Food services and drinking places, December 2019

Released: 2020-02-21

On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales in the food services and drinking places subsector edged up 0.1% to $6.3 billion in December. Higher sales were reported in full-service restaurants (+0.4%), limited-service eating places (+0.3%) and drinking places (+0.5%). Sales declined in special food services (-3.2%) following two consecutive month-over-month increases.

Higher sales were reported in seven provinces, led by Quebec (+0.2%), Saskatchewan (+1.2%) and Ontario (+0.1%). Sales declined for the third consecutive month in both Alberta (-0.2%) and Nova Scotia (-0.7%) in December.

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.

Sales up in food services and drinking places subsector in 2019

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

Annual sales of food services and drinking places totalled $74.5 billion in 2019, up 3.5% from 2018. A large portion of this growth is due to menu inflation as the prices for food purchased from restaurants increased 2.7% in 2019 compared with 2018, while the prices for alcoholic beverages served in licensed establishments increased 1.8% over the same period. The increase in food sales also coincided with growth in the Canadian economy and low unemployment throughout 2019.

Sales increased at full-service restaurants (+3.7%), limited-service eating places (+3.4%) and special food services (+4.5%) in 2019 compared with 2018. Sales at drinking places (-0.5%) were down in the same period. Sales in the subsector were up in all provinces, led by Ontario (+3.0%), Quebec (+5.4%) and British Columbia (+3.2%).

Sales in full-service restaurants increased by $1.2 billion from a year earlier to $33.0 billion in 2019. Sales were up in all provinces, led by Ontario (+3.3%), Quebec (+5.0%) and British Columbia (+4.1%).

Limited-service eating places, also known as fast food or quick-service restaurants, reported an increase of $1.1 billion from 2018, totalling $33.1 billion in 2019. Every province had positive growth in the fast food industry, led by Ontario (+3.3%), Quebec (+4.7%) and British Columbia (+2.9%).

Limited-service eating places (44.4%) and full-service restaurants (44.4%) held the largest shares of sales in the food services and drinking places subsector.

Sales in special food services, which includes food service contractors, caterers and mobile food services, rose to $5.9 billion in 2019. The largest increases in dollar terms were in Quebec (+8.6%), Alberta (+11.7%) and British Columbia (+5.0%).

Sales in drinking places and bars decreased to $2.5 billion in 2019. The declines were in six provinces with the largest decreases being in Alberta (-9.4%) and British Columbia (-4.9%). Quebec (+9.5%) had the largest increase.

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).