Why fast-food sales show that the student lifestyle is trending

Subway announced plans last week to increase its number of UK outlets from 1,500 to 2,000 by 2015, creating 600 jobs in the process. This news makes Subway yet another example of the fast-food industry’s ability to thrive, despite the current atmosphere of anguish as high street retailers are being forced to enter into administration.

Along with Subway, McDonald’s aims to create 2,500 jobs this year through new outlets and Starbucks will open 300 new branches, ensuring 5,000 new jobs over the next five years. They aren’t the only fast-food chains doing well though. Greggs, a specialist retail bakery chain, has expanded enormously over the last 5 years, becoming the largest chain in the UK. It has achieved this through appealing to consumers with its affordable selection of baked goods and its offer, just like Subway, of a £3 lunchtime meal deal.

This trend is apparent not only in the UK, but globally. India’s coffee consumption is currently growing at 3 times the rate of the rest of the world, with Starbucks taking advantage of this ever-increasing demand by branching further into the growing market in India. This begs the question: why is it that fast-food is doing so well at a time of increasing austerity and cash-strapped consumers?

In December, retail expert Mary Portas warned that high streets could disappear forever, as the recession and changing consumer habits have left an average of one in every six shops empty. In the face of the cuts and current dreary economic climate, however, why is the fast-food business not feeling these same pressures?

The answer seems to lie in the increasing need for luxuries that people can actually afford. Gone are the days of consumers squandering their money on an expensive meal or exhausting their funds through impulse buying every time they enter their local Topshop. Yet the desire for enjoyment still lingers; in the dreariness of a life that seems to revolve around worrying who the next bout of cuts will affect the most, luxuries are still wanted. The modern consumer, however, also wants convenience and affordability; treating themselves is now built within the need to not burn a hole in their pocket every time they do so. In response to this current trend, Starbucks’ offer of a Vanilla Spice Latte provides just the right mix of efficiency and enjoyment that consumers nowadays are looking for.

This need for practical spending is nothing new to students nationwide. As everyone flocked towards the Domino’s pizza stand at the Refreshers Fair, the popularity of the pizza delivery chain among those of us surviving off of our measly student loans was evident. Rather than head into Leamington Spa for an elegant meal in a swanky restaurant, when we feel like we need a ‘treat’, we all reach for our book of ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ Domino’s coupons. It will, therefore, come as no surprise to us that, at the beginning of the year, Domino’s reported a sales increase of 3.6% for the last quarter of 2011.

This attitude to life, of gaining pleasure without a high price tag is normal to us. Yet, in the “normal world”, the recent trend for enjoyment within a budget marks a new trend. In this climate, people can’t afford to carry on spending as they used to, or perhaps they are simply subconsciously responding to the depressed economy, and as such it seems that the peculiar behaviours of life as a hard-up student are transferring to consumers, not only across the country, but across the world.

Fast-food chains are surviving because they take advantage of the needs of modern consumers. They’ve seen the changing consumer habits and they’ve made the most of them. If other high street retailers do the same and attempt to understand the changing spending patterns, then perhaps they’ll be able to find ways of getting people to start spending again and stop this rut, whereby consumers are desperately saving. Otherwise, there’s always the option of an economy with everyone increasingly taking on the habits of students as they attempt to make every penny count; and let’s face it, would that really be so bad?