Article

Brands gear up for holiday catering opportunities

Fast casual concepts look to strengthen fourth quarter results by boosting their year-end catering sales.

November 23, 2009 by Valerie Killifer — senior editor, NetWorld Alliance

With the holiday season fast approaching, restaurant operators are positioning their brands to take advantage of an uptick in catering-related business for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.

"This is the most important time of year for us from a catering standpoint," Einstein Bros. Bagels chief concept officer James O'Reilly said. "We've put some important initiatives into place and made investments in technology, new products and promotions that I believe are going to significantly strengthen our catering business in the final quarter of the year."

O'Reilly wouldn't elaborate on just how much catering sales will impact systemwide sales for the fourth quarter, but he did say it was "our most important quarter."

In 2009, Einstein launched its new catering Web site,www.ebcatering.com, which has been rolled out across each Einstein Noah brand in catering markets. The Web site, powered by MonkeyMedia Software, was in a test phase for several months in mid 2009 and is designed to give customers the ability to place catering orders directly online. Each order is then transferred to the appropriate location.

The company also added hot breakfast items to its catering platform. The items include breakfast wraps, and egg and cheese bagel sandwiches also featuring bacon, sausage or spinach.

To market the new technology platform and menu items, the company launched a Black Friday promotion, which is a specially priced lunch bundle. The promotion is geared toward retailers who need to feed their sales teams during the holiday shopping period.

"We have a strong business with corporate catering, especially this time of year, and we have a strong holiday business with retailers as well. So we're doing business in all of those channels at both the national and the local level," O'Reilly said.

In addition to retail and corporate catering sales, the company is anticipating an increase in orders submitted by customer's looking to feed people at home.

According to Technomic's recent study of the consumer catering market, substantial off-premise catering opportunities will exist prior to the Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year holiday. Consumers indicated that this year they will rely on party platters or catered foods for consumption on the day before a major holiday.

"Consumers generally entertain at home during the holiday season, but many tell us that they are busy prepping for the big day and don't want to worry about preparing meals for family and houseguests the day before," said Melissa Wilson, principal of Technomic. "Party platters and prepared meals are appealing time-saving alternatives to cooking, providing important catering opportunities for restaurants and retail operators."

Technomic research also revealed that, for the holidays, 36 percent of consumers indicate they plan on entertaining at home more often over the next year, whereas 51 percent say they will entertain at home about the same.

"More consumers are spending time at home and are not in the restaurant space as much, and they still want to have a treat for their family," O'Reilly said.

In order to help boost their catering sales, Tropical Smoothie Cafe sent a direct mail piece to locations systemwide featuring coupons for catering orders. Mike Rotondo, Tropical Smoothie Cafe's vice president of operations, said 75 percent of operators in the Tropical Smoothie system took advantage of the circular, which will be sent to an estimated 500 businesses near each Tropical Smoothie location.

The company also launched its holiday Cranberry Truffle Smoothie and is offering to consumers the brand's smoothie line as an alternative to typical catering fare of sandwiches and wraps.

"When you have employees that are working through the holiday it's different than ordering pizza for Black Friday," Rotondo said.

Tropical Smoothie also launched a national Cater the Day promotion Nov. 1 in which the company will give away one $100 catering order per day from Nov. 26 through Dec. 29.

"We also have a lot of cafes that have taken it one step further and are doing local promotions the same way," Rotondo said. "It's a nice package that you can win for the office."