Caterers NAICS 722320

Jul 6, 2025 - New Competition for Corporate Events

• Caterers are facing new competition from restaurants, especially fast-casual chains that launched drop-off or pickup catering during the pandemic to boost business, The Wall Street Journal reports. “Caterers do have a challenge to compete with restaurants who have brick-and-mortars and storefronts and brand-name recognition,” Alex M. Susskind, professor of food and beverage management at Cornell University told WSJ in June, adding “That may negatively affect traditional caterers, so they need to pound the pavement and really sell how they are different and more personalized than a fast-casual restaurant that can drop off a self-serve taco bar.” As more companies host catered meals to lure employees back to the office, competition for corporate catering jobs is heating up. And as post-pandemic pent-up demand for weddings and bar mitzvahs has waned, the big growth area for caterers is corporate spending, Susskind says.
• Tariffs on imports are poised to have a negative impact on the catering industry, Catersource reported in May. While caterers themselves generally do not import products directly neither are they end users. As such, a 25% tariff will typically raise the prices caterers pay for imports, not by the full 25% but by somewhat less, assuming that importers absorb some of the tariff-based increase. However, since caterers are value-adding intermediate consumers of imports, these tariffs will likely impose substantial cost increases in the industry, according to Catersource. Mexico and Canada, both targets of Trump administration tariffs, are major suppliers of perishable foods to the US, including much seasonal produce (Mexico) and seafood and pork (Canada). A 15% increase in prices of these products based on a 25% tariff would make a sizable impact, possibly as much as 2–3% food cost on food revenue, per Catersource.

• Return-to-office mandates in 2025 would provide a boost to corporate catering companies that saw business dry up as workers stayed at home. Now with big employers including Amazon, AT&T, and Starbucks announcing requirements for employees to return to office full-time this year and President-elect Trump wanting federal workers back in the office five days a week, will 2025 be the year workers return en masse to their offices? Probably not, according to human resources executives from PwC, Canva, Magnit, and EY, who all told Fortune magazine in December that they expect hybrid schedules to continue to be the norm this year. The strong preference among workers for the flexibility and cost-saving at-home work provides means companies that enable a hybrid approach will have a competitive advantage attracting top talent.
• Employment by caterers grew 7.7% in April compared to a year ago, while the average industry wage rose 2.5% over the same period to $23.13 per hour, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Catering companies added jobs for the third consecutive month in April as the industry staffed up ahead of peak wedding and event season. Looking ahead, the projected catering staff job growth rate is 2% from 2018-2028, according to the career platform Zippia. That’s about 17,700 new jobs for catering staff over the decade. With more than 72,000 active catering staff job openings in the US, caterers need workers.