Foodservice Equipment & Supplies magazine has a history of providing meaningful research and insights that help industry professionals compete in a challenging market place. Research includes industry rankings, customer service, forecasts, and dining and purchasing habits.
Real growth may be slow in the foodservice industry, but the pace of change will only intensify thanks to a cadre of emerging players, a series of dynamic, business-related issues and operators’ insatiable appetite for growth.
A variety of factors, including social unrest, labor-related issues and a competitive real estate market, keep individual members of the restaurant community inching along toward incremental growth.
Like a train chugging along from station to station, the foodservice industry remains on track to deliver a sixth consecutive year of real growth. To keep from becoming derailed by such external factors as higher egg and beef prices, extreme weather conditions across various parts of the country in the first quarter, and a changing labor landscape, among others, the industry continues to draw on its resilient nature as it keeps dutifully moving along. What's awaiting the industry down the line in 2016? Well, likely more of the same.
FE&S' subscribing foodservice operators take a look at how their various business concerns continue to affect the way they approach foodservice equipment and supplies purchases.
Our subscribing foodservice operators and dealers weigh in on the industry's performance this year and offer an early look at the industry's business climate in 2013.
Looking ahead to 2013, members of the foodservice industry prepare to experience another period of moderate but real growth as operators will rely more heavily on technology and on their supply chain partners to drive their incremental success.
Only 24 percent of dealers reported that 2010 failed to meet their expectations for sales, according to FE&S' 2011 Dealer Forecast Study. And 76 percent report that their 2010 sales will increase or at least stay the same as 2009 levels.
The good news is that the foodservice industry seems poised to grow. The bad news is that the foodservice industry will move forward at an excruciatingly slow pace.
As foodservice companies begin their 2010 planning, two questions are top of mind: Has the 2009 economic mudslide been as severe as many foodservice professionals projected? More importantly, is it finally over?
