The Fast Casual Segment of the Food Industry
Today, many coffee shops offer some variety of snacks, foods and on occasion, menu service. Those that offer Fast or Quick Casual menus with premium ingredients, simple recipes and more customization, like Café Barbera, are in a sector that has outpaced other dining sectors – Full Service and Quick Service – with double digit annual sales growth. For consumers, the fast casual sector means a healthier and more satisfying food and beverage experience worth a slightly higher price.
Fast casual restaurants provide the quality of casual dining with the convenience of fast food, with pricing that matches. Cost range from $8 to $15 dollars for a typical meal, but as the fastest growing segment of the restaurant industry, consumers have proven to be amenable to pay for quality.
According to the National Restaurant Association, The fast casual segment grew 14.4% between 2001 and 2011, compared with 3.5% of all restaurants and bars. By 2016, fast casual sales are expected to represent 40% of limited-service-restaurant dollar growth, according to Technomic research. Technomic also reports that fast casual restaurants are visited by Americans at least once a month.
In 2011, fast casual represented $27 billion of the $632 billion dollar restaurant industry. The fast casual sector is forecast to continue its growth and expansion as more new fast casual restaurants and more existing fast food and full service restaurants convert to fast casual to take advantage of the success of this sector.
Café Barbera is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the continued growth in coffee consumption, demand for premium and specialty coffee drinks, and the dynamic expansion of the fast casual restaurant segment.