Catering Video Statistics

Key takeaways

1. In our November 12, 2026 read of YouTube’s 526 most-viewed ‘catering’, ‘catering business’ and ‘wedding catering’ videos, caterers and catering companies speaking as themselves drew 43.4% of on-topic views. Food, travel, lifestyle, general and comedy creators together drew 51.3%; food creators alone drew 28.2%. (Mark Studios) See details
2. 53.5% of the on-topic videos ran 60 seconds or less, and they drew 67.0% of on-topic views; 64.9% of the caterers’ own videos were that short. (Mark Studios) See details
3. 210 of the 445 on-topic titles named a wedding, a marriage or a reception, and they drew 37.7% of on-topic views; 54.5% of the caterers’ own titles did. No title named corporate, office or conference catering. (Mark Studios) See details
4. Channels placed in the United States drew 6.0% of on-topic views and U.S.-placed caterers 2.4%; channels placed outside it drew 82.1%, India the largest share. (Mark Studios) See details
5. BLS counted 13,929 private U.S. caterer establishments with paid employees in 2025 (NAICS 722320, which includes banquet halls with catering staff), up 20.9% from 11,523 in 2014. They employed 170,966 workers at average annual pay of $35,037. (BLS) See details
6. Florida had 1,024 private caterers with paid employees in 2025: 84 in Palm Beach County, 110 in Broward and 8 in Martin, or 5.33 and 5.46 per 100,000 residents in Palm Beach and Broward. (BLS) See details
7. 87.4% of U.S. special food services businesses (NAICS 7223, which holds caterers with food service contractors and mobile food services) had no paid employees in 2023: 381,492 nonemployers against 55,221 employer establishments. In Florida the share was 91.6%. (Census) See details
8. The 2022 Economic Census counted 12,579 U.S. caterers with paid employees and $13.0 billion ($12,966,223,000) in sales, 18.6% more than in 2017 before inflation. Food and drink prepared for catered events made up 82.1% of those sales. (Census) See details
9. Florida’s Division of Hotels and Restaurants counted 1,714 active catering licences in fiscal year 2025-26, up 106.5% from 830 in 2013-14. On November 9, 2026 its licence files listed 124 current catering licences in Palm Beach County, 192 in Broward and 12 in Martin (our count). (Florida DBPR) See details
10. 23.1% of the 723 routine DBPR inspections of caterers from July 1 to November 11, 2026 found at least one high-priority violation, against 48.3% for all food service licences (our count). (Mark Studios, from Florida DBPR) See details
11. Caterers and banquet facilities were the setting of 10.2% of the foodborne outbreaks U.S. health departments reported to CDC for 1998-2023 (2,523 of 24,729), and of 17.7% of the illnesses in them; norovirus was a reported cause in 44.1% of those outbreaks (our calculation from NORS). (CDC) See details
12. Where a chain states it, catering is a small share of sales: Cracker Barrel’s Catering and Occasion orders were approximately 20% of off-premise sales, which were approximately 20% of restaurant sales, in fiscal 2026, about 4% (our calculation); Pollo Tropical put catering at 1.2% of total sales in fiscal 2022. (SEC filings) See details
13. Estimates of the U.S. ‘catering market’ run from IBISWorld’s $15.7 billion for 2026, as a software seller repeats it, to Expert Market Research’s USD 77.18 billion for 2025, which folds in contract food service; the Economic Census put caterers’ own 2022 sales at $13.0 billion ($12,966,223,000). (Mark Studios) See details

Who gets the views on YouTube's most-viewed catering videos?

Creators edge out caterers: in our November 12, 2026 YouTube Data API read of the most-viewed videos for 'catering', 'catering business' and 'wedding catering', food, travel, lifestyle, general and comedy creators together drew 51.3% of the on-topic views and caterers and catering companies speaking as themselves drew 43.4%. Food creators drew 28.2%, general, comedy and business-ideas creators 15.5% and travel and lifestyle creators 7.7%. News, TV and media drew 4.3% (our calculation). Caterers uploaded 191 of the on-topic videos, and a few channels led them: two Ramadan sahur-menu shorts from Polesan Catering, a Turkish corporate and event caterer, drew 19.1% of the caterer class's views; the next largest was venky yadav for u, a Telugu caterer's channel. Caterers placed in India drew 31.7% of all on-topic views (our calculation).

This is a view-sorted global search snapshot, not a census of catering video: we took the top four pages of YouTube's view-sorted results for each phrase that day, 526 unique videos from 341 channels with 1.51 billion lifetime views (1,505,788,913). 445 of them were about catering services, catered events and their food, catering work or the catering business, and they drew 89.6% of all views in the sample; the median one had 692,553 views (our calculation).

Views bunch at the top. Polesan Catering's two videos drew 8.3% of all on-topic views, the most of any channel, and Noufal manjamala, a Kerala creator of catering-boy skits, drew 7.3% with two. The three most-viewed channels drew 22.4% and the ten most-viewed 46.6% (our calculation). The one large caterer in the sample, Madhampatty Rangaraj, chairman of the Madhampatty catering group, drew 3.2%. Each phrase pulls a different crowd. Caterers drew 45.3% of the on-topic views in the 'catering' list, 44.1% in the 'catering business' list and 41.9% in the 'wedding catering' list; creators and media drew 53.6%, 53.4% and 57.7%. News, TV and media drew 23.4% of the 'catering business' list, mostly Business Insider's tours of airline and Oscars kitchens, and food creators drew 35.3% of the 'wedding catering' list (our calculation).

How much of YouTube's "catering business" results is about catering?

About two thirds: 31.1% of the unique videos YouTube returned for 'catering business' on November 12, 2026 were not about catering, and they drew 33.4% of that list's views: 56 were restaurant, tiffin, cloud-kitchen or general food-business videos that never mention catering. The plain 'catering' list was cleaner: 11.1% of its videos were off-topic, with 5.4% of its views, among them 10 sitcoms, dramas, films or scripted comedies and 5 news reports or jokes about Donald Trump switching planes in a catering truck. 0.0% of the 'wedding catering' results were off-topic (our calculation).

Where are the channels behind the most-viewed catering videos?

Mostly outside the United States: channels placed outside it by their own text or country setting drew 82.1% of the on-topic views in our November 12, 2026 sample, with India the largest share, and channels placed in the United States drew 6.0%, from 22 channels. Only 5 caterer channels were U.S.-placed, and their sample videos drew 2.4% of the on-topic views (our calculation). Several Uzbek, Indian and Bangladeshi channels carry a U.S. country setting; we placed them by their own text. 2 on-topic channels name a Florida place, and both are caterers: ChazsLifestyle, a private chef and caterer whose uploads carry Orlando and Jacksonville chef tags, and Yana, the channel of chef Yana Vilton's Kpress Catering, whose uploads tag Miami. The only Palm Beach, Broward or Martin County place in the sample is one Kpress Catering short placed in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, with 477,713 views; no channel in the sample says it is based in any of the three counties (our calculation).

How long are the most-viewed catering videos, and what are they about?

Mostly a minute or less: 53.5% of the on-topic videos in our November 12, 2026 sample ran 60 seconds or less, and they drew 67.0% of the on-topic views; the median short one had 894,260 views, against 433,041 for the median longer one. 64.9% of the caterers' own videos were that short (our calculation).

Weddings lead the titles: 210 on-topic titles named a wedding, a marriage or a reception, with 37.7% of the on-topic views. 79 named a dish, a buffet, a spread, a feast or a tray (18.0% of views), 61 named cooking, a recipe or food preparation (16.0%) and 33 named a menu, a tasting, a review or a test (15.8%). 53 named a behind-the-scenes look, a day in the life, a founder or an interview (9.5%); 43 gave a head count of guests, people or meals (10.0%); 46 carried a price, a cost or a money figure, from a per-plate wedding price to a side-hustle income claim (10.1%). 63 named starting or running a catering business, its income or profit, but they drew only 2.1% of the views. 15 named an event setup, a display or decoration, and 9 named airline, train, offshore or mass-meal catering. 0 titles named corporate, office or conference catering (our calculation).

The caterers' own titles lean the same way: 54.5% named a wedding, a marriage or a reception, 20.4% a dish, a buffet, a spread or a feast, and 4.2% a price or a money figure. Their most-viewed videos are Ramadan sahur menu packages from Polesan Catering, Tamil wedding dinner spreads from GTS Catering, recipe shorts from venky yadav for u, a television host eating at a wedding reception served by a Chennai caterer, and a team serving dinner to more than eight hundred guests for Porur Sastha Catering Services. 78.9% of the on-topic videos were published in 2024 or later (our calculation).

How often do U.S. caterers post on YouTube?

