Menus take a novel turn

摘要

Proteins are dominating foodservice dinnertime menus. But the meat and seafood options - similar to the number of overall selections - are contracting. Though the average foodservice menu has 185 items, new restaurants only are offering an average of 123 selections, which is resulting in a steady drop in overall offerings reports Datassential, a Chicago-based food industry research and consulting firm. Indeed, Technomic Inc., a Chicago-based food and foodservice research and consulting firm, also reports a strong decrease over the past two years in the number of protein entrees on dinner menus. In its scrutiny of menus from 1,238 brands (including the top 500 chains, emerging chains, and leading independent and regional players), Technomic found that the number of chicken entrees (with 10,481 items on dinner menus) decreased 4 percent.