The takeaway food sector is worth £9bn to the UK’s economy and provided more than 220,000 direct jobs last year, according to research from Just Eat.
The study, conducted by economists the Centre for Economic and Business Research, shows the takeaway sector contributed £4bn in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy last year, equivalent to 12.5% of the entire food services sector.
The recent figures show that employment in the sector industry rose by 10% from 2012 to 2014 and by nearly 17% over the past five years.
This growth is in line with the wider sector and is anticipated to generate a further 30,000 jobs over the next five years.
Taking into account proportions of full and part-time jobs, there are c153,000 people employed full time in the takeaway sector.
In addition to the people employed directly in the sector, the knock-on economic impact of the industry supports a further 72,000 full-time equivalent jobs, of which 38,000 are indirect jobs in the supply chain, and 34,000 are induced jobs in the wider economy.
Just Eat found the fastest growing cuisines over the past eight years have been:
- · 2007: Japanese orders increased 80 times
- · 2008: Mexican orders increased 8.5 times
- · 2009: Polish orders increased 5 times
- · 2010: Piri Piri orders increased 26 times
- · 2011: Iranian orders increased 7 times
- · 2012: South African increased 20 times
- · 2013: Mongolian increased 12 times
- · 2014: Kurdish increased 20 times
To celebrate the successes of the sector, Just Eat has launched its first all-cuisine awards the British Takeaway Awards to toast 250 companies voted for by the public.
