LibGuides: Business Planning (MGMT-407): Market Research, Industry Data & Statistics

This Section

This section offers a range of resources to support your market research, including valuable open web pages, Hoovers' database, and government websites. Use the links below to explore these helpful resources and enhance your business plan.

Market Research & Industry Data

Market Research

Before you start your market research, take a moment to explore the articles below. They will give you helpful tips and insights to guide you through the market research process and make your work more effective.

Conducting Market Research This site, managed by the U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration, contains a step-by-step guide to conducting international market research.
How to Conduct Market Research for a Startup This Harvard Business School Online's Business Insights blog post explains how to conduct market research for a startup company.
Market research vs. marketing research

Industry Report from Open Web

Securities and Exchange Commission Public companies issue annual reports to shareholders. These reports are usually posted on company websites and at Securities and Exchange Commission
2025 Independent Restaurant Industry Report The report highlights the state of the industry, emerging trends, and critical factors that the independent restaurant industry could leverage to thrive and create progress in the year ahead.
Datassential Food & Beverage Reports: Your one-stop shop for food and beverage trends shaping the industry. Limited access to some free reports.
SBDC - Beverage Industry

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Food Trends

News Websites

Business Insider Provides articles about business and finance. Be sure to also check the "Prime" and "Intelligence" sections.
FastCasual.com
Restaurant Dive Restaurant Dive provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping the restaurant industry. The newsletters and website cover topics such as consumer trends, restaurant tech, food service operations, policies, regulation, and more.

Plunkett's Food Industry Almanac 2025 : Food Industry Market Research, Statistics, Trends and Leading Companies The food industry is among the most competitive and globally-linked of all business sectors. Plunkett's Food Industry Almanac will be your guide to the entire food business, from production, to distribution, to retailing. This book covers everything you need to know about the food, beverage and tobacco industry, including: Analysis of major trends and markets; trends in food commodities demand, agricultural biotechnology, imports and exports, as well as growing demand in China and other emerging markets.
Plunkett's Restaurant, Hotel & Hospitality Industry Almanac 2023 : Restaurant, Hotel & Hospitality Industry Market Research, Statistics, Trends and Leading Companies By many measures, restaurants and hospitality make up one of the largest and fastest growing industry sectors in the world. Globally, hospitality can be considered to be a broad and multifaceted sector, ranging from fast food restaurants to fine dining and catering on one side, and hotels, inns resorts and cruise lines on the other. Our exciting new Plunkett's Restaurant, Hotel & Hospitality Industry Almanac offers a comprehensive market research and reference package covering the entire field. Profiles of leading companies in fast food, family restaurants, fine dining, catering, hotels, inns, resorts, cruises, food service, food distributors, information systems and much more are covered in exacting details. The corporate section includes our proprietary, in-depth profiles of 400 leading companies, public and private, in all facets of the industry. You'll find a complete overview, industry analysis and market research report in one superb, value-priced package.
Restaurant, Food & Beverage Market Research 2025 - RKMA Series (Richard K. Miller & Associates)

Finding Industry and Company Information in Databases

Gale Business: Insights Tutorial

Business Insights: Essentials (NOVELNY)
Explore the world's companies through expert analysis such as SWOT analyses, financial statements, case studies and articles from academic journals, trade magazines, news outlets and more.
Includes company histories and industry essays, scholarly journals, business news, and more

Filters in Business Insights: Essentials

Plunket Reports

ProQuest Databases

ProQuest Business Databases
Search ABI/INFORM, Barrons and the Proquest Research Library for Business

ProQuest Industry & Market Reports - Advanced Search

Tip: Use the filters to select Industry Report and Market Report.

Financial documents like annual reports, balance sheets, and income statements provide insights into the financial health of companies in your chosen food industry. These can help you benchmark your business plan’s financial projections.

Databases to Use:

EDGAR Company Filings Search The EDGAR database provides free public access to corporate information, allowing you to research a public company’s financial information and operations by reviewing the filings the company makes with the SEC.
How to Use EDGAR
How to search for public companies and understand Form Types

Barron's Barron's is much more than a weekly financial publication, it offers comprehensive coverage of the financial world, including in-depth analysis and commentary on stocks and investments, economic and political developments that impact the financial markets, and more.
Hoover's Online Company and industry information covering 85 million companies, 100 million people, and 900 industry segments. Public and private company profiles and research on both domestic and international companies. Users can search by company name, geographical region, employee and revenue size, and corporate family tree. Includes executive contacts, SWOT reports, analyst reports, industry reports and company news.

Databases

Business Economics and Theory Collection (NOVELNY) Scholarly and professional resources for Business and Economics.
Includes academic journals, professional magazines, industry handbooks such as Kiplinger. Content is useful for starting a business, marketing a product, developing policy, analyzing trends, constructing economic models, investing for the future, researching rates, and more.
Small Business Collection (NOVELNY) Includes 180 relevant, full-text journals. From NOVELNY.

Journals

Although GALE and ProQuest databases provide a CITE tool to generate the citation, it is always recommended to double check if there any mistakes (such as missing italics) after you pasted the citation into your document. See some examples bellow:

Gale Business: Insights

Company history

AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (2021). In S. Long, D. Jacques, & P. Kepos (Eds.), International directory of company histories (Vol. 229). St. James Press.

Company profile

Gale. (n.d.). Target Corporation: Company profile. Gale Business: Insights. https://www.gale.com/c/business-insights

Country profile

Gale. (n.d.). Switzerland: Country/territory profile. Gale Business: Insights. https://www.gale.com/c/business-insights

Industry essay

Plant-based meatless meats. (2021). In Encyclopedia of emerging industries. Gale.

Market share report

Top frozen novelty brands, 2019. (2021). In V. L. Burton, III & R. S. Lazich (Eds.), Market share reporter (31st ed.). Gale.

Plunkett report

Plunkett Research. (2021, March 4). Passenger car rental industry (U.S.): Analytics, extensive financial benchmarks, metrics and revenue forecasts to 2027, NAIC 532111. Plunkett Analytics. https://www.gale.com/c/business-insights

SWOT report

GlobalData. (2020, November). The Gap, Inc.: Financial and strategic analysis review. Gale Business: Insights. https://www.gale.com/c/business-insights

Examples retrieved from APA 7th ed. citation for business sources.