Tyson - Jimmy Dean - Loaded with Flavor - banner - both - 04.21

Simplot - Pineapple Perfected - RoastWorks - skyscraper - both - 08.20

Banner Ad - 4 - PICs - Operator - supersized

Savor Imports - banner - both - 06.24

Sugar Foods - Turn Up the Beets Crispy Beets - skyscraper - both - 05.18

Nestle Stouffer's Comfort Foods Beyond Compare - video - skyscraper - both - 01.20

Hormel - Fire-Braised Chicken - Now Serving Flame-Seared Perfection - skyscraper - both - 02.20

Tyson - Wright Brand Bacon - skyscraper - both - 04.21

Hormel - Fire-Braised Chicken - We Cook It - Operators Take Credit - skyscraper - both - 02.20

Seafood is Better - banner - both - 05.21

Performance Dairy Clarified Butter - banner - both - 04.24

Jennie-O Premium Turkey Breast Products - Turkey that Turns Up the Quality - banner - both - 02.20

Nestle White Cheddar Mac - Mac Pizza - skyscraper - both - 04.19

Jennie-O Premium Turkey Breast Turkey that Turns Up the Quality - skyscraper - both - 02.20

Performance Dairy Convenience and Consistency - banner - both - 04.24

Rich's Plant-Based - Good Things Grow - banner - both - 11.20

Essity - Impress Your Guests - banner - OE - 03.17

Rich's Plant Based and Gluten Free Crusts - banner - both - 07.18

Shrimp that Brings the Big Picture - skyscraper - both - 11.22

Reel in Greater Appeal - skyscraper - both - 10.22

Nestle Vitality - Build a Refreshing Beverage Program - both - skyscraper - 04.20

Performance Dairy Craveable Flavor and Time Savings - banner - both - 04.24

Nestle - Every Season is Pumpkin Season - skyscraper - both - 08.18

Rich's Plant Based and Gluten Free Crusts - skyscraper - both - 07.18

Hormel - Bacon 1 - You've Never Seen Bacon Like This - banner - both - 02.20

Indiana Packers - Vertical Integration - banner - both - 07.21

Sugar Foods Barista Blend - banner - both - 04.17

Entree Redi Wild Alaska Pollock - skyscraper - both - 08.25

Reel in Greater Appeal - both - banner - 10.22

Sugar Foods Deliver It Better - banner - both - 04.20

Rich's Plant-Based - Good Things Grow - skyscraper - both - 11.20

Performance Dairy Extra Melt - banner - both - 04.24

Sugar Foods - Add Savory Beet Notes Crispy Beets skyscraper - both - 05.18

Cargill - Truvia Sweet Customer Satisfaction Naturally - banner - both - 03.19

Seafood is Better - skyscraper - both - 05.21

Nestle Stouffers Can Your Classics Do This Recipe Ideas - banner - both - 01.20

Hormel - Bacon 1 - Great Bacon in Half the Time - skyscraper - both - 02.20

Dan's Prize Pot Roast, Prime Rib, Short Ribs Time-Intensive Proteins Made Easy - banner - both - 04.20

Basic American Crispy Craveable Operator banner ad - 12.17

Nestle White Cheddar Mac - Customize Creamy Comfort - banner - both - 04.19

Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt banner - both - 04.23

Savor the Experience - OE - skyscraper - 09.29 - 12.28.25

Cargill - Truvia Serve Americas Best Selling Stevia Sweetener - banner - both - 03.19

Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt banner with chef - both - 04.23

Mini Cinnamon Swirl French Toast - banner - both - 09.23

Knorr's Cook with More Possibilities - skyscraper - both - 09.24

Wild Alaska Burgers - banner - both - 04.25

Nestle Minors Slow Simmered Stock - Free Sample - skyscraper - both - 02.20

Cargill - Truvia Serve America's Best-Selling Stevia Sweetener - skyscraper - both - 03.19

Wild Alaska Salmon Burger - skyscraper - both - 04.25

Nestle Stouffer White Mac and Cheese - banner - both - 08.18

Simplot Conquest Crispy Potato Strips - skyscraper - both - 01.20

Find Fresh Inspiration - skyscraper - both - 08.22

Fabri-Kal - Packaging solutions for environmental and off-premise needs - banner - both - 11.19

