A BCG survey of 2,000 Australian QSR consumers found that inflation accounts for most of the category's growth, meaning real gains now come almost entirely from taking share from competitors.
Over the past three years, Australia's Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) market has grown about 5% per year. Strip out price and mix, and the category is roughly flat in volume.
If the pie isn't getting bigger, any growth is share taken from someone else.
A handful of QSR operators are already taking this approach. The rest are propping up their topline with price increases and hoping the consumer comes back.
Our survey of 2,000 Australian QSR consumers makes it clear that the macro conditions sustaining the limited levels of growth in the sector are deteriorating. This article lays out what’s driving this, and other changes in the QSR category, and the trends shaping the next 12+ months in QSR. We examine six strategic imperatives operators could undertake to win share from competitors, and why these activities would set them apart from the field.
Finding 1: The Growth Story Is One of Inflation. The Headwind Is Widening.
A net 6 percentage points (pp) more Australians said they had reduced their QSR spend over the past six months, compared to those who said they had increased it. When asked about their QSR spending plans for the next six months, that gap widens to net 9pp. Fifty-one percent of Baby Boomers cut back; only 14% increased spend, a net balance of -37pp for that cohort alone.
Lower-income households (<$75K annual income) show a -22pp recent net balance, widening to -28pp when thinking about spending in the next six months. Even middle-income households ($75-200K) are increasingly cautious. When asked why they are spending less, Australians pointed to higher prices (70%), desire to build savings (49%), and shrinking savings (49%). These are not indicative of the same problem, capturing the impacts of both precautionary saving and economic distress.
How different generations cut back – the tactics are not the same
Seventy-six percent of those reducing QSR spend are cooking at home more. Thirty-five percent are reframing QSR as a special occasion. Sixteen percent are skipping meals or snacks entirely. However, the tactics used to cut back on QSR spending differs across generational cohorts. Baby Boomers don't hunt deals; they simply visit less often. Only 35% seek promotions when cutting back, versus around 45% across younger cohorts. Gen Z splits dishes at 2x the rate of any other cohort, indicating a structural shift toward shareable, social ordering. Value menus work across all income brackets, with high-income consumers over-indexing slightly on value menu usage.
The consumer who is cutting back on QSR spending, and who your brand is losing, is probably not the same consumer your competitor is losing. A blanket response across cohorts will miss capturing the cohorts you most need to win.
Finding 2: Winners Are Emerging. The Pattern Is Consistent.
Despite category-level headwinds, burger and chicken brands are growing at approximately 10% and 7% CAGR respectively in Australia. This varies from what we’re seeing in the US, where chicken brands are the stand-out in gaining share, while the performance of burger brands is more bifurcated. Australia shares in this bifurcation of performance across QSR brands. Although we observe that several QSR brands have gained meaningful share in Australia over the past three years, both within those categories and outside them, others – including some of the largest players in the market – have given it up.
The share gap between winners and losers is not just explained by price. It is explained by positioning clarity and operational execution.
We analysed major Australian QSRs against 28 functional and emotional consumer needs and a clear pattern emerged. The pattern is striking: most attributes are not strongly associated with any single brand in consumers' minds. The largest brands typically under-index on quality and ingredients, while smaller challengers are more strongly linked to these attributes. Even the three most valuable emotional need-states (‘money's worth’, ‘treating myself’, ‘satisfy a craving’) lack a clear ‘owner’. Brands have room to sharpen what they stand for and deliver it more consistently.
One brand illustrates what disciplined positioning looks like. Its demand space is clear: healthier food options, customisation, and 'eat what I want'. That ownership is consistent across every consumer touchpoint. Every brand should be that precise about what it owns. The ones losing share are the ones that have blurred it.
Finding 3: Price Is Only One-Third of the Story.
Those numbers should trouble any brand running a primarily price-led strategy.
Consistent and fast service is a genuine competitive differentiator in Australia, with service and speed registering higher in Australia than in comparable US data. Australians are also more sensitive to shrinkflation. Brands that have quietly walked back portions while holding prices are sitting on a consumer perception problem that has not yet fully shown up in transaction data.
Menu variety, however, matters less in Australia than in the US. Suggesting menu innovation alone will not move the needle. The brands investing in increasing product variations (SKUs) as a primary growth lever are likely to be disappointed.
Six Imperatives to Win the Next QSR Cycle
The following moves reflect what the share data, the consumer survey, and the brand-by-need analysis collectively indicate. They are not equally urgent for every brand; the right entry point depends on where your gaps are.
Of course, each of these moves is conditional on getting the fundamentals right: taste, temperature, order accuracy, cleanliness. These are not differentiators; they are the price of entry. The brands losing the most share in our data are not losing because their prices are too high. They are losing because they have functional weaknesses in quality and operational consistency that consumers now have other options to avoid. Addressing these issues is a prerequisite for pursuing any other strategy.