Unevenly: the 5 U.S.-placed caterer channels in our sample uploaded 539 videos between them in the year to November 12, 2026, but two channels, Summers_homemade_meals and Kashif Creates, posted 85.9% of them, and the median channel uploaded 63. This is a five-channel list from one search, not a survey of U.S. caterers. Across all those uploads the median had 70,562 views and 37.7% ran 60 seconds or less (our calculation).

Summers_homemade_meals, a Dearborn, Michigan chef-caterer, uploaded 291 videos in the year, with a median of 171,324 views. Kashif Creates, the founder of New Jersey's Crabbae seafood and catering, uploaded 172 (median 3,098). ChazsLifestyle, the Florida private chef, uploaded 63, with a median of 25,054. Yana, the channel of Kpress Catering's chef, uploaded 11, and BBQ Daddy uploaded fewer still (our calculation).

Method and limits: YouTube Data API, read November 12, 2026, three search phrases, global (no region filter). We did not watch the videos; channel classes were set by hand from each channel's own text, and the uploader decides the class, so a food vlogger's video of a catered wedding counts as the vlogger's, not the caterer's. Chefs, cooks and home kitchens that film their own paid catering jobs count as caterers. We do not name the wedding couples, guests or clients that caterers and creators film. Personal uploads by private people are published as counts only, 3 videos in all, with no title, channel, date or views; shares on this page include their views. Two further videos were dropped from the sample entirely because a title or description suggested a child in a private setting. Many titles are in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali or Hindi script; the title topics read their English and romanised words and hashtags, so topic counts are floors. YouTube's uploader label for altered or synthetic content was absent on every video in the sample, though one village-cooking channel says in its own description that AI generates its visuals and characters. View counts are lifetime snapshots and include ad views. Food truck video has its own page: food truck video statistics. The data are in youtube-catering-videos.csv, youtube-catering-channels.csv and youtube-us-caterer-channels.csv.

How often do U.S. workers get food at work, the market corporate caterers serve?

About a quarter of U.S. working adults, 23.4%, got food at work during a single week of USDA's 2012-13 Food Acquisition and Purchasing Survey, and those who did took in an average of 1,292 calories of it per person that week, a CDC team found in a 2019 analysis of 5,222 employed adults (Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Onufrak et al.). Most of that food was free: 16.8% of workers had at least one free food acquisition at work that week, against 9.2% who bought something there, and free foods, a group that includes food at meetings, in common areas and at workplace social events, made up 68.5% of all the calories workers obtained at work (Onufrak et al., full text). About 11% of working adults, 16.5 million people by the authors' estimate, got food at work at least 3 times that week (Onufrak et al.).

The limits matter for caterers. The survey does not separate catered meals from vending machines, cafeterias or food brought in by coworkers, and its field period ended in January 2013. Catering sellers publish newer office-food surveys of their own, but we left them out: ezCater's terms of use forbid automated access to its site, Technomic's terms bar use of its findings with AI tools, and the American Express GBT meetings forecast and Business Wire's release pages block scripted requests.

What do studies find about how clients choose catering?

The person placing the order shapes what gets catered. In a 2019 Texas State University study at one Central Texas university, 138 administrative assistants who order food for catered university events completed a survey built from focus groups with 27 of their peers; the final instrument kept 19 items grouped under social influence from supervisors and coworkers, restrictions set by policies, vendors and attendee feedback, and the orderer's own views about nutrition (American Journal of Health Promotion, Menge et al.). It is one university and a survey-design study: it measured what influences the orderers, not what they ordered.

The only peer-reviewed study of wedding banquet choice we found in PubMed comes from Penghu, Taiwan, where demand for traditional roadside wedding banquets has fallen. Weighing 14 criteria, the 2022 study found customers put the highest significance on pricing, wanted service quality improved first, and rated dish quality, hygiene and marketing as the most appreciated dimensions; the authors recommend online marketing platforms for banquet providers (Evaluation and Program Planning, Tsai et al.). The abstract does not give the number of respondents, and the market is not a U.S. one.

Does plating change what guests think a dish is worth?

In one experiment it did: at a luncheon for 163 diners, a 2015 University of Oxford study in the United Kingdom found guests would pay a mean £5.94 for a salad arranged in an artistically inspired way against £4.10 for the same salad plated conventionally, 44.9% more (our calculation), and £15.35 against £11.65 for a main course centred on the plate rather than set off to one side, 31.8% more (our calculation) (Appetite, Michel et al.). These are stated prices from a single event, not sales.

Newer studies are smaller and more mixed. In a 2026 Japanese restaurant field study, 57 participants rated a minimally sauced dish healthier than the same dish with a sauce drizzle before tasting, by an adjusted mean difference of 0.60 on the rating scale, but the after-tasting differences in liking did not survive correction for multiple tests (Foods, Motoki et al.). In a 2025 lab study, 53 Dutch young adults rated images of dishes plated home-style or chef-style, and chef-like presentations scored highest on liking, valence and arousal (Food Research International, Mora et al.). Neither measured bookings.

What do studies find about food photos, food videos and where people choose to eat?

Studies of restaurant diners, not catering clients, find that social media pictures move intentions. A 2025 study collected 1,137 online survey responses from restaurant customers and analysed 980 of them: customer-generated photos significantly raised how informative and persuasive diners found reviews and how likely they were to visit, and the restaurant's own visual communication on social media lifted visit intentions directly (PLOS ONE, Safeer et al.). In a 2026 survey of 406 Generation Z respondents in Mexico City, social media marketing was the strongest direct predictor of restaurant purchase intention, ahead of electronic word of mouth and influencers, in a model that explained 73.6% of the variance (Foods, Alfonso-Sanjul and Acosta-Gonzaga).

Age changes which platform does the work. A May to July 2024 web survey of 1,099 Polish adults found the youngest cohort relies heavily on Instagram and TikTok and responds to "instagrammable" visuals and menu uniqueness, while the oldest cohort looks for written detail on ingredients and health properties (Nutrients, Soroka et al.). In August to November 2024 focus groups with 53 young adults aged 18 to 25 in Jamaica and the United Kingdom, 12 groups in all, Oxford researchers found viewers make quick credibility checks on food videos, comparing sources and reading the comments, before they trust them (Journal of Medical Internet Research, Parks et al.).

All of these measure intentions or attitudes, mostly from non-probability samples outside the United States. We found no peer-reviewed study in PubMed of caterers' own video or social media marketing.

How much food is left over at catered events?

Small events leave the most per guest. A 2020 German case study of 239 event caterings by one caterer from 2014 to 2017 recorded about 280 g of buffet leftovers per guest at events with fewer than 100 participants and about 74 g at events with more than 500, so the smallest events left 3.8 times as much per guest as the largest (our calculation). Meat and poultry, finger food and side dishes made up about 54% of the leftovers by quantity and 65% of their money value (Waste Management, Leverenz et al.). At 3 conference events at the Valencia Conference Center in Spain, a 2024 study weighed 104.4 kg of food waste from the meal services, with cereals the largest group (Foods, Fernandez-Zamudio et al.). Both come from a single caterer or venue in Europe.

How many people work for U.S. caterers, and what are they paid?

Private caterers (NAICS 722320, which includes banquet halls with catering staff) employed an annual average of 170,966 workers in the United States in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which counts jobs covered by unemployment insurance (BLS). Average annual pay was $35,037 per employee in 2025 (BLS), before inflation and counting part-time and seasonal event staff as whole jobs.

The pandemic cancelled the events caterers serve. Caterer employment fell from 178,803 in 2019 (BLS) to 99,953 in 2020 (BLS), a drop of 44.1% in one year (our calculation). In 2025 it was still 4.4% below the 2019 level (our calculation). The average caterer with employees had 12.3 of them in 2025 (our calculation, from QCEW).

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counted 148,684 paid employees at U.S. caterers in the week of March 12, 2023 (Census). That was 18.5% of the 805,701 paid employees in special food services (NAICS 7223, which lumps caterers with food service contractors and mobile food services) (Census) (our calculation): most special food services jobs are in contract cafeterias, not catering. Owners who pay themselves no wage are in none of these counts; see the nonemployer figures below.

How many catering jobs are there in Florida and in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

Florida's private caterers (NAICS 722320) employed an annual average of 7,772 workers in 2025, at an average annual pay of $38,003, per BLS QCEW (BLS). Palm Beach County's caterers employed 934 and Broward County's 506; BLS withheld Martin County's employment and wages to protect the few employers there.

Broward's caterer employment fell 21.8% from 2024 to 2025, by BLS's own over-the-year figure (BLS). With so few jobs in each county, one large employer opening, closing or reclassifying can move a county's count and average pay a long way in a single year.

Which jobs do catering workers do, and what do they earn?

