Restaurant sales rose again in March, hitting a new record of $45.549 billion in the advance estimate by the Labor Department’s Bureau of the Census released Monday, April 16. On an adjusted basis, sales rose 0.3% compared to February and are running 6.3% ahead of March last year. It was the 11th consecutive month of…

After three months of declines, food prices at the wholesale level rose in March. Menu prices also posted another slight gain, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly reports on producer and consumer prices. Wholesale food prices at the so-called “finished” level rose 0.2% versus February, the first gain since November.  A 12.8% jump…

A month or so ago, we asked Joe Pawlak, v.p. at Technomic Inc., when we should get worried about gasoline prices. “When they get to $4.30 to $4.40,” he wrote us. Pawlak has told us in the past that each successive run-up in the price of gasoline raises the threshold consumers have for when it…

Since we spent the past week in China at Hotelex Shanghai 2012 and visited U.S. manufacturers and operators (more on Hotelex in a later issue of FER Fortnightly), we thought a report on China’s economy might be useful. Last Friday, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics released data on the growth of gross domestic product,…

One of the great things about industry association meetings is the synergy of the parts. Not only do you get juicy ideas to digest from the individual seminar speakers, but you get to combine the input from multiple speakers and compare them for a fuller, more comprehensive picture. You get to compare notes with your…

Profitability in a changing market was the focal point when some 400 members, supporters and association staff gathered March 28-April 1 at the J.W. Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa in Tucson, Ariz., for the

Suburban Chicago-based

Veteran marketing executive Patrick Maness has joined

Industry veteran Keith Raymond has joined

The