Compass Group, the world's biggest catering group, has reported a boost from providing hospitality and catering at Fifa World Cup matches in the US and from cashing in on the AI boom by serving data centres.
World Cup catering
Compass provided hospitality and catering at four stadiums in the US: Atlanta, Kansas City, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle, which between them hosted 27 matches in the World Cup. All of the stadiums have capacities of up to about 70,000 people. The company also catered five of the official fan festivals, including the final watch party in New York's Central Park.
AI and data centre services
Compass revealed it was cashing in on supporting “leading AI hyperscalers across the data centre ecosystem” through services like food, facilities management and cleaning for both the building and running of data centres. The company said it had generated more than 2.0 billion US dollars (£1.5 billion) worth of new work to businesses across different industries.
Compass, which has about 590,000 staff, caters to some of the biggest US tech companies including Microsoft, Google and Amazon. It has previously said more businesses were opting to outsource food services in the face of complex regulation and the risk of allergies, leading to around half of new contract wins in the past year coming from clients outsourcing catering for the first time.
Financial performance
Compass said its sales grew by 7.1% in the three months to the end of June, compared with the same period a year ago. Chief executive Dominic Blakemore said: “We are winning market share across multiple sectors, supported by the strongest pipeline of opportunities we have ever seen.”
