Restaurant visits up in Britain, down in Canada, NPD Group research says

Chicago – By the second quarter of 2016, Britain made enough food-service visits to be the strongest global market for the quarter, but visits were down in Canada, Italy, Russia and the United States, The NPD Group reports.

Britain’s food-service growth in the quarter ending June was driven by a balanced mix of traffic and average spend per eater increases, according to global information company NPD Group’s CREST research, which tracks consumer use of foodservice outlets in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, the United States, and Korea.

Great Britain, Australia, France, Japan and Spain posted food-service traffic gains and Germany visits held stable in the second quarter compared to the same quarter in 2015. China posted a rare decline in the quarter and visits were down in Canada, Italy, Russia, and the United States, NPD Group said in a news release. 

As it prepared to host the Summer Olympic Games, Brazil couldn’t overcome the country’s economic woes and posted the steepest food-service traffic decline in all countries tracked by NPD’s market research. 

Visits at the morning meal are growing broadly, but it is still a relatively small day part in terms of traffic share in most global markets and can’t drive overall growth like other meals can, NPD Group said. The strongest markets, Australia and Europe, saw growth from all three main day parts of morning meal, lunch, and dinner. In Spain the main day parts are morning meal and PM snack, which is dinner time, and both day parts increased traffic.  Japan, China, and the U.S. all showed growth at each country’s peripheral day parts.  

“Last quarter’s exciting, broad growth around the world proved to be ephemeral because this quarter is much weaker,” said Bob O’Brien, senior vice-president of global food service at The NPD Group. “Things are still growing in most of Europe, but our global analysts are wary of their near-term prospects. Chains are not as broadly strong and main day parts are weak outside of the strongest markets. And, in the U.S., Europe, Russia, and Canada, there is great uncertainty about the direction of the overall environment.”