Sugar Foods ecoStick Less Waste - banner - both - 10.16

Sugar Foods - Add Savory Beet Notes Crispy Beets banner - both - 05.18

Banner Ad - 3 - OE - Operator - supersized

Sugar Foods Barista Blend - skyscraper - both - 04.17

Jennie-O Take Burgers Over the Top with Turkey - skyscraper - both - 03.20

Ambrosia Chocolate - skyscraper - both - 03.23

Check Out the Major Products Product Guide - skyscraper - OE - 03.22

Rich's Plant Based Cooking Creme - banner - both - 02.18

Savor the Experience - OE - banner - 09.29 - 12.28.25

Skyscraper Ad - MM -  Beat - Operator

Nestle Stouffers White Cheddar Mac and Cheese - skyscraper - both - 08.18

Nestle White Cheddar Mac - Customize Creamy Comfort - skyscraper - both - 04.19

Simplot Delivery Solved - Conquest Fries - banner - both - 08.20

Sugar Foods Deliver It Better - skyscraper - both - 04.20

Sugar Foods ecoSticks Dress Your Table for Success - banner - both - 04.18

Simplot RoastWorks - skyscraper - both - 01.20

General Mills - Pillsbury Takeout and Delivery Tips - skyscraper - both - 04.20

Simplot Harvest Fresh Avocados - skyscraper - both - 01.20

Simply Potatoes Low Sodium Mashed Potatoes - skyscraper - both - 09.23

Nestle - Hot Cocoa Single-Serve Packets - banner - both - 09.21

Indiana Packers - All-in-One Pork Supplier - banner - both - 07.21

Basic American Shred Competition operator banner ad - 12.17

McCain - Tactical Takeout Webinar - skyscraper - both - 05.20

Wild Alaska Keta Salmon - skyscraper - both - 08.25

Dixie Ultra Surface Systems - skyscraper - both - 02.23

Simplot Conquest Crispy Potato Strips - banner - both - 01.20

Nestle Minors Slow-Simmered Stock - Free Sample - banner - both - 02.20

Butterball - Quality, Versatility, and Consistency - banner - both - 07.19

Wild Alaska Salmon Burgers - banner - both - 04.25

Sugar Foods ecoSticks Style and Substance - skyscraper - both - 04.18

La Ranchera Birria Base - both - 09.24

Kraft - Bold Flavor, New Home. - skycraper - both - 08.22

Hormel - Fire-Braised Chicken - Don't Labor Over Great Chicken - banner - both - 02.20

