Consumer Eating and Dining Habits of America Today (1/6)

American consumers continue to invest a greater portion of their food dollars in away-from-home transactions. Americans now spend 47 percent of their food dollars away from home, compared with 25 percent in 1955, according to the National Restaurant Association. “The decision to use restaurants is occasion-based,” notes B. Hudson Riehle, the NRA's Senior Vice President of Research. "Each individual has specific wants and needs at specific points in time," he adds. There are those consumers who simply are seeking food as fuel in the form of a quick, inexpensive meal, and there are those who desire a more leisurely social occasion in which they can relax and enjoy themselves as they dine. Within the framework of those two categories, the typical American adult purchases a meal or a snack from a restaurant 5.3 times a week a figure that is projected to translate into industry sales of about $475.8 billion this year, according to the NRA. As restaurants are in business to satisfy customer needs and will provide what the customer wants. Understanding how consumers today are using our restaurants would be critical to foodservice operators. The Nation’s Restaurant News recently printed a special edition of consumer trends, entitled What Do They Want And Why? The in-depth series of reports have enlightened foodservice operators on understanding consumer dining habits, and on ways to accommodate consumers’ demand for more choices and to nd reprovide better choices. Based on the NRN’s more-than-40-pages report alated studies from National Restaurant Association, Asian Restaurant News editors have made excerpts and of the trends, to share notes with Asian restaurant operators. Five main factors, abbreviated as E-D-C-H-O?, can be used to summarize today’s American consumers trends on the dining scene: 1) Economy Impact, 2) Demographics Shifts, 3) Convenience Factor, 4) Health & Nutrition Concerns, and 5) Options & Choices for Consumers. Economy Impact Restaurant spending did not go down By the National Restaurant Association (NRA) forecast, U.S. foodservice industrywide sales growth in 2004 significantly outpaced population-increase estimates. For 2005 NRA is forecasting sales of $476 billion, up 4.9 percent from last year. According to B. Hudson Riehle, Senior VP-Research of NRA, NRA analysts factored in a 0.9-percent growth rate for the population this year. It means the association is confident that in 2005 per-capita spending for food away from home again will climb. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts an annual Consumer Expenditure Survey. However, collating, analyzing and publishing the data collected typically takes a year, making the 2003 survey the most recent for which results are available. Based on the latest data, spending for all types of food for the average household was $5,340 in 2003, down about 0.7 percent from 2002. But spending on food for consumption at home in 2003 rose by 1 percent to $3,129. Not surprisingly, spending on restaurant food increases with household income before taxes, according to 2003 BLS data. "In 1983, 34.5 percent of all households earned $50,000 or more," says Riehle. Senior VP-Research of NRA. "In 2003 that figure, adjusted for inflation, had grown to 44.1 percent." In 2003, when looking at age, households headed by people between the ages of 45 and 54 spent $2,688 for food away from home, which is the highest among all households. The lowest-spending households by age, are households of the elderly, 75 years of age or older, which spent $968 on dining out.