Courtesy/News Source: hospitalitytech.com

ezCater 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 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 50% faster than the overall restaurant industry, with business catering driving much of the growth.
• 90% of restaurants consider catering important to their business.
• Catering is big: The average check size of a catering order is $283.
• Catering is worth the investment: 91% of respondents who reported increasing catering revenues are investing in their catering operations, with top investments in personnel (34%), technology (25%), and marketing (24%).
• 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 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.

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.

To download The Catering Opportunity: Understanding a $60+ Billion Market, visit www.cateringdata.com.