Take-out
Take-out or takeout is a prepared meal or other food items, purchased at a restaurant or fast food outlet with the intent to eat elsewhere. A concept found in many ancient cultures, take-out food is common worldwide, with a number of different cuisines and dishes on offer.
Other names
Such a meal may also be called a carry-out (U.S., Canada and the Philippines); a to-go (Scotland and some dialects in the U.S. and Canada);[1] a takeaway (England, Wales, Australia, Lebanon, South Africa, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, and occasionally in North America);[1] takeaways (India, New Zealand); grab 'n go (Canada); a pack (Nepal); or a parcel (Bangladesh, Pakistan)).[2]
History
The concept of prepared meals to be eaten elsewhere dates back to antiquity. Market and roadside stalls selling food were common in Ancient Greece and Rome.[3] In Pompeii, archaeologists have found a number of thermopolia, service counters opening onto the street which provided food to be taken away. There is a distinct lack of formal dining and kitchen area in Pompeian homes, which may suggest that eating, or at least cooking, at home was unusual. Over 200 thermopolia have been found in the ruins of Pompeii.[4]
In the cities of medieval Europe a number of street vendors sold take-out food. In medieval London, street vendors sold hot meat
During the
The
The COVID-19 pandemic led to many restaurants closing their indoor dining spaces and only offering take-out.[20][21]
Business operation
Take-out food can be purchased from restaurants that also provide sit-down table service or from establishments specialising in food to be taken away.[22] Providing a take-out service saves operators the cost of cutlery, crockery and pay for servers and hosts; it also allows many customers to be served quickly, without restricting sales by remaining to eat their food.[23]
Street food
Although once popular in Europe and America,[5] street food declined in popularity in the 20th century. In part, this can be attributed to a combination of the proliferation of specialized takeaway restaurants and legislation relating to health and safety.[5] Vendors selling street food are still common in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East,[24] with the annual turnover of street food vendors in Bangladesh and Thailand being described as particularly important to the local economy.[25]
Drive-through
In the United States, many restaurants and take-out establishments offer drive-through or drive-thru[26] outlets that allow customers to order, pay for, and receive food without leaving their cars. The idea was pioneered in 1931 in a California fast food restaurant, Pig Stand Number 21. By 1988, 51% of McDonald's turnover was being generated by drive-throughs, with 31% of all US take-out turnover being generated by them by 1990.[27]
Food delivery
Some take-out businesses offer prepared food for delivery, which usually involves contacting a local restaurant by telephone or online. In countries including Australia, Canada, India, Brazil, Japan, much of the European Union and the United States, food can be ordered online from a menu, then picked up by the customer or delivered by the restaurant or a third party delivery service.
A restaurant can either maintain its own delivery personnel or use third parties who contract with restaurants to not only deliver food orders but also assist in marketing and providing order-taking technology. The field has seen rapid growth since the late 2000s with the spread of the smart phones and apps enabling customers to order from their mobile devices.
Some businesses offer a guarantee to deliver within a predetermined period of time, with late deliveries not charged for.
Packaging
Take-out food is packaged in paper, paperboard, corrugated fiberboard, plastic, or foam food containers. One common container is the oyster pail, a folded, waxed or plastic coated, paperboard container. The oyster pail was quickly adopted, especially in the West, for "Chinese takeout".[36]
In Britain old newspapers were traditionally used for wrapping fish and chips until this was banned for health reasons in the 1980s.[37] Many people are nostalgic for this traditional wrapping; some modern fish and chip shops wrap their food in faux-newspaper, food-safe paper printed to look like a newspaper.[38]
Corrugated fiberboard and foam containers are to some extent self-insulating, and can be used for other foods. Thermal bags and other insulated shipping containers keep food hot (or cold) more effectively for longer.
All types of container can be produced with supplier information and design to create a
-
Pizza served in a cardboard box.
-
Boiled rice served in an oyster pail.
