Manufacturers’ reps expect sales of foodservice equipment and supplies to increase 4.9% this year in the U.S. and Canada compared with 2013, according to a new expanded Market Forecast Report released by the Manufacturers’ Agents Association for the Foodservice Industry. It’s the strongest annual gain forecast by the reps since the MAFSI Barometer—the group’s trending…

Technomic Inc., the Chicago-based foodservice research firm, has revised its forecast for 2014 operator sales growth downward slightly. The new forecast calls for current dollar sales to increase 3.6% with real sales 1.1% higher. The forecast for menu-price inflation remains at 2.5%. The firm released the forecast revision to its clients Jan. 23. The new…

Inclement weather and a short holiday shopping season battered restaurant operators same-store sales and traffic counts in December, according to the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Performance Index tracking study. But the indicator that tracks restaurateurs’ intention to make a capital purchase during the next six months surged 1.3 point to 102.2, its highest level since…

Tough weather—especially in populous Ontario—and rising labor and food costs have restaurant operators in Canada feeling less optimistic about the sales outlook for the first half of 2014, according to the latest Restaurant Outlook Survey from the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association. The percentage of operators reporting they expect sales to grow at a slower…

Foodservice equipment and supplies manufacturers continue to raise prices very moderately, according to the latest data from AutoQuotes Inc. List-price changes for AQ’s more than 500 manufacturers and more than 430,000 SKUs from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2013, show average increases of -0.1% for ventilation through 2.8% for cookware. But five other categories have…

The foodservice industry is expected to grow 3.6% in 2014—1.2% in real terms—according to the National Restaurant Association, which released its annual forecast Jan. 16. The forecast compares with a revised estimate for 2013 of 3.2% current dollar growth and 1% real growth. It will be the fifth consecutive year of real growth following the…

“Glorious” fall weather helped drive a 2% gain in restaurant traffic in the third quarter in the United Kingdom vs. the year earlier third quarter, but traffic was flat or negative in nearly all of the other markets tracked by The NPD Group’s global foodservice practice during the quarter ended September. Traffic was negative in…

Much stronger than expected third-quarter growth in U.S. gross domestic product and better than expected consumer spending helped lift most 2014 forecasts of the macroeconomic indicators that drive foodservice, according to the latest survey from Blue Chip Economic Indicators. The Blue Chip consensus forecast for 2014 real GDP jumped to 2.8% in the survey conducted…

Food prices at the wholesale level fell in two of the three stages of processing again in December, while menu prices rose only 0.1%, according to the latest data from Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price and Consumer Price Indexes. Wholesale food prices at the “finished” level were down 0.6% in December after being flat…

It’s been almost a month since our last FER Fortnightly and a great deal of new economic data has been released. All of it’s good. It turns out third-quarter U.S. real gross domestic product grew 4.1% in the final quarterly estimate, much higher than originally forecast. (The Blue Chip Economic Indicators consensus forecast of 3Q…