Learn from experts. Connect with leaders. Grow your business.
The U.S. catering market is huge — Technomic puts it at over $60 billion. Learn how to "up" your share at the CaterUp! conference by ezCater. Come hear fellow restaurant industry leaders share learnings, challenges, and how they've upped their catering game. Leave with new insights and actionable strategies to grow your brand's catering business.
Focus on catering.
Catering is a bright spot in the restaurant industry – a $60+ billion opportunity. Immerse yourself in catering strategy and leave with fresh insight on how to grow your brand's share.
Expand your knowledge.
Hear the latest industry data, experience the newest technologies, and learn the strategies leading brands are using to grow their catering business.
Connect with peers.
Meet, mingle, and get inspired by fellow leaders who share the same opportunities and challenges.
Here’s what’s cooking.
Day 01
Monday, April 29, 2019
3:00 PM
- 5:30 PM
- 5:30 PM
Office Hours
Location: Chambers 1 & 3
Here’s your chance to sit down with an ezCater Strategic Account Manager to optimize your account. Book a 30-minute session to receive personal recommendations for increasing order volume, streamlining your business, and understanding data insights. Attendees will receive an email with instructions for booking their appointment prior to the conference.
4:00 PM
- 8:00 PM
- 8:00 PM
Registration
Location: Roosevelt Foyer
CaterUp! registration is open in the Roosevelt Foyer. Stop by when you arrive to pick up your badge and conference materials!
5:30 PM
- 7:30 PM
- 7:30 PM
CaterUp! Launch Party: Welcome to the Big EZ
Location: Roosevelt Pool Deck
Mix and mingle with fellow attendees on the pool deck at The Roosevelt. Partygoers will enjoy hors d'oeuvres and cocktails.
Day 02
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
7:30 AM
- 8:30 AM
- 8:30 AM
Registration
Location: Roosevelt Foyer
CaterUp! registration is open in the Roosevelt Foyer. Stop by when you arrive to pick up your badge and conference materials!
Breakfast & Sponsor Showcase
Location: Waldorf Astoria Ballroom
Office Hours
Location: Chambers 1 & 3
Here’s your chance to sit down with an ezCater Strategic Account Manager to optimize your account. Book a 30-minute session to receive personal recommendations for increasing order volume, streamlining your business, and understanding data insights. Attendees will receive an email with instructions for booking their appointment prior to the conference.
8:30 AM
- 9:00 AM
- 9:00 AM
Welcome Address: A Roadmap for Success
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
How do you grow a catering business and what are the key components to making that happen? It’s one of the most common questions asked in today’s off-premises-first world. In this kickoff session we unveil the roadmap to building a successful catering operation: where to play, asset allocation, and developing a playbook for growth.
9:00 AM
- 9:30 AM
- 9:30 AM
Technomic x ezCater: The Catering Opportunity - Understanding a $60B Market
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
We teamed up with Technomic to uncover new catering industry trends You’ll get the first look at this report, which covers how valuable operators expect catering to be to their overall business, the investments they plan to make, and the segments of catering they’ve seen the most success in.
9:30 AM
- 10:15 AM
- 10:15 AM
The Catering MVPs: Office & Sales Pros
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
In the catering world, your most valuable customers are the office and sales pros who keep the business running and the sales flowing. You’ll hear directly from a panel of these pros who will share their catering experiences and expectations, and how you can keep your brand top of mind.
10:15 AM
- 10:30 AM
- 10:30 AM
Morning Coffee Break
Location: Roosevelt Foyer
10:30 AM
- 11:00 AM
- 11:00 AM
B2B Ordering Trends
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
With 11 years of catering ordering data under our belts, we’ve uncovered some trends…and we’re sharing ‘em! You’ll get a deep look into the business catering buyer persona – from most popular daypart for placing orders to menu items they can’t get enough of.
11:00 AM
- 11:45 AM
- 11:45 AM
Keynote: Aligning Your Catering Business with Your Brand
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
Scott Davis has defined his career with innovative brand transformations. With a unique panoramic perspective on catering business needs, Davis reminds all of us that catering is much more than "putting sandwiches on a platter and getting them out the door.” From his time as the first Chief Concept Officer at Panera Bread to his current role as the President of CoreLife Eatery, Scott knows how to make great catering concepts thrive. Scott's former Panera Bread colleagues Jim Rand and Nicole Jackson will join him on stage following the keynote for a Q&A with the audience.
