The premium in the food-away-from-home index (restaurants) to food-at-home index (grocery stores) is a record large.

ArrowStream's economists noted this week in the Maloni Report, a daily commodity intelligence report, that, "December food-away-from-home inflation remained solid, up .3 percent from the prior month and 3.1 percent from prior year. Meanwhile, food-at-home prices were higher by just .05 percent from November, despite retail protein prices being some of the most expensive for the month, and higher by .9 percent from 2018."

Future Expectations

"As the chart shows, the spread between food-away and food-at-home prices is expected to remain big in 2020, which is not ideal for an industry that has had recent sales challenges."