Empress 5-Compartment School Food Tray - 05.22

Essity - Clean Dry Hands - banner - OE - 03.17

Catch of the Season - banner - both - 07.22

Rich's Plant Based Cooking Creme - skyscraper - both - 02.18

Hormel - Bacon 1 - Full Case of Bacon No Grease - skyscraper - both - 02.20

McCain - Takeout and Delivery Menu Ideas - banner - both - 05.20

Simplot GoodGrains - banner - both - 01.20

Simplot RoastWorks - banner - both - 01.20

Skyscraper Ad - MM - Cook - Operator

Honest Earth - Better Potatoes for a Better World - skyscraper - both - 05.23

Butterball - Your Trusted Partner - skyscraper - both - 07.19

Simplot GoodGrains - skyscraper - both - 01.20

Ready to Eat Frozen Vegetables - banner - both - 03.23

Most restaurant industry folks have conceded that 2025 didn&rsquo;t quite go the way it was expected to go coming into the year.
&ldquo;We were all fired up in January. Everything&rsquo;s changed,&rdquo; Bank of America managing director and head of the restaurant group Cristin O&rsquo;Hara said during a recent interview. &ldquo;That buoyance we had in January quickly tailed off because of uncertainty.&rdquo;
Uncertainty, she added, is the obvious &ldquo;word of the year&rdquo; winner, driven by a confluence of factors from tariffs to interest rates, layoffs to consumer sentiment, and, of course, lingering inflation.
&ldquo;We thought there would be momentum and that just hasn&rsquo;t happened. Uncertainty does not breed growth or feelings of confidence,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Hara said.
What&rsquo;s more is that some metrics, like consumer sentiment, have even gotten worse. Bank of America data, for instance, shows that one out of four consumers are now living paycheck-to-paycheck.
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not a good set of circumstances for QSR, or really anyone in a discretionary (spending) environment,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;When people are living paycheck-to-paycheck, they have to make some hard decisions.&rdquo;
As more consumers become more selective, the restaurant industry is shifting into an intensifying market share game, she added. The winners are further separating themselves from the rest of the pack and O&rsquo;Hara doesn&rsquo;t expect this trend to change anytime soon. Of course, moving into that &ldquo;winners&rsquo;&rdquo; bracket is easier said than done, but it&rsquo;s not impossible.
Here&rsquo;s how brands can gain share in 2026.
Expand the idea of &lsquo;value&rsquo; 
The current value environment began proliferating in earnest in the middle of 2024 and has continued to intensify and evolve. Still, traffic remains pressured. That&rsquo;s because the definition of &ldquo;value&rdquo; has evolved to include much more than price, and brands that don&rsquo;t evolve with it will be left behind.
&ldquo;Price is just the denominator now,&rdquo; Revenue Management Solutions chief executive officer John Oakes said during a recent interview. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about everything else you get on top. The big focus now is on understanding what other things we can do to make sure we&rsquo;re providing great value without just hitting price. Going into next year, there will be more needed conversations about taking less price than inflation.&rdquo;
Oakes added that Chili&rsquo;s is a perfect example here: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s not nearly as much of a gap between casual dining and QSR right now. At Chili&rsquo;s, you&rsquo;re getting what you&rsquo;re paying for, including an entire experience.&rdquo;
O&rsquo;Hara added that QSRs don&rsquo;t have leverage to keep raising prices anymore, as evidenced by continued negative traffic in the segment. Indeed, most brands are planning to be more conservative on price and focused on making sure they&rsquo;re growing their business with more than just check, Oakes added.
Even so, O&rsquo;Hara expects the fragile consumer environment to continue in 2026, particularly for lower-income consumers.
Shifting focus
But, she added that the industry&rsquo;s current struggles aren&rsquo;t just consumer-driven.
&ldquo;There are brands with plenty of problems. Look at Wendy&rsquo;s. They have a corporate C-suite strategy problem,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Hara said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s only so much math you can do to make it work and it&rsquo;s not just consumers, but some brands needing a reset.&rdquo;
For context, Wendy's is currently searching for its third CEO in two years and interim CEO Ken Cook recently put "Project Fresh" turnaround plan into place after the chain has experienced struggling sales most of this year.
Perhaps because of these higher-level challenges, more restaurant companies are focusing on four-wall profit growth rather than net unit growth. Further, more franchisors are keeping a stronger pulse on franchisees&rsquo; financial performance, according to Oakes.
&ldquo;There are more conversations about franchisees&rsquo; (profit-and-loss statement) data because that&rsquo;s how they make money, and because of the environment,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the data telling (franchisors) what actions need to be taken to improve the business. You have to have some profitability, but brands have to service higher amounts of debt than they did a few years ago. We&rsquo;ve seen a really big focus shift to unit-level economics.
&ldquo;Because of this, I think we&rsquo;ll stay a little conservative on net new unit growth and try to steady the ship a little bit.&rdquo;
Scale and simplicity matter 
Also in this environment, simplicity and scale matter, and perhaps more than ever. O&rsquo;Hara points out some of the strongest brands as an example, such as In-N-Out Burger, Raising Cane&rsquo;s, and Chick-fil-A.
&ldquo;Those guys have management, scale, and simplicity. If the menu is specific, maybe you have more leverage than somebody that is spread too thin on the menu board,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Those with scale can also afford to get the message out with good marketing, they can afford LTOs, and they can maybe do some discounting. Those with financial flexibility are typically the ones with scale and simplicity.&rdquo;
Pushing through continued pullback
That said, even if brands find the right value proposition, find the appropriate amount of visibility into performance metrics, and achieve the right levels of scale and simplicity, that doesn&rsquo;t mean consumers are going to come rushing back. O&rsquo;Hara said the consumer set will remain pressured in 2026 and closures will likely continue as brands are forced to step up their unit-economics&rsquo; game.
Amid such continued uncertainty, consumer insights researcher Lisa Miller said the industry will need to create its own momentum and drive its own demand in 2026 because &ldquo;macro recovery won&rsquo;t do it for them.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Even when fear lessens, diners aren&rsquo;t rushing back. The emotional economy is more sensitive than it&rsquo;s ever been. Our data shows that guests are cautious, spending is selective, and small shocks create big pauses,&rdquo; Miller said.
She added that it&rsquo;s critical for operators to be agile.
&ldquo;The external environment isn&rsquo;t the iceberg. Internal resistance to change is,&rdquo; she said, adding that brands need to move away from slow decision cycles, blaming external forces, and clinging to the past &mdash; or, doing &ldquo;things the way they&rsquo;ve always been done.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The operators who move fast, test fast, and reduce friction inside their own four walls will win in 2026,&rdquo; she said.
Source: Alicia Kelso, <a href="https://www.nrn.com/restaurant-insights/how-restaurants-can-win-market-share-in-2026" target="_blank">Nation&rsquo;s Restaurant News</a>

Expect to see more conservative pricing and prioritizing unit-level economics over net unit growth.

