‘Tis the season for selling gift cards

The season for gift-giving has arrived, and as the possibility of a recession looms, gift cards could be just what your restaurant needs to help your bottom line through the holidays. Gift cards encourage repeat visits from your customers and help you to acquire new customers. With 80 per cent of consumers planning to purchase […]

Finding your “vanilla” is key to success

By Scott Moore There are hundreds of ice cream flavours, yet one of the most popular is and may well always be vanilla. One would also wager that the most popular pizza is pepperoni, regular potato chips are still the rage, and chicken noodle soup remains a top seller. There are many other examples of […]

How is restaurant chains’ recovery manifesting?

You’ll have heard this before by now, but the pandemic has changed the restaurant industry forever. Datassential’s fourth annual Firefly 500+ restaurant report highlights many of these core shifts, such as restaurant chains focusing on key markets and unit growth rather than simply sales. The food industry market research and insights company’s Samantha Des Jardins […]

Canadian foodservice’s midterm trend report

By Katie Belflower At the start of the year, amid what was still significant COVID-19-related turmoil and evolving restrictions and operations, Technomic mapped out a predicted trend report for the Canadian foodservice industry. Now, five months into 2022 and after so much has changed (again) in the industry and beyond, Technomic has compared its new […]

Digital sales are fueling fast-food chains’ growth

Leading fast-food chains are reporting that a year of growth in 2021 was fuelled by a surge in digital sales, which are making up an increasing percentage of orders. The shift towards off-premises consumption is set to outlast the pandemic. Sales of that nature have largely held firm even as indoor dining has been reintroduced […]

US menu prices take their highest leap in 40 years

One rather inevitable effect of the strains on the food industry has been rising costs and higher menu prices, and the consequences have been spectacular. Amid a landscape of stretched supply chains, climate change, a labour crunch, and other factors, restaurants have been raising their menu prices to offset the resulting unprecedented spike in food […]

Staff management doesn’t have to be complicated

In 2021, running employee operations is so much more than just shift scheduling, but solutions like BarSight Restaurant Systems are here to help. Running a restaurant or other foodservice establishment is very different from a typical 9-5 operation. Even before COVID-19, the scope of responsibilities that operators have to juggle on the staffing side alone […]

Canadian restaurant sales suffer worst year on record

Another official indication of just how badly the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Canadian foodservice and restaurant sales has emerged. A Statistics Canada report released last week shows that restaurants and bars across Canada reported their worst year for sales on record. The recent data from Statistics Canada shows that sales at eating and drinking establishments […]

Driving lunch sales: A four-step plan to greater profitability

By David Scott Peters Building lunch sales is key to greater profitability in restaurants. This is because most of the costs associated with preparing for the dinner rush happen during the daytime. Think about it: You are paying rent and utilities whether you are generating sales during the day or not. There are labor costs […]

Improved value will help maximize the potential of soups and salads in Canada

New Technomic study reveals the latest trends and data to keep abreast of consumers’ shifting behaviours and attitudes toward soup and salad Press release Soup and salad combos adapt well to trends around healthy eating, snacking and seasonal ingredients, but value concerns increasingly deter sales, according to Technomic’s recently released 2018 Canadian Soup & Salad […]