Canadian Industrial Outlook: Food Services—Winter 2019

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

Document Highlights

Consumer Spending Fatigue—The long-anticipated slowdown in sales growth is beginning to materialize, with price-adjusted sales set to grow by only 0.6 per cent in 2018. Mild sales growth is on the table for food services operators in the future as Canadians spend more of their income servicing debt.

Job Vacancies—Against the backdrop of a tightening labour market, fewer people are looking for jobs, especially ones in low-wage and/or part-time work. A key result is that food service operators, particularly those in B.C., are finding it increasingly difficult to hire workers.

Technology—The food services industry has slowly begun to shed its reputation as a tech-laggard, seeing an increasing number of technology-driven advances in recent years. A key consequence is that labour productivity, flat for the greater part of the past two decades, has begun to improve.