11:45 AM
- 1:00 PM
- 1:00 PM
Lunch & Sponsor Showcase
Location: Waldorf Astoria Ballroom
Office Hours
Location: Chambers 1 & 3
Here’s your chance to sit down with an ezCater Strategic Account Manager to optimize your account. Book a 30-minute session to receive personal recommendations for increasing order volume, streamlining your business, and understanding data insights. Attendees will receive an email with instructions for booking their appointment prior to the conference.
1:00 PM
- 1:40 PM
- 1:40 PM
Insight from the C-Suite
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
Executive buy-in is crucial for any business lines’ success. This session brings together C-suite executives from top brands where they’ll share what got them committed to catering and how they determined the level of investment and resources they put into it.
1:40 PM
- 2:00 PM
- 2:00 PM
Networking Break
2:00 PM
- 2:45 PM
- 2:45 PM
Round Robin: Assessing Your Capabilities — Physical Capacity
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
Most restaurants were not built to run a full-scale catering business. You’ll learn from a panel of capacity experts on how to navigate and think creatively about your current space. You’ll hear how these leaders are shifting their approach on everything from food inventory and production to smart scheduling, equipment, and more.
Round Robin: Assessing Your Capabilities — People Capacity
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
People are your most important asset. You’ll hear from a panel of people experts on how they’ve built best-in-class teams and how they’ve approached shifting trends in labor. You’ll learn how to find the right people, train and retain them, and elevate their performance.
3:00 PM
- 3:45 PM
- 3:45 PM
(Encore) Round Robin: Assessing Your Capabilities — People Capacity
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
People are your most important asset. You’ll hear from a panel of people experts on how they’ve built best-in-class teams and how they’ve approached shifting trends in labor. You’ll learn how to find the right people, train and retain them, and elevate their performance.
(Encore) Round Robin: Assessing Your Capabilities — Physical Capacity
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
Most restaurants were not built to run a full-scale catering business. You’ll learn from a panel of capacity experts on how to navigate and think creatively about your current space. You’ll hear how these leaders are shifting their approach on everything from food inventory and production to smart scheduling, equipment, and more.
3:45 PM
- 4:00 PM
- 4:00 PM
Afternoon Break: Beignets and Coffee
Location: Roosevelt Foyer
4:00 PM
- 5:00 PM
- 5:00 PM
ezCater Keynote: Partnering in Growth
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
ezCater’s co-founder’s, Stefania Mallett (CEO) and Briscoe Rodgers (CPO), take the stage. After 11 years, 70M+ people served, and 4M+ ratings and reviews it’s clear that catering is different. This keynote will combine insight on why ezCater is more obsessed than ever with customer experience and the latest product features designed to help partners grow their catering business.
5:00 PM
- 6:30 PM
- 6:30 PM
Office Hours
Location: Chambers 1 & 3
Here’s your chance to sit down with an ezCater Strategic Account Manager to optimize your account. Book a 30-minute session to receive personal recommendations for increasing order volume, streamlining your business, and understanding data insights. Attendees will receive an email with instructions for booking their appointment prior to the conference.
Happy Hour in Sponsor Showcase
Location: Waldorf Astoria Ballroom
Grab a drink in the Sponsor Showcase before we head to the Bon Temps Reception as a group.
6:30 PM
- 9:00 PM
- 9:00 PM
Bon Temps Reception
Location: New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute
We're rolling out the Green Carpet for a dinner and drinks reception at the New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute. Rendezvous at the Sponsor Showcase before heading over to a spectacular soiree at this newly-opened venue. Transportation to NOCHI will be provided.
