Spend at breakfast and lunch hit a 12-month high in March, according to the latest data from MCA’s Eating Out Panel.
However, participation levels remained flat year-on-year with 93.1% of adults choosing to eat out, reflecting continued uncertainty in consumer confidence. Participation levels were up by 0.7% on a month-by-month basis.
Average spend per visit in March was up for every day-part but dinner saw a more modest 1% rise to £17.16 per head as opposed to an 8% lift at lunch to £7.60 and 11% for breakfast to £4.93. Spend per snacking visit was up 15% to £3.82.
Frequency was also up at every day part, with breakfast showing the sharpest increase of 35% - to 2.5 visits per month, snacking up 28% to 6.7 visits, dinner rising 20% to 2.7 and lunch up 7% to 4.8.
In terms of channel breakdowns, coffee shops cemented their position as the top destination for breakfast, having outstripped fast food outlets in every month since June, to settle at 24% of the market as of March.
While fast food remained in the top three for each day-part it lost share in all but snacking, where it has increased its share by 1.2 percentage points to 9%.
Pub restaurants retained the number one position at lunch and dinner, increasing share in both day-parts.
Supermarkets remain the most popular channel for snacking but their share has fallen from 25.1% in 2014 to 22.7%.
MCA director of insight Steve Gotham said that while there were some caveats, the results represented an encouraging picture for operators.
He said: “Spending growth has increased year on year across all day-parts – though an element of menu price inflation will have supported this. The evidence from the growing visit frequency trends points towards an underlying robustness in consumer demand – though the figures will have benefitted from the earlier timing of Easter this year.
“Overall, while it is right not to get too carried away, the favourable March outcome does combine with similar storylines in January and February to indicate that eating out remains very much in vogue with the vast majority of consumers. “
MCA’s Eating Out Panel is a monthly tracker of consumer behaviour, perceptions and trends, providing the UK’s most accurate and insightful continuous dataset on eating out trends. The research is based on over 18,000 in-depth online interview per quarter and continuous surveys.
