Expert Market’s 2025 Food & Beverage Report Reveals The State of The Industry

October 01, 2025 at 09:00 AM EDT

Expert Market’s 2025 Food and Beverage Report, sponsored by hospitality platform Toast, reveals the top trends and pain points felt across America’s Food & Beverage businesses.

The report surveyed 628 F&B professionals, investigating their sentiments, challenges and priorities, and compared this year’s data with Expert Market's 2024 F&B report.

F&B businesses prioritize operational strategy

Investment has reduced the least in areas that provide direct and immediate returns, such as product and customer experience (27%).This outlines a clear operational strategy for 2025 - businesses are focusing on achievable, tangible efforts that directly impact their revenue.

Investment has reduced the most in areas that tackle foundational, industry-wide challenges such as people and human resources (53%) and operational and physical enhancements (35%).

Labor issues persist year-on-year

38% of U.S. F&B businesses cite staff recruitment, retention & training as their biggest problem in 2025. In 2024, 45% of U.S. F&B managers said staff recruitment, retention & training was their primary challenge.

Despite a 7% decrease in F&B companies stating staffing issues as their top business challenge in 2025, this has still remained the greatest problem within the industry over the past year.

F&B industry welcomes new tech but rejects AI

The majority (98%)of the U.S. F&B companies have invested in software or tech over the last year, indicating a clear eagerness to adopt technology within the U.S. F&B industry.

However, 38% of U.S. F&B businesses are not exploring AI adoption, highlighting a potential rejection of artificial intelligence within this sector.

Customer affordability expectations impact business

Shifting consumer expectations have impacted nearly 80% of businesses, with a central, defining pressure point: affordability.

For over a quarter of professionals (28%), this is the single most challenging consumer demand to meet.

The most significant behavioral shifts include customers limiting their overall spending (24%) and prioritizing value options (17%).

Editor of Expert Market, Chris Maillard, says: “There has been a calculated choice to focus on controllable areas, such as customer experience and satisfaction, rather than panic about some of the bigger but less changeable problems such as tariffs, inflation or the uncertain economic climate.

By prioritizing these immediate and manageable improvements, businesses can feel a sense of progress and achieve tangible short-term financial gains, which in turn fuels their optimism.

It’s a fascinating insight into an industry where pleasing the customer is ultimately the most important factor in survival and success. Yes, there are pressures, but right now keeping the customer satisfied is keeping the industry going.”

Additional information:

Expert Market is a leading business solutions provider, with over a decade worth of experience.
The survey was conducted in August 2025 among 628 US-based Food and Beverage professionals.
Our sponsor, Toast, is the all-in-one platform built for restaurants of all sizes. Toast provides a single platform of software as a service (SaaS) products and financial technology solutions that give restaurants everything they need to run their business across point of sale, operations, digital ordering and delivery, marketing and loyalty, and team management. By serving as the restaurant operating system across dine-in, takeout, and delivery channels, Toast helps restaurants streamline operations, increase revenue and deliver amazing guest experiences. For more information, visit www.toasttab.com.
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