Tag: Restaurant trends

Restau­rant sales are pro­ject­ed to reach a record-high $660 bil­lion in 2013. Fre­quen­cy of vis­its is help­ing bol­ster the high­er sales num­bers and mobile acces­si­bil­i­ty is also gain­ing in impor­tance. Oth­er food trends that may sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact the restau­rant indus­try in 2013 include the return of retro din­ing, exper­i­men­ta­tion with more eth­nic foods and fla­vors, and the intro­duc­tion of more house­made bev­er­ages and region­al craft brews.

Cof­fee and tea remains a key food­ser­vice indus­try growth dri­ver, buoyed by aggres­sive menu inno­va­tion and a strong foothold in the break­fast day­part, accord­ing to "Cof­fee and Tea Food­ser­vice Trends in the U.S.," a recently-released study from Pack­aged Facts. Sales of cof­fee and tea at restau­rant and drink­ing places are pro­ject­ed to reach $18.7 bil­lion

Recent health-related issues sur­round­ing beef, cou­pled with high beef prices, are prompt­ing restau­rants to start focus­ing their atten­tion on oth­er pro­teins such as chick­en. New data from Mintel Menu Insights shows the num­ber of U.S. menu items with poul­try as an ingre­di­ent has climbed an aver­age of 12% in the past three years and is expect­ed to con­tin­ue to increase in the next one to two years. Chick­en menu inno­va­tion is giv­ing restaurant-goers a fresh and less expen­sive option while din­ing out.

Cof­fee and tea remains a key food­ser­vice indus­try growth dri­ver, buoyed by aggres­sive menu inno­va­tion and a strong foothold in the break­fast day­part, accord­ing to a new study from Pack­aged Facts. Sales of cof­fee and tea at restau­rant and drink­ing places are pro­ject­ed to reach $18.7 bil­lion in 2012. The chal­lenge for food­ser­vice oper­a­tors involves expand­ing vari­eties and occa­sions for use while con­vert­ing home and office cof­fee and tea users into food­ser­vice users.

Get­ting restau­rant indus­try oper­a­tors and con­sumers on the “green” band­wag­on is nec­es­sary to min­i­mize the impact that restau­rants have on the envi­ron­ment in the future, accord­ing to a recent Mintel report, just more than half (57%) of respon­dents are will­ing to pay more for local and sus­tain­able fare. Although still a small per­cent­age of patrons are impact­ed, local or organ­ic ingre­di­ents are par­tic­u­lar­ly of inter­est to those liv­ing in West­ern states.

The major­i­ty (70%) of con­sumers who express inter­est in health­ful foods expect to pay no more for health­i­er items than they do for oth­er menu items, accord­ing to new research by The NPD Group. Younger adults appear more open to pay­ing more for health­ful items. Sur­vey respon­dents also not­ed that they would feel more sat­is­fied after restau­rant vis­its if they had more health­ful options avail­able at the same prices as less health­ful options, includ­ing on the val­ue menu.

Accord­ing to new research by The NPD Group, Amer­i­cans are mak­ing grad­ual shifts towards more health­ful eat­ing at restau­rants. New research points to a decrease in con­sump­tion of reg­u­lar car­bon­at­ed soft drinks, hot dogs, fried chick­en, and French fries. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, some foods that could be con­sid­ered health­i­er (low­er in sug­ar and fat) have been ordered more than in the past. Accord­ing to The NPD Group, these foods include milk, grilled chick­en and grilled chick­en sand­wich­es, non-fried fish, break­fast cere­als, fruit, and yogurt. "Today the heav­i­est buy­ers of healthy/light sand­wich­es are con­sumers ages 18 to 34," says Bon­nie Rig­gs, restau­rant indus­try ana­lyst at The NPD Group.. "How­ev­er, it is con­sumers 50 and old­er, who are the most health-conscious con­sumer seg­ment, who will con­tribute the most incre­men­tal serv­ings in the years ahead."