Restaurant Association’s 2025 Hospitality Report

2025 Restaurant Association Hospitality Report: Key Statistics & Highlights

Selected highlights:

Annual sales for the year ended June 2025 reached $15.99 billion, reflecting modest national sales growth of 1.4 per cent over the previous year. Despite this growth, for the year ending June the annual inflation rate was 2.7 per cent, with one of the main drivers of this rise being food prices, which increased 4.8 per cent.
The takeaway food sector delivered the strongest performance for the year ended June 2025, recording 3.2 per cent growth—the highest percentage increase—while also posting the largest dollar value gain of $137.6 million.
Of 18 regions reviewed, only four achieved annual sales growth exceeding 5 per cent for the year ending June 2025, while six regions experienced declines. Three regions stood out as exceptional performers: Nelson, with 15.1 per cent sales growth, followed closely by Queenstown-Lakes at 14.2 per cent, and Kaikōura at 10.2 per cent.
The catering sector, posted the largest percentage sales increase for the industry for the 2nd quarter of 2025 (compared to the same quarter in 2024). Sales for this sector were $335.3 million for Q2 2025.
The hospitality sector experienced subdued employee growth through the early 2020s before rallying in 2023 to record 7.5 per cent growth. However, momentum slowed significantly in the year ended February 2024, with the industry increasing employee numbers by just 0.7 per cent – the industry now employs 146,000 people.
For the year ended February 2024, there were 20,040 hospitality outlets around New Zealand. This reflects an overall increase of 486 outlets over the year previous.

The 2025 Hospitality Report includes:

Executive overview
Industry sales data by sector (restaurants & cafés; pubs, taverns & bars; catering; food to go; and clubs), showing sales trend over previous 5 years
Quarterly sales data – for 2024 / 2025
Industry outlet data – the number of businesses by sector (restaurants & cafés; pubs, taverns & bars; catering; food to go; and clubs), showing change in industry outlet numbers over previous 5 years
Industry employee data – the number of people employed in the industry by sector (restaurants & cafés; pubs, taverns & bars; catering; food to go; and clubs), showing change in industry outlet numbers over previous 5 years
Regional outlook for sales, outlets and employee numbers, covering the following regions: Northland Region, Auckland Region, Waikato Region, Bay of Plenty Region, Gisborne Region, Hawke’s Bay Region, Taranaki Region, Manawatu-Wanganui Region, Wellington Region, West Coast Region, Tasman Region, Nelson Region, Marlborough Region, Kaikoura, Canterbury Region excl Kaikoura, Otago Region excl Queenstown-Lakes, Queenstown-Lakes, Southland Region
Insights from the 2025 Hospitality Industry Remuneration survey

Restaurant Association members can download the full free electronic copy of the 2025 Hospitality Report by clicking here (Not a member yet? Find out why you should join). The Report can also be purchased here.