BLS does not publish occupations for caterers on their own. The closest table is special food services (NAICS 722300), which also holds food service contractors (cafeterias in schools, hospitals and offices) and mobile food services, so contract food service dominates it. In May 2025 that industry had 817,540 wage and salary jobs, with a median annual wage of $38,080, per BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) (BLS) (BLS). Fast food and counter workers alone held 152,120 of those jobs (BLS), or 18.6% (our calculation), and institution and cafeteria cooks 72,630 (BLS): both are mostly contract cafeteria jobs. OEWS counts wage and salary workers only; self-employed owners are excluded.

Servers, supervisors and cooks are the people a catering video usually shows at work. The OEWS wages include tips only where the employer reports them as wages.

How many caterers are there in the United States?

The United States averaged 13,929 private caterer establishments with employees in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) (BLS). NAICS 722320 (Caterers) covers businesses that provide single event-based food service, and it includes banquet halls with catering staff. The count is up 20.9% from 11,523 in 2014, the first year of the QCEW open-data files (BLS) (our calculation). Caterers run by owners with no employees are not in QCEW; they are counted separately below.

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns, which counts establishments with paid employees in March, goes back further. It counted 13,222 U.S. caterer establishments in 2023 (Census), against 7,332 in 1998, the first year coded by NAICS (Census), and 10,556 in 2008 (Census). That is a rise of 80.3% since 1998 and 25.3% since 2008 (our calculation). Most caterers are small: 7,276 of the 2023 establishments had fewer than 5 employees (Census), or 55.0% (our calculation). Caterers were 23.9% of the 55,221 special food services establishments (NAICS 7223, which also holds food service contractors and mobile food services) (Census) (our calculation).

How many caterers are there in Florida and in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

Florida averaged 1,024 private caterer establishments with employees in 2025 (NAICS 722320), per BLS QCEW (BLS). That was 7.4% of the U.S. total and 20.5% more than the 850 of 2014 (BLS) (our calculation). Florida had 4.36 caterers with employees per 100,000 residents, against 4.08 for the United States; Palm Beach County had 5.33 and Broward County 5.46 (our calculation, from QCEW and Census population estimates).

Establishment counts are private NAICS 722320 establishments with employees (QCEW annual averages; County Business Patterns, week of March 12, 2023). Changes and per-100,000 rates are our calculation; county populations are the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimates, cited in the licence section below. Martin County's rate rests on 8 establishments, so one opening or closing moves it a lot. Broward had the same number of caterers with employees in 2025 as in 2014.

How many catering businesses are run by owner-operators with no employees?

In 2023, 87.4% of U.S. special food services businesses (NAICS 7223, which holds caterers, food service contractors and mobile food services) had no paid employees: 381,492 nonemployer businesses (Census) against 55,221 establishments with paid employees, or 6.9 nonemployers for every employer (our calculation, Nonemployer Statistics 2023 against County Business Patterns 2023). The Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics, built from IRS business tax records, does not publish caterers (722320) on its own: its finest category is special food services (NAICS 7223), which also holds food service contractors and mobile food services such as food trucks. So these counts are an upper bound for owner-operated caterers, not a caterer count.

In Florida the share was higher: 91.6% in 2023, 38,785 nonemployers (Census) against 3,558 employer establishments (Census) (our calculation).

The newest count, for 2024, is 406,608 U.S. special food services nonemployers (Census), 6.6% more than in 2023 (our calculation). Together they reported $11,593,835 thousand (about $11.6 billion) in 2024 receipts (Census), an average of $28,514 per business (our calculation): most are side or part-time businesses. Florida had 43,163 (Census), Palm Beach County 3,024 (Census), Broward County 5,610 (Census) and Martin County 192 (Census), all NAICS 7223.

How much do U.S. caterers sell, and what do they sell?

U.S. caterers with paid employees (NAICS 722320) had $12,966,223 thousand (about $13.0 billion) in sales in 2022, according to the 2022 Economic Census (Census). The census counted 12,579 such establishments (Census), an average of $1,030,783 in sales each (our calculation). Sales rose 18.6% from $10,933,749 thousand (about $10.9 billion) in 2017 (Census), before inflation, while the number of establishments rose 8.5% from 11,594 (Census) (our calculation). Owner-only caterers are not in these totals.

Florida's 921 caterers with paid employees (Census) sold $665,138 thousand (about $665.1 million) in 2022 (Census), 5.1% of the U.S. total and 42.5% more than the $466,922 thousand of 2017 (Census) (our calculation, before inflation).

Event food is almost all of it. Meals, snacks and drinks prepared for catered events made up 82.1% of caterers' 2022 sales, per the Economic Census product lines (Census).

The Census Bureau's Annual Integrated Economic Survey publishes advertising spending for restaurants and other food services only as one group: employer firms in food services and drinking places (NAICS 722, which includes restaurants, bars and caterers) spent $22,258,414 thousand (about $22.3 billion) on purchased advertising and promotion in 2024 (Census). It publishes no figure for caterers or for NAICS 7223.

How have restaurant meal prices changed?

Full service meals and snacks cost 47.9% more in 2025 than in 2015 by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), and all food away from home cost 49.3% more (our calculation, from BLS annual averages). The full service meals and snacks index averaged 159.394 in 2015 (BLS) and 235.688 in 2025 (BLS); the food away from home index averaged 256.101 in 2015 (BLS) and 382.378 in 2025 (BLS).

From September 2025 to September 2026, full service meals and snacks rose 3.8%, from 237.937 (BLS) to 246.898 (BLS) (our calculation). BLS did not collect October 2025 prices during the 2025 shutdown, so no 12-month change exists for October 2026. BLS publishes no caterer-only price index; these indexes price meals from every kind of seller.

How many new food businesses survive one, three and five years?

Of the accommodation and food services establishments (NAICS 72) that opened in the year ended March 2023, 68.8% were still operating three years later, in March 2026, according to BLS Business Employment Dynamics (BED) (BLS), so 31.2% had closed (our calculation). BLS does not publish survival rates for caterers: NAICS 72 is the closest sector it publishes, it includes restaurants, bars and hotels as well as caterers, and it counts only establishments with employees. Of the NAICS 72 establishments that opened in the year ended March 2025, 85.3% were still operating a year later (BLS). Of the March 2021 cohort, 56.3% were still operating after five years (BLS), so 43.7% had closed (our calculation).

How many caterers are licensed in Florida?

Florida's Division of Hotels and Restaurants counted 1,714 active catering licences in fiscal year 2025-26 (July 2025 to June 2026) (DBPR annual report). DBPR issues a licence for each licence type and location, so this counts licensed catering locations, not businesses or events: a company with two licensed kitchens holds two licences. Caterers held 2.5% of Florida's 68,360 active public food service licences that year (DBPR annual report) (our calculation), against 47,401 licences for seating restaurants (DBPR annual report). Food trucks are licensed separately as mobile food dispensing vehicles: see our food truck video statistics.

On November 9, 2026, DBPR's own licence files listed 1,603 catering licences in "Current" status, and another 203 in "Delinquent" status (our calculation from DBPR's public licence extract, licence type Catering, rank CATR). The current count is lower than the annual report's 1,714 because it leaves out delinquent licences and is taken five months after the fiscal year ended.

How fast has the number of catering licences grown in Florida?

Active catering licences in Florida rose 106.5% in twelve fiscal years, from 830 in fiscal year 2013-14 (DBPR annual report) to 1,714 in fiscal year 2025-26, by the Division of Hotels and Restaurants' annual counts (our calculation). Over the same years all public food service licences rose 40.6%, from 48,611 to 68,360 (DBPR annual report) (our calculation), so caterers' share of food service licences went from 1.7% to 2.5% (our calculation). The count fell only once, in fiscal year 2020-21 (July 2020 to June 2021), and grew 9.9% in the latest year (our calculation).

New licences keep coming. DBPR approved 557 new catering licences in fiscal year 2025-26, up 29.8% from 429 in fiscal year 2022-23, with 481 in 2023-24 and 510 in 2024-25 (our calculation from DBPR's new establishments files, change-of-owner records left out). Caterers were 8.5% of all new public food service licences approved in fiscal year 2025-26, a far larger share than their share of active licences, so some catering licences also close or lapse each year (our calculation). Between July 1 and November 11, 2026, DBPR approved 233 more (our calculation).

How many caterers are licensed in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

DBPR's licence file listed 124 current catering licences in Palm Beach County, 192 in Broward County and 12 in Martin County on November 9, 2026 (our calculation from DBPR's District 2 licence extract, matched by DBPR's own location county code). The county comes from the licensee's location address of record in DBPR's file, not from where the food is served: a Broward caterer can work a wedding in Palm Beach.

