Food and Beverage Tracker
Where can I find the tracker?
In the Expenditure folder.
How often is the data recorded? (Granularity)
The data in this tracker is tracked in monthly granularity. This means that there is a figure for every month.
How often is the tracker updated?
This tracker is updated every month for the month previous, as soon as businesses that engage with the system have uploaded their data.
What is the source of the data?
This data is provided by engaged businesses. The system creates an average of revenues from contributing businesses to give a representation of F&B sales trends in the region selected. (The more businesses that contribute, the more robust the data.) Contributing businesses tend to be those for whom visitors to the region are an important segment.
What does the data tell me?
The data in this tracker tells you monthly trends in sales for all types of F&B businesses. As the sample size increases data can be filtered for different F&B business types (eg café, restaurant, pub, etc).
Metrics
The only metric measured in this tracker is average sales (including VAT). (Note: data for each business is confidential and cannot be viewed by other users.) The providers input a total gross revenue and the system creates an average from those who have provided.
Important things to remember about this data…
This tracker relies on contributions from participating businesses that are growing in number all the time – please check back regularly as numbers will change. (Business are being asked to back-date their data to at least June 2024 if not earlier.)
It’s a good idea to have Constant Sample ON when looking at the data in this tracker. This means that for the time frame you’re analysing there is a constant and consistent sample of providers to the data. Therefore false peaks or dips in the trends are not created by certain suppliers contributing or not contributing in certain months.
It also depends on participants’ timely submissions of new data each month. We suggest waiting until around the 10th-15th of each month to see a good sample of data for the previous month.
We anticipate that sample will be skewed towards the region’s more tourism-oriented F&B businesses, thus seasonal trends may be more marked than would be the case with a fully representative sample of the sector.
You can use the filter in this tracker to select one or more of the eight areas defined in the data hub bearing in mind that the more filters applied the smaller the sample is. (Note: the system doesn’t share with you how many businesses are included in the sample in order to maintain confidentiality of business data.)
What can I filter on?
Date: to change the date range you’re viewing click on Filter and select the date range of your choice. Select Add Comparison to compare the same location over two different time frames.
Type: you can filter by cafés, restaurants, pubs, kiosks, take-aways, etc. For example, cafés may wish to compare themselves only with other cafés not all F&B businesses, by filtering data for cafés, then Add Comparison and selecting themselves (each business user can also filter itself, but no other user can.)
Area: as a default the graph displays average revenues from all businesses across the region. To view data for specific areas click on Filter and make your selection (one or more). Selecting two or more areas adds their data together. To compare areas, use Add Comparison to select a different area over the same time frame.
Be sure to check you’re only changing one tracker variable when comparing; either timeframe OR location OR type.
Are there other trackers that have similar data?
Debit Card Expenditure displays spend data for the Food & Drink category (listed under Tracker Metrics). Most of the areas overlap, although some are defined slightly differently, for example Debit Card Expenditure includes Dartmoor and Taunton (not specified in F&B), whereas the Food & Beverage tracker covers South Hams and Teignbridge (not specified in the DCE tracker).