Day 03
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
7:30 AM
- 9:00 AM
- 9:00 AM
Breakfast & Sponsor Showcase
Location: Waldorf Astoria Ballroom
9:00 AM
- 9:55 AM
- 9:55 AM
Keynote: The Science of Engagement
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
How do you keep someone’s brain engaged so that you can increase the likelihood of being memorable? An intriguing approach to understanding engagement is to view it from the angle of its absence. Is it possible for the brain to disengage, especially in the age of overstimulation? The answer is yes. Cognitive scientist, Carmen Simon, will share evidence-based, practical guidelines, which you can use immediately to create meaningful engagement for your catering audiences.
9:55 AM
- 10:00 AM
- 10:00 AM
Introduction to F.E.E.D
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
Time to build a playbook that will take you all the way. You’ll learn a model for building a winning catering action plan, which we call F.E.E.D: Foundation, Experience, Execution, Demand. Each strategy session will dive deep on one of the four elements.
10:00 AM
- 10:15 AM
- 10:15 AM
Morning Coffee Break
Location: Roosevelt Foyer
10:15 AM
- 11:00 AM
- 11:00 AM
F.E.E.D Strategy Sessions: Foundation
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
The foundation of your catering business is a mix of the right menu, pricing, technologies, and facilities. Top leaders who have built some of the strongest catering strategies in the industry will discuss how to brand your catering program so it's consistent with your restaurant’s brand, the types of technologies that streamline operations, and equipment needs you should think about.
F.E.E.D Strategy Sessions: Customer Experience
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
Even without the ambiance of a restaurant, your catering offering still needs to create a positive and consistent experience. You’ll learn how our panel of customer experience experts established a catering experience that lives up to their brand, implemented best-in-class hospitality processes, and create brand evangelism at every customer touchpoint.
F.E.E.D Strategy Sessions: Operational Execution
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
The key to proper execution lies in a few areas: learning what matters to your customers, designating a Catering Operations Leader, and developing your standard operating procedures. This panel will discuss labor management, menu and food assembly training, and techniques for order and packaging production.
F.E.E.D Strategy Sessions: Demand
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
Build demand for your catering offering! A panel of marketing experts will discuss how they drive demand to fuel their marketing program. You’ll learn their approaches to developing unique branding materials, motivating talented salespeople, forging third-party partnerships, and building loyalty programs and experiences.
11:00 AM
- 11:15 AM
- 11:15 AM
Morning Coffee Break
Location: Roosevelt Foyer
11:15 AM
- 12:00 PM
- 12:00 PM
(Encore) F.E.E.D Strategy Sessions: Foundation
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
The foundation of your catering business is a mix of the right menu, pricing, technologies, and facilities. Top leaders who have built some of the strongest catering strategies in the industry will discuss how to brand your catering program so it's consistent with your restaurant’s brand, the types of technologies that streamline operations, and equipment needs you should think about.
(Encore) F.E.E.D Strategy Sessions: Customer Experience
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
Even without the ambiance of a restaurant, your catering offering still needs to create a positive and consistent experience. You’ll learn how our panel of customer experience experts established a catering experience that lives up to their brand, implemented best-in-class hospitality processes, and create brand evangelism at every customer touchpoint.
(Encore) F.E.E.D Strategy Sessions: Operational Execution
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
The key to proper execution lies in a few areas: learning what matters to your customers, designating a Catering Operations Leader, and developing your standard operating procedures. This panel will discuss labor management, menu and food assembly training, and techniques for order and packaging production.
(Encore) F.E.E.D Strategy Sessions: Demand
Location: Roosevelt Ballroom Salons
Build demand for your catering offering! A panel of marketing experts will discuss how they drive demand to fuel their marketing program. You’ll learn their approaches to developing unique branding materials, motivating talented salespeople, forging third-party partnerships, and building loyalty programs and experiences.
12:10 PM
- 12:45 PM
- 12:45 PM
Technology and the Future of Innovation
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
Hubs, robots, and AI, oh my! New technologies are directly impacting the restaurant industry and will change how we do business. In this session, technology leaders in the restaurant industry will discuss how these innovations are changing consumer expectations, how you need to make changes to keep up, and which technologies require the most immediate attention.
12:45 PM
- 1:00 PM
- 1:00 PM
Send Off
Location: Crescent City Ballroom
We’ll recap our top takeaways and say farewell until next year!
