NRA: Foodservice sales to hit record $632 billion(1)
Expected growth rates for 2012 slightly below sales growth posted in 2011
The U.S. foodservice industry is expected to post sales totaling $631.8 billion in 2012, a 3.5-percent increase from last year and the third consecutive year of positive growth, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2012 Restaurant Industry Forecast, released today.
The expected sales growth is down slightly from the growth rate of 2011, which totaled 4.0 percent, and looks more like 2010, when industry sales rose 3.1 percent. However, the industry is clearly in recovery after the two years of recession-driven sales declines in 2008 and 2009.
In inflation-adjusted terms, total U.S. foodservice sales are projected to grow 0.8 percent in 2012, down slightly from a 1.3-percent gain in 2011.
“Driven by the continued national economic recovery and consumers’ pent-up demand for the food, service and social outlet that restaurants provide, the U.S. restaurant industry is projected to expand in 2012,” the NRA’s 2012 Forecast stated. “Although both the nominal and real growth rates will be somewhat below the 2011 gains, industry growth will remain in positive territory for the third consecutive year.”
Among U.S. foodservice sectors — from commercial restaurants to health care services — not one segment is expected to post a decline in sales or book negative growth. The foodservice sectors expected to generate the largest growth rates include military services, managed services in hospitals and nursing homes, and what the NRA calls retail hosts, or convenience stores, gas station restaurants and grocery store restaurants.
