At-Home Catering Booming

ChicagoA new study from Technomic revealed an important and largely untapped growth opportunitycatering to consumers' at-home social occasions. At $33.3 billion, the size of the consumer catering opportunity is almost double the size of the business-to-business off-premise catering market previously studied by Technomic.

The study, POP: Parties Off Premise, identifies numerous ways that limited- and full-service restaurants and food retailers can respond to this fundamental shift in consumer behavior and see meaningful improvements in unit-level performance

"We were surprised to learn that the consumer catering opportunity is much larger than we originally expected," said Melissa Wilson, Technomic Principal. Restaurants have been watching the recession chip away at traffic, but Wilson tells them, "This is where your customers are. They used to use restaurants as social venues, but now they're entertaining at home. And theyve told us they plan to continue doing so because they're enjoying socializing with friends at each others homes. In fact, 40 percent of consumers say they expect to entertain at home more often over the coming year."