1:00 PM
- 1:30 PM
- 1:30 PM
Farewell Lunch
*AGENDA IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Experts Taking The Stage
Destination: New Orleans
What better place to host CaterUp! than New Orleans? It’s a city of food – one of America’s best – with a rich history and thriving restaurant scene. It’s a city of resilience, an essential ingredient of any successful restaurant. It’s a city of excitement, the birthplace of jazz and a famous reputation for nightlife. It’s the perfect place to begin the next chapter of your restaurant business.
The Roosevelt New Orleans,
a Waldorf Astoria hotel.
Exquisite accomodations, impeccable service, and 125 years of legendary history.
a Waldorf Astoria hotel.
Exquisite accomodations, impeccable service, and 125 years of legendary history.
#CaterUp
Chowly
Chowly integrates third party marketplace orders like, ezCater and many more directly into the restaurants POS system. Third-Party orders coming from tablets, fax, or e-mail, will be streamlined through the POS and sent directly back to the kitchen. This helps eliminate "lost orders," lowers labor costs, increases revenue, and streamlines the delivery operations within the restaurant leaving you with happy, returning customers!
Kitchen United
Kitchen United provides restaurants a turnkey solution to accelerate growth and offload off-premise preparation and pickup. Currently operating locations in Pasadena and Chicago, KU is opening 15 facilities - each containing multiple restaurants - across the US in 2019, and more than 400 over the next five years.
AfterWords
AfterWords enables restaurant and retail industry operators to deliver actionable intelligent customer surveys in real time. We help operators understand the things that matter to their customers – improving retention & satisfaction. Intelligent surveys combine sales transaction detail with survey data to create more immediate and meaningful survey results. Intelligent surveys also deliver more personalized and relevant surveys to customers. We ask the right questions at the right time. Most survey systems are not timely enough to be valuable. They are often days or even weeks after the fact. At AfterWords, we realize the shift to cloud-based POS systems enables us to collect a customer’s sales transaction detail and post a survey almost instantaneously. We also realized that fast results, combined with alerts, make it possible for you to initiate fast customer recovery, often while your customer is still on the premises. Interested to learn how our team can help you improve customer satisfaction using survey data and sales transaction information? Give us a call or contact us online today.
DeliverThat
DeliverThat is the industry leader for pre-scheduled catering delivery and setup. Our professional network of drivers always go the extra mile to make sure customer service is delivered. We've helped hundreds of restaurant chains nationwide increase their bottom line and improve quality of life for in-house employees. With flat rate delivery solutions and brand-specific setups, DeliverThat is changing what's possible with third-party delivery.
ItsaCheckmate
ItsaCheckmate.com is a leading service in integrating 3rd party delivery platforms (such as GrubHub, UberEats, Postmates and 30 others) directly into POS systems. Our technology allows orders to flow from 3rd party platforms directly into the POS and to the kitchen printers of our restaurant partners, minimizing manual involvement and streamlining operations. Through this process of automating order flow, restaurants can continue to grow their revenue without the burden of increasing costs.
Soggy Food Sucks
Using patented technology, our products remove moisture from inside your food container during delivery, eliminating soggy food.
Sterno Products
Headquartered in Corona, California, Sterno Products is the leading manufacturer and marketer of portable food warming products and creative table lighting solutions for the hospitality and consumer industries. The product line includes insulated food carriers, wick & gel chafing fuels, butane, butane stoves & accessories, liquid and traditional wax candles & lamps, catering equipment, as well as SpeedHeat-the award winning, flameless food warming system. For over 100 years, the iconic “Sterno” brand has been synonymous with quality canned heat. The heritage of reliability and innovation continues today, as Sterno Products continues to bring to market new products that give foodservice industry professionals and consumers greater control over food quality and décor. Sterno Products is a division of The Sterno Group, a subsidiary of Compass Diversified Holdings.
Spindrift
Spindrift is America's first sparkling water made with just real squeezed fruit. Yup, that's it!
