Rising Food Costs force Menu Changes

May, 2008 - AP Newswire (excerpts)

Rising food costs have forced restaurants across the country to make changes to their menus, deleting items or introducing new lower cost ones.

Nationally its a menu makeover: Steakhouses are adding buffalo meat alongside filet mignon, pizza joints are trying new cheese products and seafood spots are replacing pricier entrees with humbler dishes like catfish.

The changes come as record oil prices and surging global demand for staples like rice, fish, poultry and wheat have pushed wholesale food prices up almost 8 percent in the last year, the biggest hike in three decades, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Food commodity prices have mostly come down from record highs reached earlier this year, but wholesale flour prices have doubled in the last year, while egg prices have shot up 70 percent and cheese 25 percent.

"This is definitely an unprecedented period of wholesale food inflation. Operators must focus on cost and one way is using different ingredients," said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the 380,000-member trade group.

The organization recently surveyed restaurant operators and found surging food costs ranked as their No. 2 concern after the economy. A year ago, labor was their second biggest worry.

all of these costs are moving so fast, that unless a place is printing
new menus every day, it's hard to make adjustments.
- Daily News Journal, TN Apr 17, 2008