Food & Beverage Service Activities (I56) had a total of 15,370 active enterprises in 2020. These enterprises generated more than €4.7 billion in turnover, €1.9 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA), and accounted for more than 112,000 persons engaged.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), employing fewer than 250 people, accounted for almost all (99.8%) enterprises in this sector in 2020, while large enterprises (250+ persons engaged) made up the remaining 0.2%.
| X-axis label | Large (250+ persons engaged) | SMEs (<250 persons engaged) |
|---|---|---|
| Active Enterprises | 0.2 | 99.8 |
| Persons Engaged | 12.7 | 87.3 |
| Turnover | 14.5 | 85.5 |
| Gross Value Added | 16.6 | 83.4 |
Restaurants & Mobile Food Service Activities accounted for more than half (54.5%) of the total number of enterprises in the Food & Beverage Service Activities sector in 2020. It had more than 60% of persons engaged and generated more than 60% of both turnover and GVA.
| X-axis label | Event catering and other food service activities (I56.2) | Beverage serving activites (I56.3) | Restaurants and mobile food service activities (I56.1) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active Enterprises | 6.3 | 39.3 | 54.5 |
| Persons Engaged | 8.9 | 31 | 60.1 |
| Turnover | 11.1 | 28.5 | 60.4 |
| Gross Value Added | 11.7 | 27.9 | 60.4 |
The Food & Beverage Service Activities sector purchased almost €3.0 billion worth of goods and services in 2020. The highest business cost was Goods for Resale which represented 40.5% of total costs. Labour costs (Wages & salaries and Social security costs) were the next largest cost at 31.9%.
| Business Costs | |
| Wages and Salaries | 29.4 |
| Social Security costs | 2.5 |
| Goods for resale | 40.5 |
| Other Purchases costs | 26.8 |
| Indirect taxes | 0.8 |
The Monthly Services Index for the Food & Beverage Service sector shows turnover and volume for the sector on a monthly basis. There is a peak each year in December and during the summer months with the lowest point being in February each year. The series is seasonally adjusted to remove this element to allow short term trends to be identified. The value index shows the trend in turnover in the sector and the volume series removes the change due to price change. Since January 2015 to March 2020 a trend of increases in the Value and Volume could be seen. When COVID-19 restrictions were imposed the monthly trends were much more dramatic for the seasonally adjusted volume data as the normal patterns were changed In January 2021 the largest monthly seasonally adjusted decline in was observed (-38.3%). There were other large monthly declines seen in April 2020 (-34.4%), October 2020 (-31.1%), March 2020 (-28.7%), and November 2020 (-27.2%). When restrictions were lifted or reduced large monthly increases were seen. The largest ones being in December 2020 (+63.5%), July 2020 (+30.8%) and July 2021 (+27.6%). Since the end of COVID-19 restrictions on the sector in 2021 the sector has shown an upward trend.
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