The majority of America's chain restaurants held the line on price hikes the first part of the year but plan to start raising them, according to a new survey from SpenDifference, a restaurant supply chain co-op.

The National Council of Chain Restaurants issued the following statement from NCCR Executive Director Rob Green on the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volume mandate for 2014: The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed adjustment to the Renewable Fuel Standard volume mandate is an implicit recognition that the ethanol mandate is out of sync and out of touch with current market realities. With this proposal, the EPA is essentially saying, 'if you like your 15-billion-gallon corn ethanol mandate, you can keep it.'