Western Sydney’s dining scene is booming, as historically pantry-focused areas now lead the city’s growth in eating out, challenging Sydney’s traditional east-west divide in consumer spending habits.
A new report by Retail Property Australia, Spend Signals, uses transaction data from CommBank iQ to build a spend map of greater Sydney, capturing geographic spend trends and the type of consumer driving them.
Food catering growth in Fairfield, Auburn, Canterbury, Parramatta, and Merrylands-Guildford is now outpacing many eastern and northern Sydney areas where dining out has traditionally led spending patterns, with growth rates of 13.2 per cent, 13.1 per cent, 13.1 per cent, 12.0 per cent, and 12.0 per cent, respectively.
Retail Property Australia Executive Director William Power said the findings reveal a broader shift in how Sydney consumers are spending and can inform how retail precincts best meet the needs of local communities.
William Power stated that the pantry line gives a new lens on Sydney’s retail economy. Traditionally, a higher dining out spend has been concentrated in the inner city and eastern suburbs, but this behaviour is spreading into growth corridors across western Sydney.
Sydney’s highest spending markets remain concentrated in affluent eastern and northern suburbs, led by Eastern Suburbs-North, with a monthly spend of $2,293 per person, followed by Manly, with $2,199, and North Sydney-Mosman, with $2,113.
The strongest spending growth is occurring on the other side of the city in Canterbury, with a growth rate of 9.4 per cent, Parramatta, with 7.8 per cent, and Marrickville-Sydenham-Petersham, with 7.7 per cent. Consumers under 30 are the fastest-growing spending cohort in 89 per cent of Sydney markets analysed.
As consumers face ongoing cost of living pressures, NSW’s spend growth is 5.1 per cent, trending below the national rate of 5.3 per cent, with Sydney doing proportionally more to carry that state number than Melbourne is for Victoria.
Across Australia, retail spending growth remains broad-based, led by Food Catering, with a growth rate of 8.5 per cent, General Retail, with 8.4 per cent, Jewellery, Watches and Luxury, with 7.6 per cent, Retail Services, with 6.4 per cent, and Leisure, with 6.1 per cent.