Per resident, that is 7.9 current catering licences per 100,000 people in Palm Beach County, 9.5 in Broward and 7.2 in Martin, against 6.8 for Florida as a whole (our calculation, using Census Bureau Vintage 2025 populations of 1,575,726 (Census), 2,013,317 (Census), 166,272 (Census) and 23,462,518 (Census) on July 1, 2025). All three counties sit above the statewide rate, Broward most of all.

The annual report gives the same picture for the three counties together. DBPR's District 2 (Broward, Martin and Palm Beach) held 320 active catering licences in fiscal year 2025-26 (DBPR annual report), up 88.2% from 170 in fiscal year 2013-14 (DBPR annual report) (our calculation). That is 8.5 per 100,000 residents, against 7.3 for Florida in the same report year (our calculation).

How often are Florida caterers inspected, and what do inspectors find?

DBPR inspectors made 982 inspection visits to licensed caterers between July 1 and November 11, 2026, the first four months of fiscal year 2026-27, covering 892 catering licences (our calculation from DBPR's public inspection extracts). They recorded 274 high-priority violations, the top tier of DBPR's three violation classes (high priority, intermediate and basic) (our calculation).

Of 723 routine inspections of caterers in that period, 23.1% found at least one high-priority violation, about half the rate for all public food service licences, where 48.3% of routine inspections did (our calculation). DBPR calls each inspection a snapshot of conditions at the time of the visit, and it does not grade or rate establishments.

How often do public companies mention catering in their annual reports?

5,198 Form 10-K annual reports filed from 2001 to 2025 contained the word “catering”, by our count with the SEC’s EDGAR full-text search (our calculation). 1,550 companies filed them (our calculation). The yearly count rose from 108 filings in 2001 to a peak of 292 in 2010 and stood at 239 in 2025, 121.3% more than in 2001 (our calculation). Another 220 were filed from January 1 to November 12, 2026 (our calculation).

The phrases that point to a catering line of business are much rarer. Only 293 10-Ks filed from 2001 to 2025 contained “catering sales” or “catering business”, from 104 companies (our calculation). That count went from 7 filings in 2001 to a high of 19, reached in both 2010 and 2016, and was 12 in 2025 (our calculation).

How we counted: we queried EDGAR full-text search (efts.sec.gov) on November 12, 2026 for each exact phrase, read every page of hits, and counted each Form 10-K once by its filing year, even when the phrase appears in several of its documents. Full-text search covers filings from 2001 on and does no stemming, so “caterer” and “cater” are not counted. Most caterers are private companies and file nothing with the SEC. The per-year counts, registrants per year, filer names and query links are in edgar-catering-10k-counts.csv.

Which companies write about “catering sales” or a “catering business” in recent 10-Ks?

31 Form 10-K filings filed from January 2024 to November 12, 2026 contained “catering sales” or “catering business”, from 16 companies (our calculation). We read the passage around every mention and gave each company one class. 8 of the 16 were restaurant chains describing their own catering program or channel: BJ’s Restaurants, Cracker Barrel, Darden, Dine Brands, Noodles & Company, Red Robin, Sweetgreen and Yoshiharu (our calculation). That is 50.0% of the companies (our calculation).

• 2 were hotel and convention venue operators with a banquet and catering business, Marcus Corporation and Ryman Hospitality Properties (our calculation). Ryman said total revenue at Gaylord National rose 8.0% in 2025, mainly from more group room nights “and the related increase in catering business” (Ryman Hospitality Properties Form 10-K, 2025). Marcus says its plans include growing its “banquet and catering business” as it targets group sales (Marcus Corporation Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
• 2 were small companies with a catering segment in Asia (our calculation). Nocera reported $4.8 million of revenue from its Meixin catering business in Taiwan in 2024 (Nocera Form 10-K, 2024), where it sold 65,376 bento boxes (Nocera Form 10-K, 2024).
• 4 used the phrases in passing: a winery, a kitchen equipment maker, a REIT’s purchase agreement and a director’s biography (our calculation). Willamette Valley Vineyards counts “kitchen and catering sales” in its direct sales segment (Willamette Valley Vineyards Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Middleby, which makes commercial kitchen equipment, says its foodservice equipment sales run slightly stronger in the “second and third quarters” because of summer buying by customers in the catering business and schools (Middleby Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).

None of the 2024-2026 hits came from a shell company planning a catering business. The passage, class and filing link for each of the 31 filings are in edgar-catering-10k-contexts.csv.

What share of sales do restaurant chains say catering brings in?

Where a chain states it, catering is a small share of sales: Cracker Barrel’s Catering and Occasion orders came to about 4% of its restaurant sales in fiscal 2026 (our calculation). Cracker Barrel said approximately 20% of its restaurant sales came through off-premise channels (Cracker Barrel Form 10-K, fiscal 2026), and that Catering and Occasion, its large-party orders including holiday Heat n’ Serve meals, made up approximately 20% of off-premise sales (Cracker Barrel Form 10-K, fiscal 2026). Both inputs are rounded, so our figure is approximate.

The highest shares come from chains built around group orders. Zoës Kitchen, a Mediterranean fast-casual chain, said its catering business represented approximately 16% of revenue in 2017 (Zoës Kitchen Form 10-K, fiscal 2017), the same as the 16% it reported for 2014 (Zoës Kitchen Form 10-K, fiscal 2014). Famous Dave’s, the barbecue chain, put catering at 6% of sales in fiscal 2003 (Famous Dave’s Form 10-K, fiscal 2003), approximately 10% in fiscal 2006 (Famous Dave’s Form 10-K, fiscal 2006), 10.5% of total sales in fiscal 2012 (Famous Dave’s Form 10-K, fiscal 2012) and 9.8% in fiscal 2013 (Famous Dave’s Form 10-K, fiscal 2013). That is a rise of 4.5 percentage points from 2003 to 2012 (our calculation). In fiscal 2006 it said each restaurant had a “dedicated vehicle” for catering (Famous Dave’s Form 10-K, fiscal 2006).

Einstein Noah, the Einstein Bros. Bagels owner, said catering accounted for approximately 9% of its company-owned restaurant sales (Einstein Noah Form 10-K, fiscal 2013). Its catering sales were approximately 8% of company store sales in fiscal 2012, up 18.1% on fiscal 2011 (Einstein Noah Form 10-K, fiscal 2013), and approximately 6% of total sales in fiscal 2011, up 16.3% on fiscal 2010 (Einstein Noah Form 10-K, fiscal 2012).

Other chains report much smaller catering shares. Chipotle said catering represented approximately 1% of sales in the markets that offered it in the fourth quarter of 2013, its launch year (Chipotle Form 10-K, fiscal 2013); we found no newer catering share in its 10-Ks. At Pollo Tropical, catering sales were 1.2% of total sales in fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2021 (Fiesta Restaurant Group Form 10-K, fiscal 2022), up from 0.9% in fiscal 2020 (Fiesta Restaurant Group Form 10-K, fiscal 2022).

Several chains fold catering into a wider off-premise figure, which is not a catering share. Applebee’s off-premise sales, “primarily to-go, delivery and catering sales”, were 22.8% of its sales mix in fiscal 2025 (Dine Brands Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Bob Evans put off-premise sales, including carryout, catering, bakery and retail, at approximately 16% of its restaurant segment revenue in fiscal 2016 (Bob Evans Form 10-K, fiscal 2016).

What do the filings say about catering growth?

Noodles & Company said its catering business grew 37% from 2022 to 2023 (Noodles & Company Form 10-K, fiscal 2023). At Olive Garden, off-premise catering sales added 0.9 percent to the average check in fiscal 2026 (Darden Form 10-K, fiscal 2026) and 0.7 in fiscal 2025 (Darden Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). At Qdoba, catering added 1.1 percentage points to company-operated same-store sales growth in fiscal 2015 (Jack in the Box Form 10-K, fiscal 2015). Famous Dave’s parent BBQ Holdings reported catering same store sales up 92.4% in fiscal 2021, as pandemic limits on large gatherings eased (BBQ Holdings Form 10-K, fiscal 2021). Dine Brands said IHOP’s off-premise sales rose $6.3 million in fiscal 2025, mainly from delivery promotions and catering services (Dine Brands Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).

Chains are still building catering operations. Panera Bread ran 28 catering-only units, which it called delivery hubs, at the end of fiscal 2016, its last year as a public company (Panera Bread Form 10-K, fiscal 2016). Chuy’s added catering vans, equipment and a “dedicated Catering Manager” to most of its major markets (Chuy’s Form 10-K, fiscal 2023). Sweetgreen renamed its office-delivery channel the “Outpost and Catering Channel” (Sweetgreen Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). CAVA says it is in the early stages of its catering program and plans to take it to an “additional test market” in 2026 (CAVA Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Yoshiharu, a ramen chain, entered catering through large business orders such as “Bento boxes” for corporate meetings (Yoshiharu Form 10-K, fiscal 2024). Red Robin said catering growth brought a “lower average guest check” than its other channels in fiscal 2025 (Red Robin Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).

