept. 14, to sell most of its International business to private equity firm AURELIUS for an estimated $323 million in cash. Ella's Kitchen and New Covent Garden soups are included. Retailers, distributors and suppliers trading with those brands could face a new counterparty once the deal closes, though no closing date has been reported.

  • 01Hain expects $305 million to $310 million in net proceeds on an estimated $323 million headline price, and the announcement does not itemize what accounts for the difference.
  • 02The package spans Ella’s Kitchen baby and kids foods, Joya and Natumi plant-based beverages, Hartley’s jelly, Linda McCartney Foods, Cully & Sully, and the Yorkshire Provender and New Covent Garden soup brands; if the deal closes as described, multi-category buyers could be dealing with one new owner across them.
  • 03The signal to watch is a closing date and any transition arrangements; neither is in the reporting so far, so day-to-day trading terms for these brands remain as they are until that changes.

Sep 18, 2026

Explore More Food & Beverage Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Food & Beverage.

Browse Food & Beverage Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Food & Beverage and beyond.

Book a Demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512