How operators can navigate a tough pricing environment

How can operators avoid price increases as their own costs increase? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Rich Shank, senior principal with RB sister company Technomic. He discusses the challenging operating environment when it comes to menu pricing. Restaurants have been raising prices aggressively this year as higher prices for food and labor eat into margins. Menu prices are up 8% over the past year. But there are signs that consumers are starting to reject these price increases, enough that Shank wrote in RB that operators may need to rethink their price increases. He explains the consumer environment and how operators can offset their own higher costs without hurting consumers. We also talk about another piece of data: the decline in restaurant use by the older and bigger Baby Boom generation, and what that means to certain types of concepts.