It's getting pricey for restaurateurs to put that delicious meal on your plate
Welcome to By the Numbers, a weekly column that breaks down data related to small businesses and the entrepreneurial economy. 20% That's the percentage of independent restaurants that are members of the National Restaurant Association that consider rising food costs their top business challenge, up from 8% a year ago, according to this story from The Washington Post.
The Post notes that wholesale food prices were up 7.8 percent in November from the same time in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pork, vegetables, flour and coffee experienced some of the steepest increases.
“And while the U.S. Department of Agriculture says it expects there will be some abatement this year, the agency predicts food prices will increase 2.5% to 3.5% in 2012,” the newspaper reports.
“The independent restaurants really have to out-compete the chains,” says Howard Cannon of Restaurant Consultants of America. “It's the great shaking-out. The ones that are strong financially will do even better, the ones that struggle will be dead.”
93.8
That was the level reached by the National Federation of Independent Business‘s small business optimism index for December, an increase of 1.8 points from 92.0 in November, according to this summary from The Wall Street Journal.
It was the fourth straight monthly increase in the much-watched index.
Even so, the newspaper points out that despite the recent gains, “the level of the index is consistent with weak growth,” the NFIB says. The 93.8 level remains close to what the NFIB considers a recessionary reading.
“About half of the gain was due to reduced concerns about business conditions 6 months ahead and improved expectations for real sales gains,” the NFIB said in its report.
But better times might be coming. The Journal said the NFIB subindex of expected business conditions in the next six months “rose 4 percentage points to -8% in December, and the expected higher real sales subindex increased 5 points to 9%.”
6
That was the number of years by which two key U.S. Small Business Association initiatives — the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs — were extended after President Barack Obama signed a bill reauthorizing them, according to this post on the SBA's Open for Business blog.
The post says the SBIR and STTR programs “invest about $2.5 billion a year in America's most promising small research and development companies.” Through the programs, “federal agencies with large R&D budgets provide competitive awards to help small businesses bring their best innovations from the drawing board to the marketplace,” the SBA blog says.
SBIR and STTR operate in three phases, providing support for research, development, and commercialization.
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