Foodservice Outlook Improved Worldwide In Second Quarter; China Booms

While most major global foodservice markets continued to experience negative traffic trends, increased spending per visit had some markets returning to positive sales growth, according to second-quarter data from NPD Group.

In several countries tracked by NPD’s CREST research, increased check average overcame fewer visits. In the U.S. market, traffic declined 1.5%, but average checks rose 1.9% for a 0.4% overall dollar gain. A similar pattern was seen in the U.K. and Germany. Canada saw traffic improve 0.5% as sales rose 2.1% for an overall 2.4% gain in the quarter.

Spain and Italy also had slightly increased check averages, but the gains were not enough to overcome 3.1% and 3.2% traffic declines respectively. Among the countries tracked by CREST, only Japan and France had flat or negative sales, on top of negative traffic trends.

For the first time, NPD reported data for the Chinese market. Traffic jumped a whopping 12.7% while check average was up 2.4% for a 15.6% overall gain.

Bob O’Brien, senior v.p. of global foodservice at NPD said, “Around the world, most of our analysts describe their economic environment and industry performance as ‘not so good, but not as bad as it was before.'”