February 17/Chicago/Business Wire -- Historically, supper is the meal that leads the restaurant industry out of recessions, but such will not be the case this time, according to a new study by The NPD Group. Supper is the restaurant industry's largest sales generator but has been the weakest performing meal period for the past decade, reports NPD.
According to the NPD restaurant market research study, which examines how the supper market weakened and analyzes how each generation uses restaurants, multiple factors have contributed to the decline in supper visits. Among the most important factors is that the aging of the U.S. population has resulted in a fundamental shift in the profile of supper restaurant users. The study reports that whereas younger consumer groups had and continue to have the highest usage frequency of restaurant suppers, their pullback on usage has narrowed the frequency gap, and the sheer number of aging Boomers has increased the importance of more mature adults to the supper occasion.