Allegra Foodservice’s latest report from the Eating Out Panel, the UK’s most accurate and insightful continuous tracking of eating out behaviours, reveals that 1 in 6 UK adults ate out on Christmas Day 2014, equating to about 8 million meals.
Furthermore, the report revealed that over a quarter of UK adults have never eaten out on Christmas Day, but nearly half would consider doing so.
Pubs operators were most successful, with over a third of consumers eating out on Christmas day choosing to eat at pubs. Hotels and local restaurants also attracted significant Christmas day trade, at 18% and 16% respectively.
Avoiding entertaining at home
The report highlighted that the principle reasons for eating out on Christmas day are due to being invited out by friends or family and to avoid the hassle of entertaining at home. However, very few consumers choose to eat out on Christmas day for better quality of food.
Gareth Nash, Allegra Foodservices’ Head of Consumer Insight, said, “Venues should really focus their Christmas day messaging on providing a stress free sociable occasion for consumers on Christmas Day.”
Mostly under 35s and from London
The Eating Out Panel showed that the majority of diners eating out at Christmas were under 35s and from London. While some consumers have a tradition of cooking their Christmas Day meal at home, there is more scope to influence the new younger and time-poor generations into going out to eat.
Nash continued to say, “Nearly half of consumers will consider eating out in the future on Christmas day so there is an opportunity there for operators to increase footfall further and convert these ‘considerers’ into actual visitors.”
About Allegra Foodservice
Allegra Foodservice delivers best-in-class business and consumer intelligence for the UK food and beverage sector. Its services provide foodservice operators, suppliers, distributors and stakeholders with crucial market data, consumer insight and competitive intelligence.
Allegra enables its clients to realise their corporate, strategic and tactical aims through programmes that are tailored to meet their requirements.
The UK Eating Out Panel tracks consumer eating out activity on a monthly basis to provide the UK’s most accurate continuous consumer dataset. Each month, the panel provides a fully representative sample of 6,000 consumers’ eating habits and preferences across all day-parts within the entire out of home market.
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