Tuesday July 15, 2025, 08:54:57
By Mark Kalinowski
The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data shows that prices for food-at-home (grocery stores and supermarkets) rose by +2.4% in June — sequentially +20 basis points higher than May’s +2.2%. This +2.4% number compares with price for food-away-from-home (restaurants) that increased by +3.8% year-over-year in June (sequentially the same as May’s +3.8%) This marks the 27th month in a row for which restaurant pricing is outpacing grocery/supermarket pricing.
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Wednesday July 9, 2025, 07:00:00
By Mark Kalinowski
With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Restaurant Industry Index for Q2 2025 to +0.7%. This is sequentially improved from Q1 2025’s -0.4% result, which was the weakest non-pandemic quarter of the last 10+ years. However, +0.7% is nothing to get excited about, to be sure. For one thing, the Q1 2025 result was weather-impacted (particularly from a cold/snowy February). The Q2 2025 number was not weather-impacted to any material degree. So, when one excludes the effects of February weather, the Q2 2025 same-store sales trends for the industry were very similar to those of Q1 2025.
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Monday July 7, 2025, 07:00:00
By Mark Kalinowski
With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Quick-Service Pizza Index for Q2 to -0.6%. Comparing to Q2 2019 levels — a pre-pandemic basis — the Kalinowski Quick-Service Pizza Index for Q2 2025 is at +17.5%. Our -0.6% figure is based on our latest proprietary checks/data as regards same-store sales performance for this segment during April, May, and June.
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