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Why Regional Penetration Can Be Higher Than the Total U.S. in Menu Trends

If you've ever noticed that a chain's regional penetration looks higher than its Total U.S. penetration, you're not imagining things — and it's not a data error!

Written by Teresa Resnick

Here's why:

How penetration is calculated

In Menu Trends, penetration reflects the percentage of restaurants in a given universe that menu a particular item. When viewing Total U.S., a chain is counted once across the full dataset.

However, when viewing by region, chains that operate across multiple regions are counted separately in each region where they appear. This means a chain with locations in several regions will contribute to the penetration calculation for each of those regions individually — which can result in regional penetration figures that appear higher than the Total U.S. number.

The short version:
A chain that spans multiple regions gets counted once for Total U.S., but once per region it appears in — so regional pen can naturally run higher.

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