Agenda

This is the money session: How to grow catering revenue and keep it. We’ll break down a catering-specific P&L and expose the margin killers that quietly erase profit: pricing architecture, minimums, delivery/setup fees, labor assumptions, packaging costs, discounts, refunds/remakes, last-minute changes, and marketplace fee math. You’ll leave with a practical checklist and a set of guardrails you can implement immediately to protect contribution margin while scaling volume.

Meet fellow attendees, industry leaders, and sponsors over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.

Stop waiting for catering orders and start generating them. This session shows how top brands blend outbound prospecting with local store marketing partnerships (hospitals, schools, apartments, dealerships, business parks, planners) into one repeatable demand engine. You’ll get proven outreach plays, compelling offers, and follow-up cadences that turn relationships into meetings → orders → reorders.

The right tech makes catering scalable; the wrong tech creates chaos. This session maps the essential stack for growth: ordering, CRM, delivery management, reporting, integrations, and operational workflows-plus what to buy now vs. later and how to avoid implementation traps.

Retention is where catering programs become unstoppable. This session covers how to use guest data and AI to drive repeat business without needing a massive team: segmentation, reorder triggers, automated follow-ups, personalization at scale, lead scoring, and the “minimum viable CRM” setup that turns data into revenue, not busywork.

3PD marketplaces can be a growth engine-or a margin trap. Learn how to maximize visibility and conversion while protecting profitability through menu strategy + bundles, pricing architecture, promo strategy, photography, ranking levers, and operational readiness-plus how to convert marketplace buyers into first-party catering customers over time.

Delivery is where reputations are won or lost. This session focuses on building a repeatable execution system: delivery models (self/hybrid/3rd party), on-time standards, comms + tracking, setup expectations, proof-of-delivery, issue recovery, and packaging standards that protect food quality, presentation, and speed.

Catering growth lives and dies by the experience your guest has from first click to final bite. This session breaks down the moments that matter most - the ones that drive reviews, referrals, and repeat business - and how to standardize them across every order.

Join us for a parade honoring the winners of the "Top 30 Movers & Shakers: Catering."

Attendees will sit down with a few of the experts for a rapid-fire Q&A session on sales, marketing, operations and catering program growth.