Australia’s independent foodservice sector ended 2025 with a jolt.
According to the FoodByUs Index, which tracks more than 30,000 monthly procurement transactions across 2,000+ restaurants, cafes, pubs, and catering operations, overall foodservice inflation hit 7.99% in December alone, the highest recorded all year.
Dry goods and pantry staples surged 11.64%, alcohol climbed 13.57%, baked goods rose 7.7%, and even meat and poultry, one of the year’s more stable categories, jumped 5.91%.
Fruit and vegetables added 6.72%, compounding pressure on kitchens already navigating thin margins heading into the Christmas and New Year period.
January brought some relief — but not a full reset
When operators placed their first orders of 2026, every category fell: pantry items dropped 8.88%, alcohol 10.79%, meat and poultry 4.11%, baked goods 5.42%, and fresh produce 3.51%.
But the report’s authors are careful to frame this as a correction, not a recovery. Most categories settled two to three percentage points above their pre-December baselines. What initially appeared to be seasonal volatility left a permanent stain, as operators got relief but didn’t get December back.
The December-January swing reflects a broader pattern that defined 2025: extreme divergence between categories, often disconnected from global commodity signals.
Alcohol costs rose a staggering 55.3% across the full year, while baked goods climbed 15.3% even as global cereal prices fell 6.9%. The disconnect points to domestic supply chain pressures and distributor dynamics specific to the independent restaurant and foodservice sector.
At the other end of the spectrum, meat and poultry (+2.9%), seafood (+2.5%), and pantry staples (+2.4%) remained comparatively contained, offering some breathing room to protein-heavy menus.
The pub burger as a barometer
To ground the numbers in reality, FoodByUs calculated the ingredient cost of a standard pub-style burger at current wholesale pricing: $5.22 per serve.
The beef patty accounts for half of that at $2.60, the bun $1.35, cheese $0.37, with fresh produce and condiments making up the rest.
Simultaneous pressure on both meat and baked goods, as seen in December, is particularly damaging for pub kitchens, where a burger is often the menu’s margin anchor.
With the FBU Index finishing 2025 at +5.32% overall, above 2023’s +2.32% but well below the post-pandemic peaks of 2021 and 2022, the coming year will test whether the sector has truly turned a corner, or whether December was a preview of renewed pressure ahead.