How Restaurants Can Win Market Share in 2026

Every year, Menu Matters takes the consumer pulse to understand how they are feeling and what they want from the food industry in the year ahead. Too often we get so caught up in our own issues, goals, problems, etc., that we forget it all comes back to the ultimate end user&mdash;the consumer. Because before you decide to leverage a trend, ingredient, dish, flavor, cuisine, etc., you need to know if it&rsquo;s something your end user even needs or wants.
So how are consumers feeling as we head into 2026? In a word, destabilized. They live in a world of internet slop, brands and leaders they don&rsquo;t trust, a shaky economy, and a reality that seems to change with every new headline.
Last year, 2025, was a turning point, when advances in AI meant that suddenly every piece of content, from photos to videos to articles, could no longer be trusted&mdash;every piece of media now needs to be questioned. According to <a href="https://allaboutcookies.org/ai-content-online-survey" target="_blank">digital security research firm All About Cookies</a>, 77% of internet users say they have been tricked by AI content online.
What does that mean for consumers? In short, they just want someone to be real with them. They want people and institutions they can trust. They want to know that brands have real people behind them who stand behind their products. They want real products&mdash;ingredients they can trust that feel like an actual value. They want real experiences that feel meaningful, not another cash grab.
Here are five ways you can be more real with consumers in 2026.
1. Cut through the noise.&nbsp;According to the International Journal of Communication, the average person is fed 74 gigabytes of information in a single day, or the equivalent of what an educated person would have consumed in their entire lifetime 500 years ago. But while consumers are being fed a lot of information, much of it isn&rsquo;t very impactful (hours of scrolling through puppy and dance videos) or it&rsquo;s &ldquo;AI slop,&rdquo; the low-quality content that is flooding digital spaces.
Many consumers also say their lives are being inundated with lots of friction&mdash;including new or hidden fees, constant subscription services, extra steps or unnecessary hoops they must jump through (like finding it difficult to cancel a service). Knowing this, how can you cut through some of that noise and help them find real content and solutions? How can your product create an easy, frictionless experience? How can your marketing efforts connect in a real way, not just add more noise?
2. Invent experiences that are unique to your customer.&nbsp;Today&rsquo;s consumers also worry that they can&rsquo;t be their own, real selves. &ldquo;Cringe culture&rdquo; has taken over, particularly for younger generations. They&rsquo;re so afraid of being called out for doing something wrong, online or even in the real world, that they play it safe, never taking a chance to showcase their unique identity. But consumers are looking to break free from those strictures and showcase their individuality. So how do you help them? It goes beyond just letting them customize a bowl or sandwich and instead focuses on options that are truly unique to an individual.
Can you create products that speak to their heritage or background? What about hyper-local foods and flavors that feel unique to their town or region? Some social media users are even creating their own branded cafes in their homes, a way of using food to showcase who they are to their friends and family (albeit it in a very idealized way). How can your brand be the way that a person communicates their authentic self to the world?
3. Help consumers connect with people who understand them.&nbsp;As consumers discover and celebrate what makes them unique and authentic, they also want to connect with others who understand and respect that individuality. They want to find their tribe.
In the past we&rsquo;ve talked a lot about the loneliness epidemic, noting that the hospitality industry is uniquely designed to bring people together. But helping them find their community goes beyond a simple lunch or dinner. It&rsquo;s about bringing people together to celebrate their unique needs, whether it's an early morning dance club for Millennials who don&rsquo;t want to stay out late at night or a PowerPoint night at the local bar where they can showcase their passions or knowledge. It&rsquo;s about creating a more inclusive, empathetic world.
4. Develop more meaningful experiences.&nbsp;At a time when every digital technology is available to us, we&rsquo;re also seeing a concurrent rise in &ldquo;grandma hobbies&rdquo; such as knitting, gardening, crafting, puzzles, etc. Why? They feel more meaningful to consumers. They are hands-on and tactile, hobbies designed for fun and pleasure instead of a side hustle, resulting in the development of a real skill and tangible outcome.
Today&rsquo;s consumers are questioning everything, from work to technology to products, in order to create new paradigms that feel more meaningful and real. Food and cooking can be a very meaningful part of someone&rsquo;s life&mdash;it can be the reward in their day, the way they showcase their creativity, the source of comfort and connection, etc. Are you helping your customer create those more meaningful experiences?
5. Create real trust.&nbsp;According to Gallup, only 16% of US consumers have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in big business, a new low. The default consumer response is often that a company or brand is out to get them&mdash;raising prices without ever lowering them, selling the same frozen products from the same distributors, announcing another recall. Consumers are skeptical of ingredients, whether it&rsquo;s ultra-processed options or seed oils.
So how do you earn real trust from your customer? When Aldi offered a $40 Thanksgiving meal this year, these were some of the comments on social media: &ldquo;Aldi is the real deal.&rdquo; &ldquo;Honestly the fact that a store actually cares is amazing.&rdquo; &ldquo;This is a blessing.&rdquo; It all comes down to understanding your consumers&rsquo; needs.
Source: Maeve Webster and Mike Kostyo, <a href="https://www.preparedfoods.com/articles/131150-how-to-be-real-with-consumers-in-202" target="_blank">Prepared Foods</a>

How are consumers feeling as we head into 2026?

How to Be Real with Consumers in 2026

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How Restaurants Can Win Market Share in 2026

How to Be Real with Consumers in 2026