I. Own a Demand Space
Decide what you stand for and make every commercial and operational decision consistent with that choice.
In our analysis – comparing brands by the emotional and functional needs they serve – most major players are not strongly associated with any single emotional or functional territory in consumers' minds. This is a problem of positioning, where brands have not communicated and/or delivered a sharp enough proposition to consumers. The pizza category illustrates this gap. Pizza brands are not strongly associated with 'fill me up' or 'share good times' even though the format structurally delivers both. The largest pizza brands are associated with convenience, but not with value.
A brand needs to decide what it stands for, then it must align menu, pricing, store design, marketing, channel strategy, and operational execution with that choice. The brands gaining share in our data are not necessarily occupying the most valuable territory; however, they have clear positioning and an operating model which is consistent with their chosen position.
Health illustrates the point. The category is shifting toward better-for-you options. The question for any individual brand is whether health fits the demand space it has chosen to own. For many brands, the answer might very well be ‘No’. In this situation, adapting marketing to emphasise health will not be authentic to the brand.
II. Drive Frequency Through Personalisation
Loyalty members visit 1.9x more often, but most programs are designed to discount regulars, not convert occasional consumers.
The frequency premium from loyalty is real and measurable. But the design of most loyalty programs works against it: they discount the regulars you already have rather than converting occasional buyers into regulars.
Forty-three percent of loyalty members say the program makes them try new items, 41% say the program has made them purchase more often and 39% say it makes them purchase more items per visit. Suggesting, a well-designed loyalty program is a powerful basket-building and occasion-expansion tool.
New occasion development is the other lever. Snacking, late night, and breakfast remain underpenetrated for most QSR brands. Instead of simply competing for existing QSR occasions, limited time offers or menu news which creates a reason to visit, at times a customer currently does not, represents an opportunity for driving incremental frequency.
Give occasional buyers a reason to come back, through personalised CRM, limited time offers, menu news, and new occasions like snacking, late night, and breakfast.
III. Tailor Your Value Mechanics by Cohort
Bundled promotions outperform discount-only on average basket size. The promotional calendar is where this gap is revealed.
Respondents who used a bundled or spend-to-save promotion on their last QSR purchase (e.g. group meal deals, loyalty redemptions, happy hour, free side with meal) reported an average basket size of $44. Respondents who used a discount-only promotion reported a $30 average. Respondents who used no promotion at all reported an average of $33. That puts the basket size of bundled-mechanic purchases around 47% higher than discount-only purchases in the survey. Of course, the traffic impacts of promotions are also an important consideration to factor in.
Those are survey associations, not a guaranteed P&L outcome. Selection plays a role: more price-sensitive consumers may gravitate to discount-only mechanics, and bundled mechanics may attract larger occasions in the first place. But the gap is wide enough to warrant a hard look at the promotional calendar.
The strategic question is whether the mix of promotional activity is doing the work the brand needs it to do. Blanket discounting may still have a role in trial, traffic, or competitive response. For brands trying to lift average ticket and protect margin, bundled and spend-to-save mechanics, paired with customer data, are likely worth a bigger share of the calendar than they are currently getting.
Promotional reach also skews towards younger cohorts: 67% of Gen Z used a promotion on their last QSR purchase, versus 16% of Baby Boomers. Getting the promotional mix right matters more for younger cohorts than for older ones.
IV. Build a Distinct 3P Platforms Strategy
Fifty percent of Gen Z prefer third-party (3P) platforms for delivery and takeaway. Treat 3P as an opportunity for customer acquisition, not as the customer destination. Set a deliberate 3P versus owned-channel strategy that protects unit economics; reclaim leverage with aggregators on commissions, rank, and conversion.
More than 55% of QSR orders are now placed digitally. Gen Z’s digital ordering penetration is 63%, while Millennials are at 52%. Brand apps and websites still dominate today, but 50% of Gen Z already prefer 3P platforms for delivery and takeaway, compared to only 20% of Baby Boomers.
Brands that treat 3P platforms as a destination are quietly funding their own disintermediation.
The strategic frame for 3P should be: high visibility drives new consumer acquisition, and every new consumer acquired on 3P is a conversion target for the owned channel. That requires a distinct 3P strategy – different menu architecture, different pricing logic, different promotional mechanics – rather than mirroring the direct-channel calendar on aggregator platforms.
The negotiating room with aggregators is also underused by most brands. Commissions can be de-averaged between pickup and delivery. Co-marketing spend can be traded against lower commissions. Service levels directly affect carousel placement. Brands that treat aggregator contracts as fixed costs are leaving margin on the table.
