Restaurants by the numbersRestaurants by the numbers

With the majority of the country still in the depths of winter, whether a polar vortex, winter storm Hercules or the of-the-moment storms Maximus and Nika (I did my Weather Channel research), it makes great sense for our latest menu feature to cover soups.

Hearty, warm and a consumer favorite in cold-weather seasons, soups have made a comeback on restaurant menus. 

Leave it to our senior food and beverage editor Bret Thorn to not only discuss the flavors, cooking techniques and price points that are driving restaurants’ use of soup, but to also present the data supporting this trend, using sources like The NPD Group and Datassential. We learned that after years of shrinking orders, total dollar sales of soup shipped through broadline distributors to foodservice operators actually rose 2 percent in 2013. Tomato soup was the largest growth item during the last five years, and a more ethnic-inspired dish, tofu soup, grew the most in the past year.

We’ve been working hard at Nation’s Restaurant News to improve the data collection and research we undertake for each story, knowing that trend analysis isn’t complete without hard numbers backing it up. Even more, in this world of big data we believe it is our job to connect the dots and bring out insights imperative to your operations.

Take for example, our look at fine-dining trends, also penned by Bret. We learned that fine-dining restaurants posted sales and traffic increases in late 2013, while other full-service players saw decreases, according to GuestMetrics, which provides transactional sales and menu data. That’s not just good news for fine-dining restaurants; it means all operators should look for ways to attract the consumers driving that spending. And who are those consumers? Surprisingly, Millennials, who increased spending in fine dining by 33 percent in the spring of 2013, according to data from American Express.

Sometimes you just need to follow the numbers. At NRN.com we do that better than anyone.

While we bring you data-filled insights in this magazine, our growing online Industry Data section is unparalleled: Sales & Sentiment from Black Box Intelligence, MillerPulse and the National Restaurant Association; interactive Top 100 and Second 100 data sets; Consumer Picks information; and a Same-Store Sales table providing sales results from every restaurant chain that reports such information, at a glance.

No one else has this data, and no one else presents it in a user-friendly way. We don’t just paste spreadsheets; we make certain data can be sorted, includes related information and is easy to view with charts and tables.

How do I know we do it well? I follow the data: NRN.com hit 1 million page views in January.

It is a benchmark we’re very proud of, and one not many in business-to-business media can boast. (Only four other B2B media brands of the 93 properties at NRN parent company Penton can claim the 1 million mark.)

That’s a big data number indeed.

As always, I hope you continue to not just use NRN.com, but to also reach out on your likes, dislikes and needs. You know where to find me.

Contact Sarah E. Lockyer at [email protected].
Follow her on Twitter: @slockyerNRN.