Restaurant industry sales continued to trend higher in September, albeit at the slowest pace since the economy began to reopen from the lockdowns. Overall, the total shortfall in restaurant and foodservice sales topped $200 billion during the first seven months of the pandemic.

Elsewhere, average wholesale food prices rose just 0.5% between September 2019 and September 2020, after they jumped 7.7% in the 12 months ending May 2020. Meanwhile, growth in menu prices accelerated for the fifth consecutive month. Menu prices increased 3.8% in the 12 months ending September 2020, which represented the strongest 12-month gain since 2009. Prices for limited-service meals and snacks jumped 5.5%, which was nearly double the 2.8% increase in fullservice menu prices.

“Open Enrollment During COVID-19 - How is it different?  Who is it for?” 
October 29th, 10:30 ET

COVID-19 has impacted employer health insurance just like every other part of your business. On October 29th, we’ll go over how government emergency orders affect coverage and benefits, as well as provide you with practical options to help you have a safe and efficient open enrollment season.

In addition, we will share our suite of product offerings to help all employees, both benefit eligible and non-benefit eligible, feel safe and healthy:

• Telemedicine Options
• Covid Testing Resources
• Mental health resources
• UnitedHealthcare Health Insurance Plans

Presented by:

National Restaurant Association Launches new Restaurant Economic Insights E-Newsletter

The end of last month marked the launch of Restaurant Economic Insights, a new member-exclusive enewsletter from the National Restaurant Association. This e-newsletter will be sent at the end of each month to all National Restaurant Association members including dual members and SRA staff. Please feel free to use this content in your communications and let me know if you have any questions. Restaurant Economic Insights delivers the most current economic indicators, trends, survey revelations and state of the restaurant industry analysis.

Content comprises data and analysis from the Association’s Research and Knowledge Group and incorporates reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and other government data resources, including updates on …

• Restaurant industry employment
• Total U.S. employment
• Restaurant sales
• Menu prices
• Food costs
• Results from Operator and Consumer sentiment and intention surveys

… as well as the Association’s Restaurant Performance Index, the monthly composite index that tracks the health of and outlook for the U.S. restaurant industry.

If you have any questions about this newsletter, please reach out to Beth Lorenzini at BLorenzini@restaurant.org

As you know, the National Restaurant Association and CHD have been working hard to expand the information and enhance the user experience for our state association partners in our custom data portal. We are excited to re-launch our custom site with additional layers of quality data. Our massive update was completed last week and we are excited to share with you what’s new:

• Your members are now noted in the CHD Portal with the tag "Current Dual Member." In addition, our private site now includes the updated contact information for your current members to make it easier for you to view a full comprehensive review of data.

• The National prospect and membership lists have been updated. National members are tagged with "Current National Members" and prospects are tagged with "National Prospects."

• We have added a new "owner" column that displays franchisee ownership for locations in your export file.

• We wanted to reiterate this information is always in flux and is never guaranteed to have 100% accuracy, but is updated weekly, aggragated from multiple web sources by CHD

• View the CHD U.S. Operator Report – now updated with a “re-opening” tab as of September 2020.

Here is the PDF that further details the exciting new changes to the platform.

Please reach out directly to Erin Belanger at CHD with any questions or comments regarding the U.S. Operator Report.