V. Scale AI for Commercial and Operational Impact
Forty-seven percent of Australian consumers have already used AI for at least one QSR task. Among Gen Z, the figure reaches 67%.
The most common current uses of AI are research-oriented: comparing prices (17%), researching restaurants (17%) and checking nutrition or ingredients (15%). AI is, for now, primarily a transparency tool consumers use before they decide where to go, making it a discovery channel within which consideration sets are formed.
The transactional wave is coming. Nine percent of Australians have already placed an order via AI, and this number won’t stay small. Forty percent are open to ordering via ChatGPT or a similar model. Forty-two percent would make a restaurant reservation via AI.
Three decisions need to be made before that wave arrives. First, the channel strategy: is the goal to win on AI platforms (be the brand the agent recommends when a consumer says "I want a burger near me") or to use AI surfaces as a funnel to owned channels (e.g. apps, loyalty programs, direct orders)? Both are defensible; the failure mode is doing neither deliberately. Second, Answer Engine Optimisation: how the brand surfaces in AI responses now needs to be managed as a discipline alongside SEO and paid search. This requires separate visibility metrics like share of model, citation rate and referral traffic from LLMs. Third, transactional readiness: structured menu and location data, participation in emerging commerce protocols, and a clear position on whether to let 3P AI agents transact on the brand's behalf. These are three-to-six month decisions, not three-year roadmap items.
VI. Proactively Respond to Disruption: GLP1s
The use of GLP-1s is already reshaping a small share of QSR baskets. The availability of oral GLP-1s from late 2026, potentially increasing usage in the population, will likely further change the category.
Triangulation against IQVIA pharmaceutical sales and UNSW research suggests current rates of GLP-1 adoption of around 2 to 3% of Australian adults, roughly half a million people. With increasing availability of oral GLP-1s by late 2026, this trend is unlikely to be fleeting.
In our survey, users of GLP-1s are already reporting changes in behaviour: 19% order fewer items or skip sides, 15% seek healthier restaurants, 15% customise to be healthier, 15% order smaller portions, and 14% visit QSR less often. Only 8% report no change.
The strategic question is how brands should position themselves to respond, in a way that is consistent with their brand identity.
Five Questions Your Leadership Team Needs to Answer
BCG is working with brands globally to solve the following five questions. The brands best placed to win the next QSR cycle can answer each one clearly, with conviction, and with evidence that their operating model is consistent with their answer.
- Question 1 - Right to Win
Which demand space does your brand own? Is every operational decision consistent with that choice? Positioning, menu, pricing, store design, marketing, footprint, and your response to shifts, like the increasing uptake of GLP-1s, should all reinforce the same answer. The strongest brands are often defined as much by what they refuse to chase as by what they pursue. - Question 2 - Frequency and Value
Are your promotions building frequency or eroding it? Bundled and spend-to-save promotions lifted average basket size above blanket discounts according to our respondents. Which kind dominates your promotional calendar? - Question 3 - Channel Economics
Do you have an explicit 3P versus owned-channel strategy, with distinct menu, pricing, and promotional choices for each? Or is your aggregator calendar a mirror of your direct channel, subsidising platform growth at the cost of your own margin? - Question 4 - AI Visibility
When a consumer asks an AI assistant for a recommendation in your category, does your brand show up? When they ask it to place an order on their behalf, can you fulfil? If both answers are no today, when will they be yes, and what is the plan to get there? - Question 5 - Personalisation
Loyalty members visit 1.9x more often than non-members. Do you know what you are doing with the data your loyalty program generates? Is the program designed to convert occasional buyers into regulars, or only to discount the regulars you already have?
The Share Is Available. Go and Take It.
The Australian QSR market is not in structural decline. It is in a transition that is creating one of the largest share redistribution events the category has seen. The data shows exactly where that share is sitting.
The most valuable emotional territories in Australian QSR are uncontested. Operational excellence is unclaimed. The brands that are growing are not the biggest or the cheapest; they are the most disciplined about what they own, and they are the most rigorous about executing in alignment with their positioning.
Increasing use of GLP-1s, AI discovery, and the 3P channel shift are current forces already reshaping the consideration set for millions of Australian QSR consumers. The brands that position now, while the field is still catching up, will be in a better position structurally by the time the rest of the category acknowledges the shift.
The next QSR cycle will be won by brands doubling down on the space they stand for, execute the basics relentlessly, and move on the structural shifts while the rest of the category is still debating whether the trends are real.
If any of these five questions is one your leadership team cannot answer with conviction today, we would be glad to talk. BCG has spent the last decade helping QSR brands across Australia, the US, Europe and Asia translate consumer data into share-led growth, and we are happy to bring that lens to your brand and your category.