What do the filings say about catering, social media and digital marketing?

Restaurant 10-Ks tie catering to digital ordering and social media, but none we read gives a catering video budget or view count. Einstein Noah said its online ordering, online search and online marketing grew its catering business by approximately 18% in fiscal 2013 (Einstein Noah Form 10-K, fiscal 2013). Zoës Kitchen marketed a party and family-gathering catering offering through in-restaurant posters, “integrated social media campaigns” and direct marketing to catering customers (Zoës Kitchen Form 10-K, fiscal 2014). Cracker Barrel says it has a presence on multiple social media sites and an “e-commerce platform that integrates individual-to-go and catering shopping” (Cracker Barrel Form 10-K, fiscal 2026). Red Robin lists “catering sales” as one of its marketing channels, next to social media, influencer marketing and email (Red Robin Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).

What do Aramark and ezCater file?

Aramark, a contract food service company (cafeterias and dining run for schools, hospitals and offices, not event caterers), lists “catering” among the business dining services it provides for office clients but gives no catering revenue (Aramark Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). ezCater, the catering ordering marketplace, is a private company and files no 10-K. Its SEC filings are Form D notices of private share sales, the latest in December 2021, which reported $103,399,723 sold (ezCater Form D, 2021). A Form D gives no revenue, so ezCater’s sales are not public.

How often are catered events behind foodborne outbreaks?

Caterers and banquet facilities were the setting of 10.2% of the foodborne outbreaks U.S. health departments reported to CDC for 1998-2023: 2,523 of 24,729 outbreaks (CDC NORS) (our calculation). Those catered outbreaks made 82,589 people ill, 17.7% of the 467,790 illnesses in all reported foodborne outbreaks (CDC NORS) (our calculation). They recorded 1,220 hospitalizations, 5.4% of the 22,698 in all outbreaks (our calculation), and 14 deaths (CDC NORS).

Catered outbreaks run large. The average reported caterer or banquet outbreak made 32.7 people ill, against 18.9 for a foodborne outbreak in any setting (our calculation from CDC NORS). CDC's own summary of 1998-2008 found the same pattern: the median outbreak tied to a catering facility sickened 23 people, against 5 for a restaurant or deli (CDC, MMWR Surveillance Summaries).

How we counted: we took every outbreak in CDC's National Outbreak Reporting System dataset (data.cdc.gov 5xkq-dg7x) whose primary mode is food and whose setting field contains "Caterer" or "Banquet Facility (food prepared and served on-site)". A setting field can list several places, so an outbreak recorded at a caterer and a private home counts once. 1,928 outbreaks list a caterer and 631 a banquet facility (CDC NORS); 36 list both (our calculation). NORS holds only outbreaks a health department investigated and reported to CDC, and the setting is the one the health department recorded, so these are counts of reported outbreaks, not of all food poisoning at catered events. The dataset runs to 2023, its newest year.

Are outbreaks at catered events rising or falling?

Falling, in the reports. Health departments reported 100 caterer or banquet outbreaks in 2019, 22 in 2020 and 27 in 2023, the newest year in NORS; the 2023 outbreaks made 720 people ill (CDC NORS). That is a 73% fall from 2019 to 2023 (our calculation), steeper than the 34.4% fall in all reported foodborne outbreaks, from 880 to 577 (CDC NORS) (our calculation). All reported outbreaks made 9,093 people ill in 2023 (CDC NORS).

The catered share of reported outbreaks fell from 11.4% in 2019 to 4.7% in 2023 (our calculation). Over the ten years 2014-2023 it was 11.7%: 860 of 7,372 outbreaks (CDC NORS) (our calculation). The peak year was 2006, with 159 caterer or banquet outbreaks (CDC NORS). The data do not say why the newest years are lower, so read them with care.

What causes outbreaks at catered events?

Norovirus, most often. It was a reported cause in 1,112 of the 2,523 caterer or banquet outbreaks for 1998-2023, or 44.1% (our calculation), and those outbreaks made 37,352 people ill (CDC NORS). Clostridium perfringens was a reported cause in 257 (CDC NORS) and Salmonella in 216, with 569 hospitalizations (CDC NORS). December, the month of holiday parties, had more caterer or banquet outbreaks than any other month: 283 across 1998-2023 (CDC NORS).

CDC's surveillance summaries rank catering second only to restaurants. During 2009-2015, catering or banquet facilities were where the food was prepared in 636 outbreaks with a single place of preparation, out of 5,760 outbreaks in all, and those outbreaks caused 18,141 illnesses, more than any place but restaurants (CDC, MMWR Surveillance Summaries). During 1998-2008 the count was 794 outbreaks, and a catering or banquet facility was the place of preparation in 318 norovirus outbreaks (CDC, MMWR Surveillance Summaries).

How many catered-event outbreaks does Florida report?

Florida's health departments reported 138 caterer or banquet foodborne outbreaks to CDC for 1998-2023, the sixth-highest count of any state and 5.5% of the national total (CDC NORS) (our calculation). Those outbreaks made 4,711 people ill, or 34.1 per outbreak (CDC NORS) (our calculation). Caterers and banquet facilities were the setting of 5.0% of Florida's 2,753 reported foodborne outbreaks (CDC NORS) (our calculation). Outbreaks that cross state lines are filed as multistate in NORS and are not in Florida's count.

What do investigations of catered-event outbreaks find?

• At a catered company Thanksgiving lunch in North Carolina in November 2015, 44 surveyed attendees met the case definition; turkey and stuffing, plated together, were linked to the illness, caused by Clostridium perfringens (MMWR, Rinsky et al. 2016).
• Norovirus outbreaks at a Nebraska event center that began with a wedding reception in October 2017 reached 159 cases among employees and guests at nine events; an employee who prepared and served food went back to work too soon after being ill (MMWR, Free et al. 2019).
• At a wedding reception in Wisconsin in May 2015, 23 interviewed attendees reported norovirus symptoms; investigators found norovirus in leftover fruit salad and in a food handler (Journal of Food Protection, Papafragkou et al. 2025).
• In January 2024 a caterer in Westchester County, New York, served a game dinner to about 500 guests over two evenings; venison from donated wild deer, served rare, led to 15 confirmed Toxoplasma gondii cases (Open Forum Infectious Diseases, Barrett et al. 2026).
• A 2013 report on a wedding reception in Wisconsin counted 51 ill guests in what was likely the first reported foodborne outbreak caused by Arcobacter butzleri; broasted chicken was the food linked to illness (Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, Lappi et al. 2013).
• In Canberra, Australia, in November 2022, one caterer's food at six events made 64 surveyed attendees ill with norovirus (Communicable Diseases Intelligence, Chew et al. 2025). At a wedding reception in Melbourne in March 2022, 29 guests fell ill with Campylobacter after a duck liver parfait canapé (Communicable Diseases Intelligence, McAllister et al. 2023).
• Food workers: in a 2007 review of outbreaks where food workers spread the illness, catered events were the second most common setting, with 126 outbreaks, after food service facilities (Journal of Food Protection, Todd et al. 2007). In Australia, about 30% of foodborne Staphylococcus aureus outbreaks reported to OzFoodNet since 2000 were tied to food from commercial caterers (Communicable Diseases Intelligence, Pillsbury et al. 2013).
• CDC's environmental assessment system counted 800 foodborne outbreaks at retail food establishments, restaurants and caterers together, reported by state and local health departments in 2017-2019 (MMWR Surveillance Summaries, Moritz et al. 2023).

Does a Florida caterer need a licence, and what must its ads show?

As of November 2026, a Florida caterer needs a food service licence from the Division of Hotels and Restaurants, and s. 509.241(3) of the Florida Statutes says an establishment that offers catering must display its licence number on all advertising for catering services (Florida Legislature). The statute does not define advertising, so it does not settle whether a promotional reel counts; putting the licence number in the caption or end card covers the case where it does. This section is statute and rule text as read on November 12, 2026. It is a plain summary, not legal advice.

• Caterers fall under chapter 509 because s. 509.013(5)(a) counts any place where food is prepared before being delivered to another location for consumption as a public food service establishment (Florida Legislature).
• Florida's licensing rule classifies a caterer as an establishment where food or drink is prepared for service elsewhere under an agreed contract for a function or event, catering kitchens included. A licensed restaurant that also caters needs no separate catering licence, and every caterer must meet the sanitation rules 61C-1.004, 61C-4.010 and 61C-4.023 (flrules.org). That rule, 61C-1.002, was last amended in 2024 (flrules.org).
• Operating without the licence is a misdemeanor of the second degree (Florida Legislature).
• The division inspects each licensed establishment at least once and not more than four times a year on a risk-based schedule (Florida Legislature).
• Managers have 30 days after hiring to pass an approved food protection test (Florida Legislature). Other food service staff must be trained and certified within 60 days (Florida Legislature), and the certificate lasts 3 years (Florida Legislature).