WebbMason Marketing
WebbMason Marketing is the leading marketing services provider that helps marketing professionals execute on all aspects of their marketing initiatives. From brand journey development to sales/restaurant enablement platforms that distribute marketing collateral and branded merchandise, WebbMason Marketing is your execution partner. Our foundational services of print and promotional merchandising are now enhanced with omni-channel marketing services and solutions leveraging our in-house creative resources, digital ad placement platforms, plus web services. All aspects of your marketing efforts can be enhanced, and deliver measurable results when partnered with WebbMason Marketing.
Phase Change Energy Solutions
We are a 30 year old technology driven thermal management company. Specializing in holding temperatures for extended periods of time using innovative custom solutions and patented products/technology in four industries; Pharmaceutical Shipping, Construction, Energy Storage, and Delivery/Catering Systems. Maintaining food temperature safety and quality of product is what we design our products to perform to along with including our customer’s needs and desires. We have been Chick-fil-A’s provider for thermal catering/delivery systems for over 15 fifteen years, along with others like PepsiCo, Papa John’s, Zaxby’s, to name a few.
Onfleet
Perfect the last mile: Onfleet is the leading last-mile delivery software platform for the food & beverage, grocery, pharmacy and parcel industries. Used by thousands of innovative businesses in 90 countries, Onfleet provides an end-to-end solution for launching, managing, and scaling a last-mile delivery program. Plan efficient routes: Onfleet’s advanced route optimization engine considers time, location, capacity & traffic to produce the most efficient routing solutions. Manage drivers effortlessly: Real-time driver location, status, and ETA ensure operations always run smoothly. Communicate instantly within a private, integrated chat platform. Delight your customers: Automatic SMS notifications, real-time driver tracking, and feedback collection ensure every delivery is an exceptional experience. Predict the future: Advanced machine-learning algorithms learn your business inside and out, predicting ETAs for every delivery. Finally, real-world changes equal real-time updates. Make better decisions: Access insights right in your dashboard, export or integrate to incorporate Onfleet data with your other metrics. Enterprise ready: Best-in-class APIs, unparalleled reliability and scalability, and a global reach make Onfleet the enterprise choice. Onfleet is based in San Francisco and maintains complete independence as a privately owned, sustainable corporation. Provide delightful customer experiences, increase on-time deliveries and scale operations efficiently with the world’s most advanced fleet management platform.
StickyPOS
StickyPOS brand labels are a state of the art tool to improve speed and accuracy in fulfilling and delivering catering orders. With 4 US patents and over 7 billion tags sold to the food service industry, StickyPOS is a proven system to help your catering business fill orders quickly and accurately. StickyPOS brand labels are linerless and eco-friendly with no Silicone, BpA or BpS. Let us show you our simple but very effective tool to improve your catering business!
Knoah Solutions
Regardless of your company’s size or outsourcing needs, Knoah Solutions’ agile, globally-deployed BPO services deliver award-winning results that enhance your brand and fit your budget. Our RightENGAGE customer engagement model, OneKnoah process philosophy, and cutting-edge technology and analytics powered by our proprietary WFO tool, ARK360, ensure we can meet the needs and challenges of each of your customers through every channel: voice, chat, email, and social media. Knoah has the flexibility that big BPO companies can’t provide and a global infrastructure and mature operational process that smaller BPO companies can’t deliver on. Knoah’s consultative approach to outsourcing has repeatedly earned us awards and recognition from independent review bodies like Gartner, Everest Group, and IAOP. For more information about Knoah Solutions, visit www.knoah.com.
Freebird
We are the premier destination for rewarded ride hailing. We transform the mobility experience by making it easy for you to earn cash back and points on your rides to restaurants, bars, and everywhere else you would go via the Uber and Lyft ride hailing platforms. We partner with your favorite establishments to offer rewards so you can make your rideshare experience easier on your wallet. We also partner with your favorite brands to get you back home safely after a night of drinking with cash back bonuses.
Canary Marketing
We are a team of shoppers and product experts who are poised and ready to show you a collection perfectly curated to your specific event, brand and audience. Give us the details and let us work our creative magic.
Dinova
At Dinova, we make business meals count. As your B2B strategy partner, we bring you into the moments when corporate dining decisions are being made – at the who's who of Fortune 1000, government agencies, and small businesses. When you join our network of strategically-selected business-grade restaurants, we grow your sales without discounting your brand.