On July 22, USDA-NASS will release the July Cattle report with national estimates of cattle inventories by category along with the first estimate of the 2022 calf crop. With widespread drought conditions continuing in 2022, the focus will certainly be on the female side of the industry in terms of how much beef cow herd liquidation has occurred and how much more is ahead. What we know now is how much female slaughter has already occurred. Beef cow slaughter was up 14.6 percent year over year in the first half of the year. This follows a nine percent increase in beef cow slaughter last year. The beef cow herd inventory is likely to be down by 2.5-3.0 percent in the mid-year inventory. This would be a July 1 beef cow inventory that is the smallest since 2015 or earlier.
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Now that every brand has a chicken sandwich on the menu, the next so-called menu category “war” just may be chicken nuggets.
Sure, the item has long been one of the top sellers at McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Chick-fil-A (among others), but now heavyweight chicken chains are vying for nugget market share as the demand for boneless chicken continues to rise, while the demand for chicken overall does the same. Click here to read the full article. Has “pizza fatigue” set in for consumers? BTIG analyst Peter Saleh believes there’s evidence one of the industry’s early COVID stars has begun to dim a bit. The category, as reports suggested, absorbed the pandemic’s disruptions better than peers. Pizza witnessed the largest per-dollar order jump in limited service, according to Sense360, with figures per transaction increasing 11 percent. This was a common theme throughout, but definitely in pizza. Customers made fewer trips, yet ordered more. Click here to read the full article.
Restaurant portions are getting smaller, and diners aren’t happy.
“Shrinkflation,” or the paring down of serving sizes to offset higher costs, is a hallmark of inflationary environments such as the one the US is currently experiencing. It’s on the rise, and it has gotten so noticeable that consumers are venting about it online, review website operator Yelp Inc. said in a report on activity during the second quarter. Read the full article here. Tyson Foods is finding success with a flexible scheduling pilot program introduced at several of its poultry plants that is part of the processor's broader strategy to retain workers.
Tyson began testing the flexible workweek in late 2021 and early 2022 at facilities in North Little Rock, Ark.; New Holland, Penn., and Broken Bow, Okla. Google plans to change its search engine to appeal to younger audiences, including the ability for a user to pan their camera over an area to "instantly glean insights about multiple objects in a wider scene," reported Business Insider. Click here to read the full article.
Why should operators care about mastering limited-time offers (LTOs)?
The global supply of chickpeas could drop as much as 20% this year, according to data from the Global Pulse Confederation, putting one of the world’s favorite dips in jeopardy: hummus.
Poor weather and the war in Ukraine have curtailed chickpea supplies, sending the price of the protein-rich bean soaring, according to a new report by Reuters. Click here to read the full article from Fortune. Food prices are on the rise worldwide, including essential staples like bread, milk and eggs. The United Nations’ Food Price Index tracks the monthly change in the price of a basket of food items. The five commodities making up this basket are cereals, vegetable oils, sugar, meats and dairy products.
In March 2022, the index recorded the highest price levels in its three-decade history. It has since come off that high slightly, but it is still well above levels seen in previous years. Click here to watch the video. Did you know that food is the top spending priority for Gen Z, accounting for 23% of their discretionary spending? Or that, when choosing where and what to eat, this generation seeks out operations that deliver on food qualities such as clean, fresh, and nutritionally beneficial?
Download this report to better understand the ABCs of Gen Z. You'll be equipped with insights to attract this food-savvy generation to your foodservice operation. In today's highly competitive environment, restaurant marketing requires precise, dependable, and complete consumer data. Data acquired about your actual consumers can be used in both online and offline marketing campaigns.
As technology evolves and client tastes change, successful marketing techniques must be examined and updated accordingly. Every stage of the client's journey should be examined. For example, how do new consumers find your restaurant on the internet? Is your website optimized, and does it provide a good user experience? How can you keep consumers coming back for more? Click here to read the full article. Compared to previous generations, members of Gen Z are just not going to restaurants as much.
When Gen Xers were young adults, they averaged 284 visits a year, according to a report by The NPD Group. Millennials were impacted by the Great Recession, so they averaged 40 fewer visits than Gen X when they were young adults. Gen Z’s comes in at about 218 visits per year. Click here to read the full article. Outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza among commercial and backyard flocks are waning in the U.S., with cases confirmed in three states so far in July.
The flocks infected in recent days are far smaller than some of those impacted in prior months, with a total of 306 birds affected this month in five outbreaks in Oregon, Washington and Utah, according to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Inflation is changing how and what people eat. More than half of consumers say they have changed their eating and drinking habits to manage the rising cost of living, according to a new survey by global intelligence company Morning Consult.
Cutting back on trips to restaurants and bars is the most common change, accounting for roughly eight in 10 people. Some 72% of people who said they have changed their shopping habits reported they had cut down on their meat purchases, Morning Consult said. Click here to read the full article from MarketWatch. Industrialization in the restaurant industry has lowered prices for consumers year after year ever since the first White Castle opened in 1921, signaling the beginning of the industry, and definitely since McDonald’s debuted in the early 1940s.
