The catering market - Italy

The term "catering" refers to someone who prepares dishes or meals for delivery or take-out. The market for catering services of this type is composed of different aspects and actors working closely together to provide the end result: fresh or packaged meals for a large number of people at the same time. The players in the market operate not only in food procurement, main cooking and final delivery, but also in refreshment and ice machine supply, storage and processing facilities, service equipment, dishwashing and sanitation. Market segmentation could be summarized into two broad categories depending on the end customers and the type of contract, which are: Contract Catering Service and Concession Catering Service. Catering Service originated in the US to solve the problem of having to feed a large number of workers within the same company. Catering services as a phenomenon originated in Italy in the 1900s, peaking in the 1970s, and were initially used by the middle class and upper class, and then spread to the entire population as a mass phenomenon. In Italy, there are 2,000 companies working in the catering food service market with 100,000 employees; this market accounts for 3 percent of the entire Italian food-restaurant sector. Before the covid-19 crisis, the market was expanding in both directions: more organized and digitized services for public facilities, such as schools, public companies, and universities, and high-quality catering services for private events (banqueting), with an average expense of 60 euros per person. In 2021 the market is slowly recovering, but it will take much of 2022 to return to pre-covid numbers.