Dive Brief:

• Business catering clients are spending $4,000 per month, according to 11 years of data collected by ezCater outlined in a joint report with Technomic. The biggest spenders in catering are coming from the IT/technology, construction, healthcare, finance, consulting and advertising/PR industries.
• The average check for a business order is $275 to cover about 21 people per check. The cost is $13.10 per person and the menu has about 3.5 unique items, ezCater partner marketing manager Tina McDonough said during the CaterUp conference Tuesday.  
• Lunch makes up 81% of orders, but breakfast and snack time catering is growing fast, ezCater CMO David Meiselman said at the conference.

Dive Insight:

Industries with larger budgets have been driving continual demand for catering, but it is important to note that these clients want different experiences, Meiselman and McDonough said.

Healthcare users typically choose the larger enterprise chains for catering since they prefer consistent experiences, McDonough said. IT companies, on the other hand, prefer mom-and-pop shops because they serve unique meals.

Meiselman said that it is important to look not just at who is using catering, but also how they are using it. In finance, for example, average checks may be higher because they want more of a high-end experience.

Average checks run about $300 for offices ordering for employees while orders for office clients average $268. Offices serving employees tend to have more people to serve, averaging 25 individuals, while offices serving clients tend to average 20 people per order, McDonough said.

"If you're bringing food in for the office every day, there is going to be more demand for different food types … whereas some people are bringing food in for clients and they can actually serve the same food for every day of the week," Meiselman said.

Individual orders have also been changing over time. While 31% of orders are made up of sandwiches, Mexican, Italian and Mediterranean foods have been growing in popularity over the last three years, according to ezCater's data. 

McDonough said this shows that people want variety in their catering, and that these shifting preference also create new business opportunities.

"In treats, for example, you're seeing an entirely different opportunity for putting food in front of people for business purposes," Meiselman said. "It's a whole other daypart."