16−19 September 2025
Moscow, Crocus Expo, Pavillion 3
Catering Market: New Formats And Digitalization
Published on: Nov 12, 2024
Reading Time: 5 min
The catering market continues to develop rapidly, outpacing the growth rate of food retail. According to INFOLine, in 2023, catering turnover increased by 14% and reached 4.3 trillion rubles
Catering establishments are actively attracting customers, luring them from other segments of out-of-home food consumption. At the same time, retail chains are developing strategies to increase sales of prepared food through their traditional and online channels, and are also opening their own cafes. Food manufacturers are increasingly seriously considering the catering channel as a promising one for selling their products. They are developing special products for professional kitchens (HoReCa). In addition, the catering market has been experiencing a significant shortage of personnel for several years now. How to work in this complex but growing market was discussed by participants in a special session within the framework of the Forum of Food Business Leaders at the WorldFood Moscow 2024 exhibition.
The session dedicated to the public catering sector brought together representatives of completely different areas. The following gathered on one stage:
Maximilian Malikov
Brand Director
"Little Potato"
The Kroshka Kartoshka chain has been on the market for 26 years, and last year the company rebranded, including changing its approach to staff training. A complete change of all outlets is planned for the end of 2025.
Ekaterina Panova
Director of Development in Russia and the CIS
Cofix
The Cofix chain, which operates in the traditional coffee to go format, has recently begun to develop two new concepts: bakery and fitness bar. The chain was forced to change its strategy by the market, namely the problem of staff shortages. Instead of a strategy of scaling coffee to go outlets, the company had to switch to a strategy of increasing revenue from individual outlets.
Alexey Khovanov
Marketing Director
GC "Shokoladnitsa"
GC "Shokoladnitsa" is one of the leaders in the public catering market. Now the chain plans to expand and open new outlets, as well as rethink the format from a classic coffee shop to fast casual.
Dmitry Lapin
Pastry Chef
Bakery "Khlebnik"
The Khlebnik bakery chain has also achieved rapid growth this year, opening its 200th outlet in July. And the chain has no plans to slow down, implementing a strategy of opening new outlets "one bakery every three days."
Alexander Govenko
Director of Development
Maison Dellos Restaurant House
The premium restaurant chain is currently implementing a very unusual collaboration with a network of petrol stations, aiming to change the perception of food on the road and provide consumers with tasty and high-quality food at any point.
At the very beginning of the session , Svetlana Silenina, head of the Consumer Market department at the INFOLine information and consulting agency , shared a brief analysis of the market .
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In recent years, the catering market has been growing faster than retail. A critical decline was observed in 2020, when establishments were closed, and after the announcement of the SVO. But the market is recovering quite quickly. The share of delivery is also increasing: in 4 years, it has grown from 59% to 78%.
Currently, the top 10 chains (Vkusno i tochka, Rostics, Burger King, DODO Pizza, Shokoladnitsa, Teremok, Khlebnitsa Bakery, Tanuki, Rosinter, Coffee Like) account for 11.7% of the total turnover. The growth triggers are the development of ready-made food deliveries, as well as new services and formats. Barriers include low purchasing power, increased competition from FMCG chain cafes, and rapidly rising costs.
The share of consumer spending on food outside the home is now around 7%, and there is a growth trend.
The structure of the public catering market is also changing in favor of establishments: their share has grown by more than 5pp in recent years. The regional structure remains unchanged: Moscow and the Moscow region occupy a large share (29%). At the same time, the regions are developing due to the growth of domestic tourism.
The key threat to the development of the public catering market at the moment is the segment of prepared food in stores, which is growing faster than the HoReCa segment.