Italian---The Oldest and Most Trusted Ethnic Cuisine

Italian Cuisine Menu Incidence 

Italian cuisine is perhaps America’s oldest ethnic cuisine.  It is certainly the most entrenched and easily understood.  No other ethnic cuisine, including Mexican, has the spectrum of sauces, seasonings and flavor systems as has Italian.  Over three of every four restaurants (76%) serves one or more menu items that may be classified as Italian.  When you take away pizza, which is considered by some to be American mainstream, a still impressive 68% serve Italian.  Depending on the market sector, roughly 9% to 13% of menus serving Italian are devoted to Italian menu items.  QSR chains serving Italian have 3 items of Italian cuisine, midscale chains 7, casual chains 9 and cutting edge independents 6 Italian menu items.  The statistics below are based on an analysis of 40,000 menu item records from the MenuMine database of 550 chain and independent restaurant menus.

Italian Cuisine Menu Parts

Italian cuisine has built a taste franchise in all major menu parts.  Separate and apart from Pizza, Soup and Dessert menu parts, Italian cuisine is usually presented as a prepared entrée, in which the protein, carbo and veggie are all integrated into one dish rather than a compartmentalized center of the plate for the protein with carbo and veggie sides or accompaniments.

Prepared Entrees comprise 37% of all Italian (non pizza) menu items

     Top 5 items: spaghetti w/ meatballs, spaghetti, meat lasagna, ravioli, fettucine alfredo

Salads comprise 21% of all Italian

                 Top 5: caesar salad, caesar salad with chicken, caesar salad with shrimp, pasta salad, antipasti salad

Center of the Plate makes up 16%

     Top 5: chicken parmigiana, veal chops dinner, shrimp scampi, veal medallions dinner, grilled chicken breast

Sandwiches make up 18%

                 Top 5: meatball sandwich, Italian sub, chicken caesar sandwich, calzone with sausage, chicken parmesan sandwich

Appetizers make up 8%

                 Top 5: mozzarella cheese sticks, calamari, bruschetta, fried zucchini, antipasti w/ Italian meats 

 Tasty Italian Cuisine Appetizer Selections

Italian Sauces cover all texture levels ranging from creamy to thin vinaigrette and wine sauces.  Italian sauces mimic the full color spectrum with red, green, white, yellow, brown and clear properties.   Shown in the table below are leading Italian sauces and the share of total Italian menu items they are called upon to dress and enhance, regardless of protein type or menu part.  Sauce shares sum to 90%.  Sauces appearing on menus frequently include two or more flavors such as lemon butter sauce or alfredo garlic sauce or other combinations.

Menu Prices of Italian Cuisine Menu Items

Based on a MenuBook price analysis of more than 5000 Italian cuisine menu items, average (mean) prices are displayed below.

Source: MenuBook Trends by Foodservice Research Institute, Inc.

Leading Seasonings

Italy was the center of the commercial spice trade until the Portuguese sailed around the Cape of Good Hope.  Today, Italy remains the heart and soul of the seasoning world.  Garlic is the centerpiece of Italian seasonings followed closely by oregano, basil, lemon, parsley, pesto and rosemary.  Other frequently used seasonings in Italian cuisine are sage, thyme, pine nuts, fennel, tarragon and saffron.  Flavor of Italian cuisine also may be imparted by mustard, capers, mint, dill, chives, curry, scallions, nutmeg and cinnamon. 

How Big is the foodservice Market for Prepared Pasta Sauce (red)?

Brand Equity Share Trends, the BEST Report on Pasta Sauce projects this market to exceed 500 million pounds and places the Pizza Sauce market at over 750 million pounds.  Red pasta sauce is popular in both commercial restaurants and in hospitals, colleges, schools and other non-commercial venues.  About two of every three cans of prepared pasta sauce are used in restaurants and one of every three by institutional foodservice operators.  There are several brands competing for a share of pasta sauce business and they are all within 3 to 5 share points of each other.  Ranked alphabetically, the major brands/companies are: Campbell’s, Furman’s, Frutta di Orto, Heinz, Hunts, Nestle/Chef Mate/Carnation, Ragu and Stanislaus.   

Protein Platforms for Italian Cuisine

Chicken is the leading protein in Italian cuisine, with a 30% share of all Italian cuisine menu items.  Beef accounts for 27% of all Italian menu items, seafood 25%, pork (mainly sausage) 17% and turkey 1%.  Chicken prepared entrees account for 13% of all Italian menu items, followed by seafood prepared entrees (11%), beef prepared entrees (9%), salads with beef (7%), salads with chicken (7%) and appetizers with seafood (6%).

