Canadian Industrial Outlook: Food Services—October 2019

This report examines the short-and medium-term economic and profitability outlook for Canada’s food services industry.

Document Highlights

The golden years are over—After an extended period of strong growth, food services is expected to slow down in 2019. Higher debt levels and weaker home prices affecting Canadians’ wealth are weighing on discretionary spending.

Minimum wage hikes—The minimum wage hikes in Ontario and Alberta have affected the two provinces differently. Alberta was better able to absorb the increased labour costs due to the smaller share of food services employees earning the minimum wage. Ontario passed a large portion of its costs directly to consumers to mitigate the wage increases.

Meatless alternatives—The rise of convenient and tasty meatless alternatives has taken the food services industry by storm, and could speed up already-declining per capita meat consumption.