Now though, more than a century after fast food was born, raging inflation has made what was once an affordable option for everyone, considerably less so. And with roughly 61% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck as of April 2022, a more than nine percentage point jump compared to a year ago, that’s a problem. Click here to read the full article. As inflation rises this summer, prices at O’Charley’s will fall. The Nashville-based casual-dining chain last week said it would start discounting online orders based on the consumer price index (CPI), a federal figure that measures inflation. In May, the CPI was 8.6%—its highest level since the early ’80s—entitling O’Charley’s customers to an 8.6% discount on online orders in June.
It’s part of the chain’s newly unveiled Economic Stimulus Package, an assortment of discounts and deals aimed at consumers who are increasingly watching their wallets amid skyrocketing prices for food, gas and other things. Click here to read the full article by Restaurant Business. Labor contracts covering more than 22,000 U.S. West Coast pork workers have expired and concerns over a possible strike are mounting, despite assurances from both the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) — which represents the employers — that no labor action is imminent.
Eric Broten had planned to sow about 5,000 acres of corn this year on his farm in North Dakota, but persistent springtime rains limited him to just 3,500 in a state where a quarter or more of the planned corn could remain unsown this year.
The difficulty planting corn, the single largest grain crop in the world, in the northern United States adds to a string of troubled crop harvests worldwide that point to multiple years of tight supplies and high food costs. Click here to read the full article. The catering industry has been warned to expect further rises in inflation in 2022, as factors including rising energy costs and unstable global supply continue to have a direct impact on prices right across the foodservice industry. That’s according to the latest edition of the Foodservice Price Index from CGA by NielsenIQ and Prestige Purchasing.
Foodservice prices in April were 10% higher than in April 2021 – a third month of double-digit inflation in a row. This analysis suggests volatility in supply and costs could fuel high food and drink prices for some time. The report also predicts that further rises in inflation are possible in 2022, and that the rate is unlikely to fall below 7% until at least 2023. Click here to read the full article. Improving food safety will include using better data, according to the deputy commissioner for food policy and response at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Frank Yiannas was speaking at a Health Talks webinar on digitalization, food safety and trade with other panelists from Ghana, India and Ireland. “The world around us is changing rapidly. Part of this rapid change is that data and information have become digitized and can be shared at the speed of thought. And new and emerging technologies are increasingly taking big and real-time data and putting it to good use,” he said. Click here to read the full article. May CPI data shows inflation rose 8.6% in the latest 12 months, its fastest in 40 years, extinguishing hopes inflation had reached its peak.
May inflation increased rapidly past expectations, tarnishing market hopes that inflation had peaked and re-upping fears that the U.S. economy could be nearing yet another recession. Prices for shelter, gas and food all rose in May following an April decline, with overall inflation rising 8.6% over a 12-month period before seasonal adjustment, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This represents the fastest annual increase in over 40 years. Click here to read the full article from the Restaurant Dive. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is still spreading across the U.S., with recent detections in a petting zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah, and a backyard flock in Yakima, Washington, according to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). HPAI has been confirmed in 372 commercial and backyard flocks in 36 states, affecting more than 40 million birds as of Wednesday, data from the agency shows.
Still, the virus is showing signs of ebbing, with Michigan recently lifting a statewide ban on poultry and waterfowl exhibitions after 30 days with no new cases in domestic birds. The state had halted bird shows in May as a precautionary measure to curtail the spread of the virus among poultry flocks. “Even though the state has been able to reach this incredibly important benchmark, this does not mean the virus has left Michigan,” state veterinarian Nora Wineland said Monday in a statement. “HPAI continues to be detected in wild birds throughout the state.” The Canadian province of Prince Edward Island is nixing poultry shows this summer in a bid to prevent the spread of HPAI, according to a local news report. The virus has not been detected in any commercial flocks, but has infected wild birds in the province, the Island Farmer reported. Attention hot sauce fans: There is likely to be a shortage of Sriracha sauce in the days and weeks ahead. Blame the weather.
Huy Fong Foods, maker of the popular Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, said a shortage of chili peppers is limiting its ability to produce several of its in-demand sauces, including its Chili Garlic and Sambal Oelek. The California-based company cited climate conditions as part of the problem. Click here to read the full article. The highest inflation in roughly 40 years is prompting people to shift their shopping habits, especially at the grocery store.
About 90% of Americans are concerned about food prices, according to a survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Alpha Foods. The online survey questioned more than 2,000 American adults about their inflation concerns and shopping habits in two waves, March 18 to 23 and again May 6 to 8. In that time, the cost of groceries also overtook gas prices as Americans’ top inflation concern. Click here to read the full article. Tackling runaway inflation won’t be easy and it won’t be quick, and it may carry a steep price tag that is just beginning to be paid.
To stop 40-year highs in price increases, the economy will have to slow. The ability of producers to get their goods to the marketplace will have to get a lot better, and demand and supply will have to come back into balance. Most troublingly, until the Ukraine war settles, these factors will have a limited impact on fixing the economy. Click here to read the full article. |
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