Food services and drinking places, February 2020

Released: 2020-04-23

For the month of February, the onset of COVID-19 in Canada affected the Canadian food services and drinking places subsector minimally, lowering total seasonally adjusted sales by a negligible amount. The push for social distancing, self-isolation—and in some cases, quarantine—was only being considered at the time, unlike the current situation, where these measures are placing new and evolving pressures on consumers and the food service industry. The impacts of COVID-19 on the sector will be more noticeable in subsequent months.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales in the food services and drinking places subsector decreased 0.1% to $6.3 billion in February. Lower sales were reported at full-service restaurants (-0.3%) and special food services (-0.5%), whereas limited-service restaurants (+0.1%) and drinking places (+1.5%) posted increases. Four provinces reported lower sales, with the greatest contributor to the decrease being Ontario (-0.7%). British Columbia (+0.7%) and Alberta (+0.5%) reported the highest dollar increases. Following January's record-breaking snow storm, sales bounced back in Newfoundland and Labrador (+4.8%), however this did not offset January's large decline.

Chart 1 
Sales in food services and drinking places

Further information can be found in the dashboard "Food Services and Drinking Places Sales." This web application provides access to data on sales in food services and drinking places for Canada, and by province and territory. This dynamic application allows users to compare provincial and territorial data through interactive maps and charts.

Year-over-year sales in the food services and drinking places subsector increase

The figures in this section are based on unadjusted (that is, not seasonally adjusted) estimates.

Unadjusted sales for February were up 6.8% in the food services and drinking places subsector compared with February 2019. Sales increased in each of the following industry groups: limited-service restaurants (+7.2%), full-service restaurants (+6.0%), special food services (+10.6%) and drinking places (+3.9%).

Year-over-year sales increased in nine provinces, with Ontario (+6.7%) and Quebec (+9.6%) contributing to most of the total national increase. Newfoundland and Labrador (-0.1%) posted the only decline this February compared with February 2019.

Prices for food purchased from restaurants were up 2.5% in February compared with the same month in the previous year and prices for alcoholic beverages served in licensed establishments were up 1.9% in the same period.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).