Burgers most popular new main dish on pub menus
The main course category made up more than half (57%) of new dishes added to menus during this period in the pub and bar category, an increase of 2 percentage points (ppts) compared to Q3 2022.
According to the data, based on information from 20 companies including JD Wetherspoon, Chef & Brewer, All Bar One, Revolution and BrewDog, burgers were the most common new release and most popular main course with an increase of 21% vs the previous quarter.
While vegetable dishes secured the top spot in the sides category, chicken wings/nuggets/tenders grew the biggest share of this group.
Difficult to manage
Chips/wedges/fries were crowned the most popular side dish with a 37% share of new dishes released while new dessert items saw an increased share of 4ppts with ice creams, sorbets and cake among the favourites.
The average number of food and drink items on menus across all channels was 151 during this period, an increase of 2.7% compared with the previous quarter, with pubs and bars making the largest increase of more than 10 items on average, up 4% vs Q3 2022.
Drinks wise, operators increased the number of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic serves in Q4 2022, though the latter saw the biggest increase.
This comes as new research from Lightspeed’s Global State of Hospitality Report recently showed 69% of operators raised their menu prices in 2022 while 71% said menu pricing had become more difficult to manage.
Key commitment
Moreover, trade body UKHospitality (UKH) recently claimed levels of food inflation “underlined the importance” of further support from the Government.
UKH chief executive Kate Nicholls said: “The central food and drink element of hospitality means this level of inflation puts the sector deeper into jeopardy.
“It’s another in a series of price increases across all fronts of operations and businesses will have no choice but to pass it on to customers. That will make it harder for the Government to deliver on its key commitment to reduce inflation across the wider economy.
“This simple economic fact underlines the importance of Government investing in and supporting the sector to help keep our prices as low as possible if they want to achieve their target of halving inflation.”
