One of the key influences on restaurant sales is gasoline prices. When they increase or particularly spike sharply upward, restaurant sales almost always suffer. So, on the heels of the tough winter’s negative effect on sales and traffic and the sharp rebound of sales and traffic in April and May, many are concerned with the…

Restaurant openings outpaced closures last year by more than 21,000, pushing up the net restaurant unit count up 2.7% to a total of 665,000, according to data from CHD Expert, a Chicago-based research firm. It was the second consecutive year since the Great Recession that there were more restaurant openings than closings, and the pace…

The strong run-up in wholesale food prices since the first of the year paused in May, while the surge in retail food prices, especially at supermarkets, continued, according to the latest data on wholesale and consumer prices from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released last week. Wholesale food prices at all three levels of demand…

The most surprising aspect of restaurant traffic data for the first quarter 2014 from The NPD Group is that the brutal winter didn’t affect visits even more. Overall traffic fell only 1% January through March, compared with the year early period. The decline comes after traffic was flat in both the third and fourth quarters…

The U.S. economy added 217,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in May, the fourth consecutive month job gains have exceeded 200,000, according to the May employment report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate held steady at 6.3%. It was the first time since 1999 employment has increased by 200,000 or more for four…

Among other economic news of relevance to foodservice and the foodservice equipment industry: Food prices rose again in April at both the wholesale and retail levels. Wholesale food prices at the final demand level surged 2.7% in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices also rose strongly at the intermediate stages of demand.…

With first quarter 2014 results from EveryWare, the public company incorporating Anchor Hocking and Oneida now included, combined sales for the eight publicly reporting companies we track grew a strong 7.4% in the first quarter of 2014. The numbers are compiled and analyzed by John Muldowney, a marketing executive at The Boelter Cos., exclusively for…

A couple of research reports about food and foodservice caught our eye last week. The first, from Scott Hume of burgerbusiness.com, was an analysis of recently released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that average U.S. household spending for food away from home reached $2,698 for the 12 months ending July 2013.…

In light of Darden’s recent sale of its giant Red Lobster concept to a private equity firm, casual dining continues to struggle, with traffic hitting a six-year low for the year ended February 2014, according to a recent release from The NPD Group’s foodservice practice. The research group suggests rampant dealing by larger casual chains…

Maybe the MAFSI reps have it right. They forecast E&S sales growth of 4.9% for 2014, the strongest predicted gain since they began the MAFSI Barometer in 2002. First quarter ’14 revenue numbers from the publicly reporting E&S companies seem to bear out their view. With seven of the eight companies we track reporting, combined…