ABSTRACTIn 1991, about 45% of all U.S. spending for food went for food purchased and consumed away from home. This study developed a new source of data to measure the changing importance of various food groups that comprise foodservice spending. It also measured the growing importance of indirect business taxes and nonfood purchases by the foodservice industry. The data are based on input‐output tables published and otherwise made available from the U. S. Dept. of Commerce. Food and agricultural purchases increased about 40 % in “real” terms but accounted for a sharply declining share of all inputs between 1977 and