Americans Are Ditching Pricey Desserts at Fast-Food, Fast-Casual Restaurants

After enjoying a burger and fries at your favorite fast-food or fast-casual restaurant, it seems a time-honored tradition to at least glance at the dessert menu to cap off the meal.

However, according to Technomic Ignite Menu research profiled by Restaurant Business, it seems that many Americans have started skipping the final course, sparing their sweet tooth, and wallet, in the process.

US Diners Increasingly Prefer To Eat Dessert at Home After Finishing Their Meals

In a trend that somewhat mirrors the struggle that fast-food and fast-casual chains have recently had in keeping traffic numbers up, Technomic’s data suggested that Americans are increasingly turning to grocery stores in order to satisfy their sugar cravings, taking prepackaged treats home for consumption. The survey data focused on respondents who answered “yes” to purchasing dessert at least once a week.

Those who indicated that they eat dessert at a fast-casual restaurant at least once per week rested at 15% — a figure that had dropped by 6% on a year-over-year basis. For fast-food fans, that number came in at 24%, a reduction of 3 percentage points since the last time Technomic checked in. Family-style restaurants saw a 4% reduction in those who said yes to enjoying a slice of apple pie or similar on-premises, holding at only 13%. Fine dining establishments, casual dining restaurants, and coffee shops all shared the same fate in terms of seeing customer interest in ordering dessert from their menus wane.

Per Restaurant Business, dessert menu prices also ticked upward by about 3.2% from 2023 to 2024, joining other food items in being subject to persistent inflationary pressure.

In contrast, the percentage of respondents who indicated they made dessert at least weekly at home — or bought treats from grocery stores or other retailers at the same frequency — rose sharply.

“Americans have increasingly turned to store-bought sweets, with 39% of survey respondents buying pre-packaged desserts from retailers (up 4% from 2021) and 38% preferring to make them at home (up 5%),” Technomic suggested, as The Food Institute reported.

Despite Dessert Menu Woes, Restaurant Owners Continue To Launch New Offerings

Even though diner interest in ordering the final course of the meal might be on the downswing, restaurant owners seem keen to continue innovating on the dessert front.

Restaurant Business underscored this fact, citing Technomic’s data (surveying 7,000 operators) from December 2023 in stating that, at that time, operators had launched 386 new desserts. As of November of this year, that figure had swelled to 580.

The biggest hits? Seasonal treats such as California Pizza Kitchen’s Cinnamon Apple Cobbler, as well as a perpetual favorite — ice cream. Ice cream menu prices have trended downward by as much as 9%, with ice cream cake or pie tumbling by a massive 19.1% this year.