Catering, which makes up more than $60 billion in sales within the restaurant’s $600 billion industry, grew 6% year-over-year in 2018 compared to 3.6% growth across the restaurant industry, Technomic principal Melissa Wilson said during a CaterUp panel on Tuesday. Catering outpaced overall industry growth by 50% last year, according to a Technomic and ezCater report released during the conference.
Catering makes up 18% of sales on average at restaurants that offer it, ezCater CMO David Meiselman said at the panel.
Ninety percent of restaurant operators believe that catering is somewhat or very important to their business, but 28% of operators haven’t made strategic investments to build this business, according to the report.