What does a Florida catering licence cost?

Florida's statute caps a food service licence at $400 a year (Florida Legislature), and the fee rule sets the actual amount. That rule, Florida Administrative Code 61C-1.008, names catering in the heading of its nonseating fee table but gives catering no row of its own; the permanent nonseating licence in the same table costs $242 a year (flrules.org). Which row the division bills a caterer under is not stated in the rule.

• A new licence or a change of owner also costs a $50 application fee (flrules.org); the statute caps that fee at $50 (Florida Legislature).
• A renewal filed after the licence expires adds a $50 delinquency fee (flrules.org).

Can a Florida caterer serve alcohol at an event?

Yes, with a caterer's special beverage licence. Section 561.20(2)(a)5. of the Florida Statutes offers it, outside the county licence quota, to a caterer licensed under chapter 509 that takes at least 51 percent of its gross food and beverage revenue at each catered event from food and nonalcoholic drinks (Florida Legislature). The licensee may sell or serve alcohol only at a catered event where it also provides prepared food, must buy from licensed vendors, may not store alcohol for events, and must leave unopened leftovers with the customer or return them to the vendor.

• Whatever county it works in, the caterer pays the annual state licence tax set in s. 565.02(1)(b) (Florida Legislature): $1,820 a year, the top county rate for an on-premises vendor (Florida Legislature).
• The licensee must keep every catered event's records, including contracts, event dates and food and alcohol sales, for 3 years (Florida Legislature).
• The first $300,000 in these licence fees each fiscal year goes to the Department of Children and Families for alcohol and drug abuse programs (Florida Legislature).
• A bar or restaurant holding a full liquor licence may also pour at an event where a licensed caterer provides the food, with no extra licence (Florida Legislature).
• A caterer at a licensed pari-mutuel facility can get a separate licence for $675 a year, good only inside the wagering enclosure (Florida Legislature).

Must a caterer state its service charge up front?

Yes. From July 1, 2026 (Laws of Florida), s. 509.214(2) requires any food service establishment that adds an automatic operations charge (a service charge, automatic gratuity, card surcharge or delivery fee) to state its amount or percentage and its purpose on the menu, the written contract and any ordering website (Florida Legislature). For banquet, catering or event services with no menus or written contracts, the notice goes on a menu board or a clearly readable sign by the register. The bill must say an operations charge is included, and receipts need separate lines for the gratuity, the operations charge and sales tax.

Which FDA Food Code does Florida use for caterers?

The 2017 edition. Florida's food service rules adopt sections of the FDA Food Code, 2017 edition (flrules.org), and the definitions rule that names it was amended again in March 2026 without moving to a newer edition (flrules.org). FDA has since issued a 2026 edition of its model code (FDA) and held a national call with state regulators on adopting it on October 8, 2026 (FDA). The Food Code binds only where a state or city adopts it.

• FDA's 2025 adoption report lists the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (restaurants) on the 2017 Food Code, effective 2019 (FDA), and the Florida Department of Health on the 2013 edition (FDA). FDA counts 3 agencies in Florida that regulate restaurants or retail food stores (FDA).
• As of December 31, 2025, 14 states had reached what FDA calls optimal adoption, with at least one agency on the 2022 edition; Florida is not one of them (FDA).
• Agencies on the 2022 edition covered 25.60% of the U.S. population (FDA), and agencies on the 2022 or 2017 editions 54.40% (FDA). Use of the 2017 edition fell to 15 agencies in 2025 (FDA).

What does the FDA Food Code say about catering?

The 2026 Food Code counts a catered feeding location, and a catering operation that provides food directly to consumers, as a food establishment, under paragraph (1)(a) of its definition (FDA). For a caterer, its time and temperature rules decide how food travels and sits at an event: food held hot must stay at 57°C (135°F) or above (FDA) and food held cold at 5°C (41°F) or less (FDA). These are the 2026 model limits; Florida enforces the 2017 edition it adopted.

• Food taken out of temperature control under "time as a public health control" must be served or thrown out within four hours (FDA). Cold food can go up to six hours under stricter monitoring (FDA).
• Cooked food that will be held cold must get through its first cooling stage within two hours (FDA).
• At a self-service buffet, the consumer advisory on raw or undercooked food under s. 3-603.11 must be posted at the unit; at a catered event such as a wedding reception, FDA's commentary says guests make their own requests (FDA).

What rules cover a caterer's videos, reviews and influencers?

The FTC's Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR Part 255, in their current form date from July 26, 2023 (eCFR). They cover a creator's paid tasting review, a sponsored wedding recap and a free meal given to an influencer alike: a connection between the creator and the caterer that viewers would not expect has to be disclosed clearly. Text as read on November 12, 2026; not legal advice.

• The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials rule, 16 CFR Part 465, took effect on October 21, 2024 (Federal Register). It bans fake reviews and the purchase of fake views, followers and likes.
• A knowing violation can cost up to $53,088 per violation at the 2025 inflation-adjusted rate (eCFR).
• On YouTube, a creator who features a sponsorship must tick the paid promotion box, which adds a disclosure label at the beginning of your video, in YouTube's words (YouTube Help).
• Music is the common problem in plated-dish reels and event recaps. YouTube adds new tracks to its free Audio Library twice a month (YouTube Help).
• In Florida, s. 509.241(3) asks for the licence number on all catering advertising; putting it in a promotional reel's caption covers the case if the reel counts as advertising.

What do the popular catering numbers really say?

Most of the popular catering numbers measure something other than caterers: estimates of the U.S. “catering market” for 2025 and 2026 run from IBISWorld’s $15.7 billion, as a software seller repeats it (UpMenu), to Expert Market Research’s USD 77.18 Billion (Expert Market Research), which folds in contract food service. Four numbers travel through catering software blogs, trade columns and business plans: that the catering industry is worth some number of billions, that catering is a set share of restaurant sales, that video lifts conversions 80%, and that caterers’ profit margins are 7% to 8%. We traced each to the oldest source we could read and say below what that source counted. Several of the usual sources bar automated readers in their terms of use (the National Restaurant Association, ezCater, Restaurant Dive, PR Newswire, Restaurant365, WebstaurantStore) or in robots.txt (Restaurant Business, Nation’s Restaurant News, Meat+Poultry), Technomic’s terms bar using its research in AI tools, and IBISWorld and Catersource refuse scripted requests, so we did not read them and name them only where a source we could read cites them.

“The catering industry is worth $X billion”

The figures differ widely because each counter means something different by catering. The smallest are IBISWorld’s, for its U.S. caterers industry, which we could not read and cite only as sellers repeat it. UpMenu, a restaurant ordering-software seller, writes that IBISWorld puts U.S. caterer revenue at roughly $15.7 billion in 2026, with no company holding more than 5% of it (UpMenu). FLIP, an insurer of food businesses, gave $12.2B for 2023 in its 2024 outlook report (FLIP), along with 90,919 caterer businesses (FLIP), 5,473 of them in Florida (FLIP); IBISWorld is the only caterer source in its bibliography. That business count includes owner-operators with no staff, so it cannot be set against the Census Bureau’s count of caterers with paid employees in the industry section of this page.

The restaurant numbers are Technomic’s, made with or for sellers, and they count catering sold by restaurants, not caterers. In May 2019 ezCater, which runs a catering ordering marketplace, published a report with Technomic titled for a $60+ Billion market (ezCater), built on a Technomic survey of more than 450 foodservice leaders (ezCater). A September 2026 Food On Demand column retells Technomic’s series for the off-premises catering market: $37 billion in 2011 (Food On Demand), $55.5 billion in 2016 (Food On Demand) and $64 billion in 2019 (Food On Demand). We could not check the series at Technomic.

The biggest numbers come from market-research firms selling reports, and they add contract food service: cafeterias run for schools, hospitals, factories and airlines. Expert Market Research values the U.S. catering market at USD 77.18 Billion in 2025 and projects USD 140.85 Billion by 2035 (Expert Market Research). By its own account the contractual segment dominates, led by contract caterers such as Aramark and Compass Group (Expert Market Research). Its report credits 83,501 establishments with driving the market (Expert Market Research); further down, the same page gives 83,501 as the number of eating and drinking places in California in 2022 (Expert Market Research), so the figure is not a count of caterers at all. IMARC Group gives USD 39,807.0 Million for 2025 (IMARC Group), rising to USD 57,683.3 Million by 2034 (IMARC Group), for a market whose end users run from hospitals and schools to in-flight catering (IMARC Group). Repeaters drop the definitions: in June 2024 Food On Demand quoted Expert Market Research for $72.7 billion in 2023 (Food On Demand), up from $60.4 billion in 2022 (Food On Demand), and Checkmate, a seller of restaurant ordering and catering technology, printed $72 billion for 2023 with no source (Checkmate) beside a global $498 billion by 2032 (Checkmate) that comes from Allied Market Research’s worldwide “catering and food service contract” market. Use instead: for caterers alone, the Census Bureau’s Economic Census sales for NAICS 722320 Caterers in the industry section of this page. If you quote a market-research total, name the firm and say that it includes contract food service.

