Foodie Facts & Figures

Here is a round-up of the latest facts and figures we have stumbled across this week…

Although diagnosis rates of coeliac disease are currently low, the potential catering market share of people with coeliac disease is 660,000 or 1 in 100 of the UK population. 

67% of respondents in a survey of Coeliac UK members carried out by Oxford University said that were less likely to eat out after they had been diagnosed with coeliac disease because of the difficulties in finding safe gluten-free options.

Only two in five (40%) men think health warnings are a good idea, compared with half (49%) of women. Meanwhile, 36% of women believe that these labels will make them think about how much they drink, falling to just 30% amongst men.

MINTEL's research found that only two in five men (44%) would find it useful to know the number of units they are getting through, compared to over half of women (53%).

The alcoholic drinks industry is worth £41 billion.

Last year consumers downed more than 7.7 billion litres of alcohol - 244 litres per second.

The British Sandwich Association has released its latest report showing that the commercial sandwich market has grown by around 4.5% in value over the last year.

With 1198 stores nationwide, Subway is achieving sandwich sales of around £307million, almost doubling Tesco's figure.

Consumers are showing little signs of responding to healthy eating campaigns, with sales of healthy option sandwiches unchanged over the 12 months accounting for 15% of sales.

Research shows that one in five people are 'slightly nervous' or 'too scared' to ask for tap water so Pizza Hut will not only ensure that tap water is freely available to all of its customers but go one step further and retrain all of its staff to actively offer tap water.

A study, conducted by The Mystery Dining Company, found that diners were more concerned about the cleanliness of the restaurant and how polite the staff were, than how long they had to wait for their food to be served up to them. Some 60% of customers said they would not return to a restaurant that was dirty or employed rude staff.

Meanwhile long waits for food and drink to be served was only ranked fourth in terms of importance, with customer more prepared to wait if the meal tasted great and was served by friendly staff.

New figures from the British Retail Consortium show that the cost of food and drink rose by 4.7% in April, almost doubling the current rate of inflation.

Compared with April last year, the rise is the result of increasing costs for wheat and milk.

Unilever the firm behind brands such as Knorr, Hellmann's, Wall's and Flora has today announced a promising start to the year with overall sales growing by 7.2%. Profits increased to €1.34bn compared with €1.01bn recorded a year earlier.