EHI study on in-store foodservice 2026: 13.29 billion euros in turnover, up 7.1 per cent

What happened

On 9 September 2026 the EHI Retail Institute presented its study “Handelsgastronomie in Deutschland 2026” (in-store foodservice in Germany 2026). In-store foodservice — that is, bistros, cafés, in-store bakeries and restaurants within retail space — generated turnover of 13.29 billion euros in 2025, after 12.41 billion euros in 2024, an increase of 7.1 per cent. That was three percentage points above the forecast the surveyed retailers had given a year earlier; for 2026 they expect on average 4.3 per cent more turnover. The largest share of turnover is held by food retail with 62.7 per cent, followed by shopping centres with 18.6 per cent and petrol stations with 9.5 per cent; by number of locations, more than three quarters fall to food retail with over 29,000 sites. Looking at the next three years, 63 per cent of respondents name the to-go and snack business as the most important growth driver, a segment that already accounts for 17.5 per cent of turnover, followed by take-away and lunch with 51.9 per cent. The basis is an online survey conducted from March to June 2026 among 29 decision-makers from retail companies and shopping centre operators, together representing 6,084 branches.

Who it affects

Food retailers with an in-store bakery or bistro, petrol stations, shopping centre operators, bakery chains, furniture stores and DIY stores with foodservice space. And indirectly everyone who sells tills, terminals or payment processing to those businesses.

Assessment

The figure worth remembering is not the 13.29 billion but the 17.5 per cent snack share combined with 63 per cent expecting growth precisely there. Translated into till language, that means the number of transactions is growing faster than turnover, and the average ticket is falling. The girocard statistics for the first half of 2026 already show exactly this movement — 4.21 billion transactions with an average ticket that has fallen to 36.12 euros. A filled-roll business with a 4.50 euro ticket is a different type of operation from a restaurant with 28 euros, even if both sit in the same market.

For costing, that is the decisive point, and it is where many businesses make the same mistake. A blended price made up of a merchant discount rate plus a fixed per-transaction fee is brutal on small amounts: six cents of fixed cost on 4.50 euros is more than one per cent before any percentage rate even applies. Anyone expanding their snack business without recalculating their terminal billing is financing their growth for the payment service provider. On top of that comes the second point, which the study describes as “fast, straightforward and flexible”: during the lunchtime peak, the seconds at the terminal decide the length of the queue. Contactless without a PIN, a stable connection and a device that does not hang at the card reader are not comfort questions here, they are capacity.

What to do now

1. Analyse lunchtime tickets separately: how many transactions, what average amount? Only with that figure can you judge whether your own pricing model fits the business.
2. Work through the payment service provider’s billing for the smallest typical ticket, not for the average. Where there is a lot of small business, a low fixed share per transaction is worth more than a low merchant discount rate.
3. Before the next season, measure the throughput time at the terminal — the time from sending the amount to authorisation. Whoever gains two seconds here gains, at peak times, the customers who would otherwise see the queue and walk on.