“Catering is X% of restaurant sales”

The share repeated most often, about 11%, is catering’s share of all foodservice revenue, not of a restaurant’s sales. Checkmate’s November 2024 statistics post says catering accounts for 11% of total food service industry revenue, with no source or year (Checkmate). Food On Demand’s September 2026 column attaches the same share to the 2023 market total of about $72 billion that Checkmate printed, the market-research figure above: roughly 11 percent of all foodservice revenue (Food On Demand). Search results credit an earlier version to a 2018 Restaurant Business article built on Technomic’s estimates; Restaurant Business bars AI agents in robots.txt, so we did not read it and cannot say where the ratio began. The 2019 ezCater report measured something else again: in Technomic’s survey for ezCater, 90 percent of restaurants said catering was important to their business (ezCater), and catering was growing 50 percent faster than the restaurant industry (ezCater). Neither is a share of sales. A share of one restaurant’s sales is that chain’s own sales mix: the public chains that report catering sales are in the filings section of this page. Use instead: name the base. “Catering was about 11 percent of all foodservice revenue” is a market share with no counter we could read; a catering share from a chain’s 10-K describes that chain only.

“Video lifts conversions 80%”

The figure is a best case from one video vendor, EyeView, about a client website, not a caterer. In February 2009 EyeView’s blog said viewers of its videos for one client, UMOO, were 80% more likely to become depositing users, comparing viewers with non-viewers (EyeView, archived), which does not test what adding a video does. By August 2010 Unbounce, a landing-page software seller, wrote that a study by eyeviewdigital.com showed video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80% (Unbounce, archived).

The larger later evidence points the other way. Unbounce’s own 2021 analysis of about 35,000 customer landing pages in each of three periods (Unbounce) concluded that video appears to have a minimal or negative impact on landing-page performance (Unbounce). Its April 2025 article of landing-page examples still says landing pages with video can increase conversions by 80% (Unbounce). Food marketers have grown the number without a test: a July 2026 page of food service and catering video statistics from Webtonic, a branding and video agency, says video-equipped pages generate 83% more sales conversions (Webtonic), crediting a restaurant marketing site that answered us with a captcha. We found no conversion test by a caterer behind any of them. Unbounce’s benchmark for the category measures something different, how often pages convert at all: the median catering click-through page converts more than 1 in 5 visitors (Unbounce), with or without video. Use instead: “Unbounce’s 2021 study of about 35,000 landing pages per period found video had a minimal or negative effect; we found no conversion test by a caterer.”

“Caterers’ profit margins are 7% to 8%”

The margin is a consultant’s rule of thumb, credited to Catersource, a catering trade publication, and retold as data. MenuTiger, a restaurant menu-software seller, wrote in October 2025 that according to Catersource catering businesses average a pretax margin of 7% to 8% (MenuTiger). Checkmate’s November 2024 guide gives the same range, 7% and 8%, and calls it a net margin, with no source (Checkmate). FLIP’s 2024 report dates it: the average profit margin for the catering sector “was 7-8% in 2023” (FLIP). UpMenu widens it to a target of roughly 7–15% (UpMenu). Catersource refuses scripted requests, so we could not read the original, and none of the repeaters gives a survey, a sample or a year.

No U.S. agency publishes caterers’ margins. The closest official figure is Canadian: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s tax-based tables show that small and medium-sized caterers (NAICS 72232) averaged a net profit of 8.2% of revenue in 2024 (ISED Canada), across 4,009 businesses (ISED Canada). The same table puts their spending on advertising and promotion at 1.3% of revenue (ISED Canada). Use instead: “Canada’s industry department found small and medium caterers averaged a net profit of 8.2% of revenue in 2024”; treat “7% to 8%” as an unsourced rule of thumb.

Every popular claim our research pages trace, 925 in all, is on one page: popular video statistics, fact-checked.

How we built this page

We started from the questions people search for about catering video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 511 figures from 56 publishers.

On November 12, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: BLS establishment and pay counts (Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages open data files), occupation wages, business survival and consumer prices (through the BLS data API and archived BLS tables); Census County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics, the 2017 and 2022 Economic Census, the Annual Integrated Economic Survey and population estimates (through the Census data API and data files); CDC’s National Outbreak Reporting System through data.cdc.gov’s public data API, and CDC surveillance summaries through Internet Archive copies; the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s annual reports, licence files and inspection files; the Florida Statutes, the Florida Administrative Code and the Laws of Florida; FDA’s Food Code pages and PDFs; eCFR and the Federal Register; YouTube Help; SEC filings on EDGAR; Canada’s industry department; and journal abstracts and full texts (PubMed and PMC records re-read through NCBI’s E-utilities, because the pages answer scripts with a bot check). Market-research firms, software sellers, an insurer and a trade publication appear only in the origins section, labelled as repeaters. Our YouTube figures come from the YouTube Data API, our licence and inspection counts from DBPR’s public files, our outbreak counts from NORS, and our filing counts from EDGAR full-text search. One archived 2009 vendor post behind the “80%” claim is copied from our earlier pages and checked by hand, because the vendor’s robots rules bar our agents. We left out sources whose terms or robots rules bar automated access or AI agents, or bar AI use of their data: the National Restaurant Association, ezCater’s website and reports, Technomic, Nation’s Restaurant News, Restaurant Business, Catersource, IBISWorld (quoted only as others repeat it, and labelled that way), The Knot and several event-industry sites. Nothing here is legal, tax, health or business advice.

We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.

Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:

This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.

Limitations

• Caterer counts differ by counter. BLS and Census count establishments with paid employees in NAICS 722320, Caterers, which includes banquet halls with catering staff and leaves out caterers with no payroll. Census publishes owner-only businesses only for special food services (NAICS 7223), which also holds food service contractors and food trucks. Florida counts licences, one per licensed location. Compare a count only with the same series.
• Licences are not businesses. A Florida catering licence covers one licensed kitchen or location, and the county in DBPR’s file is the licensee’s address of record, not where it caters. A restaurant that also caters needs no separate catering licence, so the licence count leaves out restaurant catering. Our inspection figures cover the first four months of fiscal year 2026-27 only.
• Outbreak data are reported outbreaks. NORS holds outbreaks that state and local health departments investigated and reported to CDC, with the setting as they recorded it, and its newest year is 2023. Most foodborne illness is never linked to an outbreak, reporting varies by state, and pandemic-era counts are low partly because fewer events were held.
• Wages cover more than caterers. OEWS does not publish NAICS 722320; its occupation figures are for special food services (722300), where contract food service dominates. BLS business survival rates exist only for all accommodation and food services (NAICS 72).
• Our YouTube read follows YouTube’s ranking. The 526 videos are what YouTube’s search returned for ‘catering’, ‘catering business’ and ‘wedding catering’ (the top 200 results for each, sorted by views, with no country filter) on November 12, 2026. It is not a census of catering video, and a global view-sorted search surfaces few local U.S. caterers. View counts are lifetime snapshots and include paid views. We read titles and channel text, not the videos themselves, and topic counts are minimums because many titles are in scripts our patterns only partly read. Personal uploads by private people are published only as a class and counts.
• Filings count words. EDGAR full-text search finds a word, not a topic: “catering” appears in airline, hotel and casino filings as well as restaurant ones. We read every 2024 to November 12, 2026 hit for “catering sales” or “catering business” by hand. Few chains state a catering share of sales, and the ones that do are large restaurant companies, not independent caterers.
• Studies are small and scattered. No peer-reviewed study we found measures caterers’ own video or social media. The studies here look at workplace food, one caterer’s leftovers, plating experiments and restaurant diners, each labelled with its year, place and sample. Rules are reported as we read them on November 12, 2026; this is not legal advice. Every “earliest we found” in the origins section rests on web pages, trade press and filings; newspaper databases were not searched.

How to cite this page

For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/catering-video-statistics#WRK-001. To cite the page as a whole:

Mark Studios. "Catering Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 12, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/catering-video-statistics

@misc{markstudios_catering_video_statistics_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{Catering Video Statistics}},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/catering-video-statistics},
  note = {Last verified 2026-11-12}
}

Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.

