Why On-Trade Panels Are No Longer Enough: The Rise of Real-Time Horeca Data

For years, manufacturers and foodservice players had only one tool to understand what was really happening in cafés, bars, and restaurants: on-trade panels.

Useful, yes… but slow, approximate, and lacking granularity.

In 2025, this model is clearly showing its limits.

The market is evolving too fast, consumers are changing their habits at the pace of trends, and restaurateurs are adjusting prices several times a year.

How can you make the right decisions with a 6-week delay, aggregated data, and a market breakdown that doesn’t explain why sales are changing?

This is the context in which a new generation of insights is emerging: real-time Horeca data, pulled directly from POS systems, automatically enriched, and representative of the market. A revolution made possible by platforms like Fyre, which already connects more than 120,000 establishments across Europe.

This article explains why traditional panels are no longer sufficient — and how real-time data is redefining the way brands activate, optimize profitability, and understand trends.

---

1. The problem with traditional panels: a blurred snapshot of a moving market

For a long time, on-trade panels fulfilled their role: providing a high-level view of consumption trends.

But today, their main flaw is obvious: they arrive too late and are too broad.

1) A delay that kills action

Traditional panels rely on monthly or quarterly reporting cycles. In reality, the market moves much faster:

• a change in weather,

• a new competitor opening nearby,

• a poorly executed activation,

• a price increase…

Waiting one to two months to understand what happened means losing sales, margin, and opportunities.

With Fyre, brands have moved from a 6-week lag to next-day reporting.

For many manufacturers, this is a cultural shock: for the first time, they can react to the market as it breathes.

2) A vision that’s too generic

Another issue: panels aggregate.

They tell you what happened, but never why.

Yet understanding the “why” changes everything:

• Why is draft beer declining in a specific neighborhood?

• Why are cocktails booming at certain times of the week?

• Why does a product launch perform well in one type of restaurant but not another?

Fyre provides this level of insight thanks to 56 business segments, covering cuisine styles, positioning, quality level, consumption type, and more — far beyond the outdated “Eating / Drinking” categories used in most panels.

3) A lack of actionability

Panels provide a diagnosis.

But how do you act on it?

Without granularity and without outlet-level access, it’s impossible to:

• measure an activation at point-of-sale level,

• compare two clusters of bars,

• adapt a sales strategy neighborhood by neighborhood,

• push an offer directly into a restaurant’s POS system.

The result: plenty of insights, very little concrete impact.

---

2. Why real-time Horeca data changes the game

The new generation of insights is no longer declarative — it is transactional, drawn directly from receipts and enriched by AI.

It transforms market understanding, but above all, the ability to take action.

1) A faithful view of the market, available the next day

With FyrePulse — a representative panel of 3,000 to 5,000 establishments — brands gain access to a precise, structured view aligned with real market reality (segmentation, geography, outlet size, etc.).

And the data arrives the very next day.

If an activation took off last night in Lille, you know it this morning.

2) A level of granularity never seen before

Because the POS sees everything:

• exact time of consumption,

• food-and-drink pairing,

• daypart segmentation,

• category mix,

• price impact on conversion.

This level of detail enables analyses that were impossible with traditional panels:

• Which cocktails explode after 10 p.m. downtown?

• What is the meal vs. non-meal consumption mix for a cola brand?

• How does share of spend evolve in premium bars after a price increase?

For example, Fyre allows brands to track volume vs. price by sub-segment and by average ticket, to understand the real impact of a pricing repositioning.

3) When data turns into action: POS activations

Where panels stop, Fyre goes further.

With Venue Activation, brands can:

• target only the outlets that matter,

• push offers directly into the POS back office,

• track sales impact in real time,

• adjust activations while they’re live.

For the first time, data is no longer just a measurement tool:

it guides and optimizes field execution.

This is exactly the mechanism that enabled Coca-Cola to optimize its activation during the Paris Olympic Games:

• clustering 7,000 hotspots,

• daily tracking,

• A/B testing of field executions,

• immediate scaling of what worked.

---

3. What real-time data changes for restaurateurs

For restaurateurs, the impact is just as strong.

They no longer wait for a quarterly “market report”: they want to understand what’s happening in their own venue, now.

With the Fyre dashboard, a restaurateur can:

• monitor sales and margins live,

• adjust prices when a product is undervalued,

• analyze the menu to identify “Stars” vs. “Dead weight”,

• benchmark performance against national averages,

• cut administrative time by 30% thanks to data centralization.

Many report a +15% profitability increase within three weeks after optimizing their menu using Fyre data.

---

4. What this changes for manufacturers

Real-time Horeca data is transforming how brands operate in the on-trade.

1) Understanding trends as they emerge

Seasonality is no longer experienced in quarterly “waves,” but through daily weak signals:

• the rise of low-alcohol cocktails,

• overconsumption of craft beer in certain bar types,

• a surge in premium beverages in “prestige” venues.

With MarketPulse, these signals appear immediately and can be integrated into commercial or marketing plans the very next day.

2) Measuring activations with precision

Brands can now know:

• where an activation works,

• why it works,

• and how to improve it.

Outlet-level data completely changes the way ROI is managed.

3) Executing with far greater precision

The real breakthrough lies in the ability to adjust execution live:

• If a promo mechanic doesn’t convert in a region, it’s replaced.

• If an activation performs in a cluster, it’s scaled immediately.

• If a stock-out is detected across a group of venues, field teams are alerted.

We move from a “post-mortem” world to a “steered” one.

---

5. Why the future belongs to real-time Horeca data

The market has always been fragmented — but POS systems, AI, and connectivity finally make it possible to derive a coherent reading.

By connecting 120,000+ establishments, structuring receipts through AI, and building a representative panel of 3,000 to 5,000 outlets, Fyre delivers a reliable, granular, and actionable view of the European on-trade.

Traditional panels remain a historical tool, but they are no longer enough to manage:

• a sales force,

• activations,

• a brand strategy,

• or even a simple restaurant menu.

The market moves too fast.

Consumer expectations change too fast.

Profitability is decided too fast.

---

Conclusion: a new era for the on-trade

The days of waiting until the end of the month to understand what happened in a bar or restaurant are over.

Thanks to real-time Horeca data, restaurateurs and manufacturers finally have a tool that matches the pace of the market:

• a faithful view,

• a level of granularity that truly explains the why,

• and immediate actionability.

The on-trade becomes a controllable playing field.

Data is no longer a snapshot — it is a strategic lever.

And for anyone looking to better understand their market, improve profitability, or activate brands more intelligently, one thing is clear: the future of the on-trade belongs to those who work with real-time data.