Abstract

This study investigated the effects of inflation on the fast food menus in fast food establishments in Enugu State. Five objectives were set out which are, examine the influence of inflation on menu prices in fast food establishments in Enugu State; explore the influence of inflation on food operational expenses in fast food establishments in Enugu State; determine the influence of inflation on cost of food ingredients in fast food establishments in Enugu State; ascertain the influence of inflation on portion sizes in fast food establishments in Enugu State; and determine the influence of inflation on labour in food production in fast food establishment in Enugu State. A survey research design was adopted for this study, with a population of one-hundred and nighty-six (196) staff of registered fast food service establishments in Enugu state. The study employed the use of self-prepared questionnaire to obtain information from staff (respondents) of fast food service establishments in Enugu state. The questionnaire was designed in line with the five point likert rating scale. Simple descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentage, and mean was used to analyze respondents’ personal data and research questions while spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to analysed the relationship between the variables in hypotheses.  The result on the demographic data showed that most respondents (51.8%) fall within the 20–30 age group, most of the respondents (46.6%) are married, a significant proportion hold degrees (37.2%), employees with 4-6 years of experience constitute 34.1% and a majority of the employees are accountant (40.8%). The findings indicate that inflation significantly impacts menu prices, operational expenses, ingredient costs, portion sizes, and labor-related factors within the fast food sector. In recommendation, fast food operators should consider implementing dynamic pricing strategies that allow for more flexible adjustments based on real-time economic conditions