Archives for February, 2010
Restaurants need new deals to keep their slice of the cake
As usual, the new year has brought a profusion of sales to the high street and restaurants have joined the shops and stores offering discounts. You can find deals such as two for one at Café Rouge; main courses for £7 and kids eat half price at Pizza Hut; half-price vouchers at PizzaExpress; and second main meal for just £1 at Zizzi. These deals have become an accepted and reliable way for mid-spend restaurants to build consumer traffic in quiet times. But they have now been around for more than 12 months and their currency is in danger of becoming debased. Restaurant chains have got themselves into a tight corner over discounting that is likely to be difficult and time-consuming to get out of. And with so much competition on the high street between broadly similar outlets, it would take a brave operator to put an end to price promoting when the competition continues to discount. Although money-off vouchers and promotions account for less than 10 per cent of a restaurant’s turnover, they have generated vital additional revenue during quiet trading periods.
Pub food trends
Horizons offers up the first in a quarterly series of snapshots showing where pub food fits into the total foodservice market
Food spend went up in pubs in December – but not as much as in previous years.
That’s one of the key statistics to emerge from the latest quarterly QuickBite survey from pub food research specialist Horizons.
Based on a regular survey of more than 1,000 consumers, the quarterly survey offers a fascinating barometer of the foodservice trends, and where people are choosing to eat out.
Unsurprisingly, the foodservice sector as a whole saw consumers tighten their belts this Christmas.
