Feature: Food-to-go market shows resilient growth
Shannon Goldsmith, senior insight analyst for away from home at IGD, forecasts how the food-to-go market is expected to grow over the next five years
The latest five-year forecast from IGD’s Food to Go (FTG) brings together the away-from-home and grocery retail markets to provide a total picture of food-to-go.
The food-to-go market in 2025
The FTG market is set to see real growth (year-on-year sales value increase excluding inflation) of +2.5% this year. This is a more positive outlook than both the total away-from-home (AFH) market (real decline of -2.6%) and the total retail grocery market (real growth of +0.6%).
FTG is one of the most resilient parts of both markets. After Covid, consumers were quick to return to the market, both out of necessity as part of routines and as an area where they wanted to spend their disposable income. Despite consumer finances remaining under pressure, the variety of operators, price points and deals allows food-to-go to remain affordable for most needs and budgets.
The long-term winner
The five-year outlook for the market shows that food-to-go from the away-from-home sectors is set to grow its share of the market. While retail will lose 0.8% of its share over the next five years, this does not indicate poor performance in the retail sectors. There will still be positive growth for retail FTG both in nominal and real terms, but growth will just be stronger in the AFH sectors.
In part, this will be driven by higher inflation in the AFH sectors but also due to the success of the food-to-go specialists’ sector. FTG specialists are set to have the largest share of the market by the end of the forecast period, overtaking fast food specialists (who have historically always had the greatest share) in 2028.
The FTG specialists’ sector has a broad range of operators, ranging from value-focused operators like Greggs to more premium offerings like Pret. This means the sector is well-placed to meet all budgets. Operators in this sector have also been diversifying their location portfolios, with travel hubs being a key focus area as the travel sector continues to see growth in numbers.
Opportunities in the market
The UK Food To Go market forecast details the opportunities for each of the five sectors of the market for both operators and suppliers.
To learn more about the findings and the opportunities for growth that IGD’s experts have identified, read the full Food To Go forecast 2025-2030 report here.
To read the full article turn to page 56 of our September issue.
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