September 15, 2022 Prices may be up, cost of living may be up, but indoor dining is nevertheless back on the menu big time. The recent TouchBistro 2022 Diner Trends Report released Wednesday and based on surveys conducted in June and July found that 44 per cent of consumers are now indoor dining at a restaurant at least once ...Read more about this post
September 9, 2022 It used to be that pumpkin spice and fall-related flavours arrived on the shelves just before Thanksgiving, but these days, retailers have been capitalizing on these seasonal offerings since as early as mid-August. As 54 per cent of operators said that limited-time offers (LTOs) are a central part of their business, they plan to release ...Read more about this post
September 1, 2022 As restaurants try to return to “business as usual” while battling labour shortages and supply chain delays, beer sales are on the decline. Total beer sales are down over seven per cent across Canada, dipping over eight per cent below pre-pandemic numbers. By province, beer sales have decreased by 12.6 per cent in Saskatchewan, 10.7 per ...Read more about this post
August 31, 2022 Rising food costs have been in the news for months, with consumers, grocers, and restauranteurs continuing to feel the pinch. In an effort to combat the continued inflation and offset restaurant costs, U.S. menu prices jumped 7.6 per cent in July, just a slight decrease from June’s 40-year high. Though there has been a recent dip in ...Read more about this post
August 29, 2022 Breakfast traffic was hit hard during the height of the pandemic as the daily routine of the office worker was overhauled. The emptying of offices meant that those regular stops at diners and drive-thrus virtually vanished almost overnight. With many of those workers now back in their offices, breakfast traffic has rebounded in recent times, even ...Read more about this post
August 17, 2022 With plant-based protein gaining momentum in the marketplace, retailers have got their eye on product performance. Studies show that plant-based diets are gaining popularity, with retailers struggling to catch up with growing demand. Plant-based eating is rapidly becoming the norm, with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) predicting that total protein production will double, ...Read more about this post
August 16, 2022 New Consumer Price Index data from Statistics Canada released August 16 reported that Canada’s inflation rate saw its first monthly decline in a year, and food inflation also appears to finally be tailing off. Inflation slowed to 7.6 per cent in July, largely driven by a decline in gas prices. The rate of change had hit a ...Read more about this post
August 8, 2022 As severe price pressures continue for customers and restaurants alike, more consumers are turning to money-saving options such as coupons and loyalty rewards to stretch their dollars further. That’s a conclusion reached by Restaurant Brands International (RBI), whose brands include Burger King, Tim Hortons, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. RBI, like many restaurant chains and operators, has raised ...Read more about this post
August 3, 2022 Price increases, price increases, price increases. Those have been the words that have defined not just foodservice but life in general for Canadians over the last few months as the effects of decades-high inflation continue to be felt in every corner. On restaurant menus, everything from appetizers to entrees to sides to drinks has been affected. But ...Read more about this post
July 25, 2022 Restaurants will continue to face several challenges in the evolving post-pandemic landscape, and one of those is consumers exploring more ways to feed themselves at home. Market research firm Mintel’s report on Home Meal Replacement & Grocerants in Canada found that the prominence and importance of home meal replacements and grocerant concepts have grown in recent years, reports ...Read more about this post
July 20, 2022 Technomic’s latest Ignite Menu, covering changes in the Canadian foodservice industry between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022, has identified some highly trending items on Canadian menus over the last year. Overall menu item counts are up 1.7 per cent at full-service restaurants in the last year, showing a strong uptick from the eight per cent decline ...Read more about this post
July 20, 2022 Canada’s inflation rate, which has been making unwanted headlines for months, has hit another high-water mark. In June 2022, the annual rate of inflation was 8.1 per cent compared to June 2021, its largest yearly change since January 1983. Food inflation continues to outpace that figure. That figure is up 0.4 per cent from the 7.7 ...Read more about this post
July 18, 2022 The first quarter of 2022 saw the Canadian foodservice industry perform better than expected, according to Restaurants Canada’s Quarterly Forecast, although that report comes with a warning about the likely economic conditions of the next year. Canada’s commercial foodservice industry began the year with a higher-than-expected $16.3 billion in sales in Q1 2022, found the report, ...Read more about this post
July 13, 2022 Although prices continue to rise and more and more Canadians are forced to make tough decisions about the spending they can afford, new data from the NPD Group reveals that foodservice industry traffic in Canada reached near pre-pandemic levels in May. The data found that foodservice traffic was just one per cent off its May 2019 ...Read more about this post
July 13, 2022 Food, whether it is in the grocery store or in a restaurant dining room, is significantly more expensive than it was a year ago. While general inflation, as well as the lasting impacts of COVID-19 and the conflict in Ukraine, have driven this trend, some are placing blame on grocery stores and other sellers for ...Read more about this post
