Restaurants Canada recently launched its 2019 Foodservice Facts Guide featuring research, insights and a forecast of trends shaping the restaurant industry, including the top 10 food and drink trends of 2018.
Within the guide, there are insights on Canada’s restaurants and specifically, the effects labour shortages and the increase in the minimum wage has had on them, resulting in a 4.2 per cent increase in menu prices (the largest increase since the introduction of the GST in 1991).
Restaurants Canada lists the top 10 food trends of 2018, which were the foods ordered most often:
1. French fries, potatoes, sweet potato and onion rings (14.8 per cent of orders)
2. Breakfast item
3. Burger
4. Sandwiches and subs
5. Chicken
6. Pizza, panzerotti and calzone (4.5 per cent of orders)
7. Breads
8. Salad
9. Cakes, squares, muffins
10. Wraps, burritos, tachos, nachos
Top 10 drink trends for 2018 were:
The report also highlights other insights and new trends:
1. Coffee (46.2 per cent)
2. Carbonated soft drink
3. Water (including tap water)
4. Alcoholic beverages
5. Hot tea
6. Juice/drink/ade
7. Iced tea
8. Milkshakes/smoothies
9. Mik
10. Hot chocolate
Diners under 40 are driving restaurant sales to record levels, hitting $90 billion in 2018 and making the industry the fastest growing sector in the country.
Canadian consumers under 30 spend 44 per cent of their food dollar on food and alcohol at restaurants. Seventy-nine per cent of generation Z consumers ordered food from a restaurant at least once a week. Seventy-one per cent of millennials go out at least once a week.
Digital foodservice delivery made online and through apps plus orders made by traditional telephone totalled more than $4.3 billion in 2018, a staggering 44 per cent increase over 2017.
Foodservice Facts 2019 is available through Restaurants Canada’s website.
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