QSR April 2023

INFLATION

OPERATORS ARE CLAMORING TO CUT EXPENSES THROUGH VALUE ENGINEERING MENU ITEMS, LEVERAGING SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIPS, AND MORE. The restaurant industry continues to prove how resilient it is in tumultuous climates, most recently (and obviously) during the pandemic. From COVID-mandated closures and labor shortages to beefing up off-premises channels, opera tors have navigated a seemingly never-ending cascade of hurdles—a trend that appears to be continuing. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? But when the U.S. inflation rate hit 9.1 per cent in June 2022, even non-alarmists took note and began to panic. For context, the average inflation rate in 2021 was about 4.7 percent. Consumer prices for all items rose 6.5 per cent from December 2021 to December 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with food categories experiencing even higher inflation. Prices for food at home increased 13.5 per cent for the year ended August 2022—the largest 12-month percentage increase since the period ending March 1979. Meanwhile, prices for food away from home increased 8 percent in

OBSTRUCT IMAGE: ADOVE STOCK / ANDRII YALANSKYI, RED PAPER PLANE: ADOBE STOCK / WORAWUT

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