Sources

Download the evidence table (CSV)

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3. American Journal of Health Promotion (Menge et al., Texas State University), Influences on Catered Event Ordering in a University Workplace: Development and Validation of the Understanding Food Ordering Survey (2019-05). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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7. Food Research International (Mora et al., Basque Culinary Center and Wageningen University), Gastronomic identities: exploring cross-cultural plating's influence on consumer implicit and explicit responses (2025-12). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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22. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
23. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
24. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
25. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
26. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
27. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
28. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
29. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
30. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
31. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
32. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
33. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW Open Data: 2014 annual averages, industry 722320 (CSV) (2015). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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38. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (Census Data API) (2025-06). Accessed 2026-11-12.
39. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics: 2023 (Census API dataset 2023/nonemp) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-12.
40. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (Census Data API) (2025-06). Accessed 2026-11-12.
41. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics: 2024 (Census API dataset 2024/nonemp) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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50. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2013-14 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
51. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2014-15 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
52. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2015-16 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
53. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2016-17 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
54. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2017-18 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
55. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2018-19 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
56. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2019-20 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
57. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2020-21 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
58. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2021-22 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
59. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2022-23 (2024-10-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
60. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2023-24 (2024-12-12). Accessed 2026-11-12.
61. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Division of Hotels and Restaurants Annual Report: 2024-25 (2025-10-30). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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65. Nocera, Inc., Nocera, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 (2025-05-06). Accessed 2026-11-12.
66. Willamette Valley Vineyards, Inc., Willamette Valley Vineyards, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 (2026-03-24). Accessed 2026-11-12.
67. The Middleby Corporation, The Middleby Corporation Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2026 (2026-03-04). Accessed 2026-11-12.
68. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2026 (2026-09-25). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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70. Zoe's Kitchen, Inc., Zoe's Kitchen, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2014 (2015-03-13). Accessed 2026-11-12.
71. Famous Dave's of America, Inc., Famous Dave's of America, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2003 (2004-03-29). Accessed 2026-11-12.
72. Famous Dave's of America, Inc., Famous Dave's of America, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2006 (2007-03-16). Accessed 2026-11-12.
73. Famous Dave's of America, Inc., Famous Dave's of America, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2012 (2013-03-15). Accessed 2026-11-12.
74. Famous Dave's of America, Inc., Famous Dave's of America, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2013 (2014-03-14). Accessed 2026-11-12.
75. Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc., Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2013 (2014-02-28). Accessed 2026-11-12.
76. Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc., Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2012 (2013-03-01). Accessed 2026-11-12.
77. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2013 (2014-02-05). Accessed 2026-11-12.
78. Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc., Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 1, 2023 (2023-03-03). Accessed 2026-11-12.
79. Dine Brands Global, Inc., Dine Brands Global, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 28, 2025 (2026-02-25). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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83. Darden Restaurants, Inc., Darden Restaurants, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended May 25, 2025 (2025-07-18). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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115. Communicable Diseases Intelligence (Chew et al., ACT Health), A foodborne norovirus outbreak associated with six events and a single caterer, Canberra, November 2022 (2025-03-25). Accessed 2026-11-12.
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120. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 509.241 Licenses required; exceptions; division online accounts and transactions (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
121. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 509.013 Definitions (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
122. Florida Department of State (Florida Administrative Code, flrules.org); rule adopted by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Florida Administrative Code Rule 61C-1.002 Licensing and Inspection Requirements (2024-10-20). Accessed 2026-11-12.
123. Florida Department of State (Florida Administrative Code, flrules.org); rule adopted by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Florida Administrative Code Rule 61C-1.002 Licensing and Inspection Requirements (2024-10-20). Accessed 2026-11-12.
124. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 509.032 Duties (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
125. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 509.039 Food service manager certification (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
126. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 509.049 Food service employee training (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
127. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 509.251 License fees (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
128. Florida Department of State (Florida Administrative Code, flrules.org); rule adopted by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Florida Administrative Code Rule 61C-1.008 License Fees (2023-08-24). Accessed 2026-11-12.
129. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 561.20 Limitation upon number of licenses issued (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
130. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 565.02 License fees; vendors; clubs; caterers; and others (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
131. Florida Department of State (Laws of Florida, laws.flrules.org), Laws of Florida, Chapter 2025-113 (Senate Bill No. 606) (2025-06-02). Accessed 2026-11-12.
132. Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine, The 2026 Florida Statutes), Florida Statutes s. 509.214 Notification of automatic operations charge and public food service establishment receipts (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
133. Florida Department of State (Florida Administrative Code, flrules.org); rule adopted by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Florida Administrative Code Rule 61C-1.001 Definitions (2026-03-17). Accessed 2026-11-12.
134. Florida Department of State (Florida Administrative Code, flrules.org); rule adopted by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Florida Administrative Code Rule 61C-1.001 Definitions (2026-03-17). Accessed 2026-11-12.
135. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA Food Code (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
136. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025 Food Code Adoption Annual Report (FDA) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
137. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Adoption of the FDA Food Code by State and Territorial Agencies Responsible for the Oversight of Restaurants and/or Retail Food Stores (2026-10-29). Accessed 2026-11-12.
138. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA Food Code 2026 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
139. Federal Trade Commission (eCFR, Office of the Federal Register), 16 CFR Part 255, Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (2023-07-26). Accessed 2026-11-12.
140. Federal Trade Commission (Federal Register), Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (Federal Register, 2024-08-22) (2024-08-22). Accessed 2026-11-12.
141. Federal Trade Commission (eCFR, Office of the Federal Register), 16 CFR 1.98 Adjustment of civil monetary penalty amounts (2025). Accessed 2026-11-12.
142. YouTube (Google) Help Center, Add branded content restrictions & disclosure labels (YouTube Help) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
143. YouTube (Google) Help Center, Use music & sound effects from the Audio Library (YouTube Help) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.
144. UpMenu (restaurant ordering software seller; repeater of IBISWorld), How to Write a Catering Business Plan (With Example & Free Template) (2026-06-26). Accessed 2026-11-12.
145. Expert Market Research (market-research firm; sells the report), United States Catering Market Size, Share and Outlook - Growth Analysis Report and Forecast Trends (2026-2035) (2026-10-20). Accessed 2026-11-12.
146. FLIP, Food Liability Insurance Program (insurer of food businesses; repeater), Food Industry Economic and Trend Outlook Report 2024 (2024-02-28). Accessed 2026-11-12.
147. ezCater (catering ordering marketplace; seller), with Technomic, ezCater Report Provides Fresh Insights into the $60+ Billion U.S. Catering Market (2019-05-15). Accessed 2026-11-12.
148. Food On Demand (restaurant off-premises trade publication; repeater of Technomic), It's probably time for everyone to jump back on the restaurant catering bandwagon (2026-09-01). Accessed 2026-11-12.
149. IMARC Group (market-research firm; sells the report), United States Catering Services Market Size, Share, Trends and Forecast by Service Type, End User, and Region, 2026-2034 (2026-06-05). Accessed 2026-11-12.
150. Food On Demand (restaurant off-premises trade publication; repeater of Expert Market Research), Catering Is Back. But Now It's Different. (2024-06-26). Accessed 2026-11-12.
151. Checkmate (restaurant ordering and catering technology seller; repeater), Restaurant Catering: Key Statistics and Trends for 2025 and Beyond (2024-11-07). Accessed 2026-11-12.
152. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), UMOO - a prime beef example of EyeView's success (2009-02-10). Accessed 2026-11-12.
153. Unbounce (landing-page software seller), The benefits of using video on landing pages (2010-08). Accessed 2026-11-12.
154. Unbounce (landing-page software seller; analysis of its own customers' pages), Video on landing pages means more conversions, right? Wrong. Here's why (2021-08-26). Accessed 2026-11-12.
155. Unbounce (landing-page software seller; repeater), 15 high-converting landing page examples (+ why they work) (2025-04-06). Accessed 2026-11-12.
156. Webtonic (branding and video production agency; repeater), Video Marketing in Food Service & Catering: 2026 Statistics & Benchmarks (2026-07-23). Accessed 2026-11-12.
157. Unbounce (landing-page software seller; its own customers' pages), Catering and Restaurants - Unbounce (2021). Accessed 2026-11-12.
158. MenuTiger (restaurant QR menu and ordering software seller; repeater of Catersource), Catering profit margin (2025-10-13). Accessed 2026-11-12.
159. Checkmate (restaurant ordering and catering technology seller; repeater), What Is A Catering Profit Margin? How To Calculate It (2024-11-13). Accessed 2026-11-12.
160. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (government), Caterers - 72232 - Financial performance - Canadian Industry Statistics (2026). Accessed 2026-11-12.

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We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

• Nov 12, 2026: First published with 511 figures from 56 publishers, each checked against its original source.