Oof. Can you feel it? I’m talking about the feeling of nine billion burgers hitting American stomachs last year. Across the country, fast-food joints, casual dining restaurants and other eateries served up 3% more burgers in 2014 than in 2013. And while surely some of those never made it to their intestinal destinations, that’s still a lot of burger eating.
People aren’t going to restaurants more than they did in the year before, NPD Group reports (via BurgerBusiness.com), but burgers enjoyed a certain level of popularity that made a ding in the growth of your everyday sandwich.
Sandwich servings were down 2% in 2014, which comes down to a loss of about 201 million servings. Chicken sandwiches are the outcasts at the lunch table right now, dropping a whopping 9%/129 million servings.
Interestingly enough, one of the reasons behind the uptick in burgers is due to a shortage of beef. That means cheaper cuts and ground meat are going to grace more menus. And indeed, beef entree servings were down 8%.
“The success of burgers in 2014 was a combination of factors,” said Bonnie Riggs, NPD restaurant industry analyst. “Quick service restaurant chains launched new burger item, casual-dining restaurants added more burger items to the menu to offset higher beef costs and Americans simply love their burgers.”
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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