As we come off high restaurant sales in May, ArrowStream commodities expert, David Maloni, warns that may be changing.
"May restaurant sales weren’t too shabby," said Maloni. "[They were] .7 percent higher versus the previous month, and higher by 3.7 percent from 2018. Further, the restaurant industry carried 11.92 percent of total retail sales, which is the highest percentage since December. In other words, restaurants got the biggest share of consumer retail spend this year in May. Nonetheless, there are some warning signals with traffic (which includes delivery). May restaurant traffic was up just .8 percent from 2018. Further, the three-month gain in traffic is higher by just 1.6 percent, the smallest gain in 11 months.
ArrowStream's Commodity Intelligence solutions include various reports on over 200 commodities, forecasts and price benchmarking dashboards for restaurant chain operators and food suppliers.