The foodservice industry across Ireland and Northern Ireland will continue to see growth next year, but that growth won’t be of the same level as this year, the Bord Bia Foodservice Seminar has heard.
The seminar, which is taking place in Naas, Co. Kildare today (Wednesday, November 15) heard from a range of speakers who addressed the findings of the Bord Bia Annual Foodservice Market Insights report, which was also released today.
The report found that, across both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the out-of-home food service industry hit a record market value of €9.3 billion this year, an increase of 13% on the figure for 2022.
However, while the foodservice industry north and south will continue to grow in 2024, the rate of growth will be closer to 5% on this year’s figure.
One of the speakers at today’s seminar was David Henkes, a senior figure in the US-based foodservice industry analysis firm Technomic, which assisted Bord Bia in the compilation of the report.
Henkes told the well-attended event: “Consumers are reaching a point where they are really reassessing their spend in a lot of places – big and small, and so overall economic conditions, and a slow down in growth, means that the [foodservice] industry will likely slow.
“But I’m not saying the industry is going to decline, it’s just going to slow down. Next year will still be a year of growth for the Irish foodservice industry. What does that mean? We talked about that 13% growth [this year]. We’re forecasting basically a growth of about 5% next year,” he added.
On a consumer spend level, we expect menu pricing to be around 5%, probably in the 4% to 6% range. What does that mean? It probably means that for consumer visits [to foodservice establishments] and traffic, if you strip out the inflationary impact on growth, it will probably be a fairly flat year for traffic.
In terms of how that growth will be split between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the foodservice sector south of the border will see market value of around €7.3 billion, while the figure for the North will be around €2.5 billion.
This will give a combined figure of about €9.8 billion market value across the island next year, accounting for the 5% increase.
However, Henkes said that the rate of growth will vary across sectors within the foodservice industry.