The British public has been eating out more often and spending more money over the past 12 months, with a significant upturn seen in seafood sales, finds the latest foodservice quarterly report prepared by the NPD Group Inc. on behalf of the U.K. Seafish Authority.
According to the new analysis, the total out of home (OOH) spend on all meals for the 12 months that ended June 2017 exceeded GBP 54.4 billion (USD 69.6 billion, EUR 59.1 billion), an increase of 2.8 percent year-on-year, based on 11.4 billion visits (up 0.7 percent).
During this period, OOH seafood sales neared GBP 3.4 billion (USD 4.4 billion, EUR 3.7 billion), an increase of 6.1 percent year-on-year, with the number of servings up 4.1 percent to more than 1 billion.
The OOH seafood consumption growth was largely driven by the full service restaurant (FSR) and quick service restaurant (QSR) sectors, which achieved fish sales of GBP 1.1 billion (USD 1.4 billion, EUR 1.2 billion) and GBP 1.5 billion (USD 1.9 billion, EUR 1.6 billion) in the 12-month period respectively, representing increases of 38.5 percent and 7.6 percent year-on-year.
Customer visits in the FSR channel increased by 4 percent to 134.6 million and the number of seafood servings grew by 6.3 percent to 164 million. In QSR, the visits increased by 10.9 percent to 480.2 million, with the number of servings up 7.3 percent to 500.4 million.
NPD’s data also found the number of seafood meals served in the workplace/education channel grew 4.1 percent to 101.8 million in the 12-month period, and the total spend in these canteens grew 25.9 percent to GBP 129.3 million (USD 165.5 million, EUR 140.4 million).
While the total seafood earnings in pubs was down 12.1 percent year-on-year to GBP 724 million (USD 926.6 million, EUR 786.3 million), the number of servings increased by 1.4 percent to 163.8 million.
The only channel to see declines in both seafood earnings and servings was the travel and leisure sector, with sales of GBP 504.4 million (USD 645.6 million, EUR 547.8 million) – down 18.1 percent, based on 114.6 millions meals – a decline of 8.3 percent year-on-year.
