BOSTON– ezCater®, the world’s largest online catering marketplace, today published The Catering Opportunity: Understanding a $60+ Billion Market, a comprehensive report on the U.S. catering market with in-depth data and insights to help restaurants develop successful catering strategies.
The report combines insights from a new survey conducted in partnership with Technomic, a leading foodservice industry research firm, with data from millions of orders placed on the ezCater Marketplace. Technomic surveyed more than 450 foodservice leaders representing 45,000 restaurant locations on their attitudes about, experience with and investment plans for catering.
Key findings include:
- Catering is growing: Catering is growing 50 percent faster than the overall restaurant industry, with business catering driving much of the growth.
- Catering is important: 90 percent of restaurants consider catering important to their business.
- Catering is worth the investment: 91 percent of respondents who reported increasing catering revenues are investing in their catering operations, with top investments in personnel (34 percent), technology (25 percent), and marketing (24 percent).
- Catering is in demand: Demand for catering is coming from a wide range of industries, with healthcare, finance, IT/technology, advertising and construction among the top 10 sources of orders.
- Catering is big: The average check size of a catering order is $283.
- Catering is profitable: Large orders drive efficiencies in food and labor costs, which drive a larger portion of dollars to the bottom line than smaller consumer orders.
“Catering is different,” said David Meiselman, Chief Marketing Officer at ezCater. “It’s huge, it’s driving significant incremental profit and it’s growing fast. Our goal for this report was to shine a light on what sets catering apart, what business catering customers want and which catering investments are being made by the brands that are growing the fastest in the market. We’re excited to provide restaurant operators with critical insights to help build and grow profitable catering businesses.”
The report was previewed at CaterUp!, ezCater’s inaugural catering conference where over 300 restaurant operators learned actionable strategies for growing their catering business from 30 industry all-stars. CaterUp! 2020 will take place in San Diego next April. More details will be released later this year.
To download The Catering Opportunity: Understanding a $60+ Billion Market, visit www.cateringdata.com.
About ezCater
ezCater is the world’s largest online catering marketplace. ezCater’s online ordering, on-time ratings and reviews, and award-winning customer service help businesspeople from organizations of all sizes and industries make meetings more successful and employees happier. Over 60,000 restaurants and caterers use ezCater’s platform to grow and manage their catering business. For more information or to place a catering order, visit www.ezcater.com.