Italian Entrees

Center of the plate entrees are distinguished from prepared entrees, in which a protein, carbo and veggie are all integrated in one item.  Some very popular entrees are listed below:

Leading Sauces by Protein Type (in order of menu listing importance)

Seafood---marinara, alfredo, white wine sauce, olive oil, tomato sauce, garlic sauce, lemon butter sauce, tomato basil sauce, light cream sauce, red clam sauce, pesto sauce, garlic butter

Beef---marinara sauce, Italian meat sauce, au jus, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce with meatballs, marsala wine sauce, bolognese, lemon butter sauce, red sauce, olive oil, pomodoro sauce

Pork---marinara sauce, au jus, red sauce, chunky tomato sauce, zesty sauce, cream sauce, cheese sauce, carbonara sauce, pesto sauce, creamy garlic sauce, tomato cream sauce

Chicken---marinara sauce, alfredo sauce, bbq sauce, marsala wine sauce, pesto sauce, cheese sauce, creamy garlic, primavera, pomodoro sauce, lemon herb sauce, parmesan sauce

No meat/Protein---  tomato sauce, marinara sauce, alfredo sauce, pesto sauce, olive oil, pomodoro sauce, garlic butter sauce, white wine sauce, zesty sauce, four cheese sauce         

Leading Menu Items by Protein

Grilled and Roasted Veggies

Italian cuisine is widely associated with grilled and roasted vegetables and the grilled/roasted taste imparted.  About 5% of all Italian cuisine menu items emphasize either the grilled or the roasted aspect of their veggies.  And of these, 70% use the term roasted versus 30% using grilled.  Roasted items favor (in order of menu listing importance) peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, portabella mushrooms and onions; while grilled items link up with vegetables, portabella mushrooms, eggplant and peppers.

Popular Veggies

The tomato is the penultimate Italian veggie.  On a menu share basis, tomatoes account for 30% of all veggie mentions, mushrooms 29%, onions 12%, peppers 11%, eggplant 6% and all others 12%.

Top Carbos in Italian Cuisine

Linguine and Fettuccine, both of which have a 12% share of carbo platforms, are close on the heals of spaghetti (15% share) as a long good.  Overall, spaghetti is 13 times more likely to be served with a red/tomato sauce opposed to a cream/alfredo/cheese sauce.  Linguine is two times more likely to favor red.  But fettuccine is two times more likely to favor a cream base. 

How Big is the Foodservice Market For Dry Pasta?

Over 900 million pounds of dry pasta is used in foodservice, based on results of the BEST Report from Foodservice Research Institute.  There are hundreds of brands.  Eight companies control more than 40% of the branded volume and some pack various distributor labels: American Italian Pasta Company (AIPC), Barilla, Costa, De Cecco, Dakota, Luzatti, New World Pasta and Zerega. 

Leading Italian Cheeses (ranked left to right and down in terms of popularity)

There is an Italian cheese for every cooking need, whether needed for flavor, texture, meltability, softness, hardness, color or aroma.  Parmesan/Parmegiana is an ingredient in 44% of all Italian cuisine menu items using a cheese.  Frequently, Italian cuisine uses one or more cheeses such as parmesan/mozzarella or parmesan/romano or parmesan/ricotta, or parmesan/provolone.

Best Breads with Italian Sandwiches

Popular Salads

Most Popular Dressings

Vinaigrette Varieties

There are hundreds of ways to romance vinaigrette and make a memorable signature dressing.  Some popular examples follow:  balsamic vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, red wine vinaigrette, sherry vinaigrette,

lemon-thyme vinaigrette, mustard vinaigrette, tomato-basil vinaigrette, mustard-balsamic vinaigrette, garlic vinaigrette, dijon vinaigrette, champagne, red chili, red pepper, saba, wasabi-obi, artichoke,

smoked bacon, sesame-miso, walnut vinaigrette, tarragon, horseradish, lentil, black olive, cilantro, pepper-cress, gorgonzola, cucumber, tuscana, port wine, chianti, aged balsamic, blood orange, non fat.                       

Side Dishes in Italian Cuisine

Side dishes tend to favor before dinner breads, such as garlic bread, breadsticks, garlic cheesebread, pita bread, garlic toast, but also garlic mashed potatoes, spinach, sautéed mushrooms, sausage, polenta, rice pilaf, escarole, asparagus, artichokes and others.