-
Leaf-wrapped rice dish (nasi kuning)
-
Paper-wrapped food carrying McDonald's food; including Chicken McNuggets, fries, burger, and drink
-
Take-out food in Thailand is often packaged in plastic bags
-
Orizume bento
-
Tiffin carrier or dabba
-
Chinese restaurant counter in a Northside Chicago neighborhood
Disposable serviceware waste
Packaging of fast food and take-out food is necessary for the customer but involves a significant amount of material that ends up in landfills, recycling, composting, or litter.[41] Foam containers for fast-food were the target of environmentalists in the U.S. and were largely replaced with paper wrappers among large restaurant chains.[42]
In 2002, Taiwan began taking action to reduce the use of disposable tableware at institutions and businesses, and to reduce the use of plastic bags. Yearly, the nation of 17.7 million people was producing 59,000 tons of disposable tableware waste and 105,000 tons of waste plastic bags, and increasing measures have been taken in the years since then to reduce the amount of waste.[43] In 2013, Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) banned outright the use of disposable tableware in the nation's 968 schools, government agencies, and hospitals. The ban was expected to eliminate 2,600 metric tons of waste yearly.[44]
In
China, by virtue of the size of its population and the surging popularity of food delivery apps, such as Meituan and Ele.me, faces significant challenges disposing of or recycling takeout food packaging waste.[47] According to a 2018 study published in Resources, Conservation and Recycling, for the first half of 2017, Chinese consumers ordered 4.6 billion takeout meals, generating "significant environmental concerns". The study's authors estimated that packaging waste from food delivery grew from 20,000 metric tons in 2015 to 1.5 million metric tons in 2017.[48] In 2018, Meituan reported making over 6.4 billion food deliveries, up from 4 billion a year earlier.[49]
Because takeout and delivery meals in China include single-use chopsticks, which are made from wood or bamboo, the growth in food delivery also has an impact on China's forests.[50] China produces about 80 billion pairs of single-use chopsticks yearly, the equivalent of 20 million 20-year-old trees.[51] About 45 percent are made from trees – mainly cottonwood, birch, and spruce, the remainder being made from bamboo. Japan uses about 24 billion pairs of these disposables per year, and globally about 80 billion pairs are thrown away by an estimated 1.4 billion people. In 2013 in Japan, one pair of disposable chopsticks cost US$0.02. One pair of reusable chopsticks cost $1.17, and each pair could be used 130 times. A cost of $1.17 per pair divided by 130 uses comes to $0.009 (0.9¢) per use, less than half the cost of disposable. Campaigns in several countries to reduce this waste are beginning to have some effect.[52][53][needs update]
See also
- Condiment sachet
- Leftovers
- Oyster pail, a type of paper container from America that later became used with Chinese American cuisine
- Pizza delivery
- Street food
References
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- ^ Kretzmann, David. "Why Domino's Digital Component Is Important". DailyFinance. Retrieved December 28, 2013.
- ^ Marianne Kolbasuk McGee. "GPS Comes To High-Tech Pizza-Delivery Tracking", InformationWeek, February 1, 2008.
- ^ Haddon, Heather; Jargon, Julie (March 9, 2019). "The Delivery Wars: Your Food Is Almost Here --- Grocery stores and restaurants are racing into the delivery business. The problem: figuring out how to make any money". WSJ. Dow Jones & Company. pp. B1. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
- ^ "DoorDash Surpasses GrubHub in National Market Share of Total Consumer Spend with 28% to 27%, with Uber Eats taking 25%". trends.edison.tech. Retrieved May 21, 2021.
- ^ a b Yaffe-Bellany, David (June 11, 2019). "Amazon to End Its Restaurant Delivery Service". The New York Times Company. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
- ^ Financial Times, Opinion Lex Team (September 25, 2017). "Deliveroo: not so dishy -- Competition is going to force standards up and prices down in hotly contested sector". Financial Times Company. Archived from the original on December 10, 2022. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
- ^ "Pizza Pizza's Guarantee". pizzapizza.ca. Archived from the original (Commercial website) on December 24, 2007. Retrieved December 7, 2007.
- ^ "Jury award spurs Domino's to drop deadly policy". Georgia Trial Lawyers Association. Archived from the original on January 13, 2003. Retrieved September 18, 2007.
- ^ "Harvard Advocate poster with Chinese Take-out Carton". The Fortune Cookie Chronicles website. March 17, 2008. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
- ^ James Alexander (December 18, 2009). "The unlikely origin of fish and chips". BBC News Magazine.
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- ^ Reducing Wasted Food & Packaging: A Guide for Food Services and Restaurants (PDF), vol. EPA-909-K-14-002, US Environmental Protection Agency, retrieved March 9, 2015
- ^ Some fast-food brands look beyond polystyrene, others embrace it, Plastics Today, Heather Caliendo, August 12, 2013
- ^ Env. Research Foundation (undated). Taiwan's Plastics Ban. (Archived).
- ^ China Post. June 5, 2013. EPA to ban disposable cups from June 1.
- ^ "Realbeer.com: Beer News: Oktoberfest visitors set records". realbeer.com.
- ^ Pre-Waste EU. (undated). Ban on disposable food and drink containers at events in Munich, Germany (Pre-waste factsheet 99)
- ^ Zhong, Raymond; Zhang, Carolyn (May 28, 2019). "Food Delivery Apps Are Drowning China in Plastic". The New York Times Company. Retrieved June 4, 2019.
The astronomical growth of food delivery apps in China is flooding the country
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- ^ 2018 company report from Meituan Archived June 4, 2019, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Luo, Chris (March 11, 2013). "China's 80 billion disposable chopsticks a 'burden' on forests". SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST PUBLISHERS LTD. South China Morning Post. Retrieved June 4, 2019.
- ^ Gates, Sara (March 11, 2013). "Disposable Chopstick Demand Is Killing China's Forests As Annual Production Reaches 80 Billion". HuffPost.com. Retrieved June 4, 2019.
- ^ Disposable Chopsticks Strip Asian Forests. By Rachel Nuwer. The New York Times. October 24, 2011.
- ^ Ecopedia. 2013. How Wooden Chopsticks Are Killing Nature. By Alastair Shaw.
External links
- Videos
- Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "How Takeout Took Over America". CNBC. September 3, 2018.