Chain restaurants drive menu price increases

Dish prices at chain restaurants rose on average by £2.47, as businesses added more expensive options to their menus in a bed to increase spend.

Meanwhile, the cost of food items on QSR menus increased by £0.69.

The average number of food and drink items on menus was increased by 9.9% to 163 over the quarter, with all channels adding additional mains.

New dishes were priced higher than same-line dishes, with restaurants focusing on adding new meat-based and premium dishes at higher prices.

Same-line dish price inflation was also up by 9.2% overall, driven by mains and starters. Snacks had the highest percentage same-line dish price inflation as operators aim to boost consumer spend through additional items.

Elsewhere, Lumina noted that operators boosted drink prices to a modest degree while soaking up a large proportion of raw material costs.

Non-alcoholic drink prices increased by 8% on average with alcoholic drinks up 10.7% year-on-year, ahead of a predicted rise on alcohol in the next quarter following duty changes.

For more information on Lumina’s Menu Tracker, click here​​.​