How to grow catering sales at a franchise location

A handful of offices, schools and teams can be a store's largest customers. They don't show up in a daily sales total until they stop. Track them as their own line.

Catering and group orders are usually a store's biggest tickets and its most seasonal business. That makes them easy to misread. A slow September can look like a collapse when it is only summer ending, and a real loss can hide inside a month that looks normal overall. This guide covers how to define and count group orders, the formulas to track, a worked example, an account routine and the checks that protect the reorder.

Define a group order

Pick a threshold relative to your own store. Five times the median ticket works for many. Count those orders monthly, and report count and value separately.

A threshold based on the store's own median keeps the definition fair across stores with different ticket sizes. A store with a $13 median ticket would count anything above $65 as a group order. A flat dollar line, such as $100 for every store, misses smaller group business at a lower-ticket location.

Your POS may also mark orders as catering by channel or order type. Use that where it is reliable, but keep the size threshold too. Many group orders come through the ordinary online menu, the phone or the counter, and never get the catering label.

The formulas

• Group order threshold = 5 × the store's median ticket.
• Group order count = orders above the threshold in the period.
• Group sales = total value of those orders.
• Average group order = group sales ÷ group order count.
• Group share = group sales ÷ total net sales.
• Usual reorder gap = average days between an account's orders over the last several orders.

When online or catering sales fall, check which part fell. The same number of orders with smaller tickets means the big orders went, not the channel. Fewer orders at the same size means accounts stopped ordering. The fixes are different, so the diagnosis matters.

Compare with last year

Group business follows school years, budgets and holidays. September against June can look like a collapse and often isn't. Compare the same 30 days last year.

Month over month comparisons mix seasonality into the result. A store that served end-of-year school parties and summer camps in June will almost always see fewer group orders in early September. Same-period-last-year comparisons strip most of that out. If a store has less than a year of history, compare with the brand's other stores for the same weeks, and treat the result as a rough guide.

When comparing with last year, check value as well as count. Fewer group orders that are each larger can leave group sales flat or higher, and that is not a store losing its group business.

A worked example

The average order size barely moved, from $190 to $185. The drop is in count: 11 fewer orders. That points at accounts that stopped ordering, not at smaller orders or a pricing problem.

The next step is the account list. Of Greeley's top 20 group customers, six are past their usual gap between orders. Two are schools between terms and will likely return on their own. Four are offices that have ordered every two to three weeks for a year and have not ordered in five.

If the GM calls those four and three reorder at the store's average group order of $185, that is $555 recovered in a single week from three phone calls. That is the kind of lever worth putting in front of a GM: specific, small and tied to named customers.

Keep an account list

• Your top 20 group customers: contact, what they order, how often, and the last order date.
• A call when an account passes its usual gap between orders. "Want your usual for next week?" often works better than a promotion.
• Two calls a day to new offices in delivery range, in a quiet hour.
• A note after each call: who you spoke to, what they said, and when to follow up.

A simple shared sheet is enough for most stores. A practical rule is to call an account when days since its last order pass about one and a half times its usual gap. An office that orders every 14 days gets a call at around day 21.

Keep the list with the store, not in one person's phone. When a GM moves on, the list should stay. For more on keeping good managers and the knowledge they carry, see how to retain restaurant managers.

Protect the reorder

Group customers remember one missing tray. Set a lead time you can meet, a checklist for the pack, and a follow-up the same afternoon. When you contact customers by text or email for marketing, follow the consent rules that apply. They differ by channel and location.

A good pack checklist covers:

• Every item on the ticket, checked off by a second person.
• Utensils, plates, napkins and condiments sized to the headcount.
• Labels on anything with a common allergen or a special request.
• Hot and cold items packed separately.
• A printed receipt and a contact number for the store.

A same-afternoon follow-up, even a short email asking how it went, catches problems before the customer quietly moves on.

A step-by-step catering routine

1. Set the group order threshold at five times the store's median ticket.
2. Each month, count group orders and total their value, separately.
3. Compare both with the same 30 days last year, not with last month.
4. If count fell, check the account list for customers past their usual gap.
5. If value fell with count steady, look at order size: menu changes, smaller headcounts or a lost large account.
6. Give the GM a short call list of named accounts, with what each usually orders.
7. Add two prospecting calls a day to nearby offices, in a quiet hour.
8. Use the pack checklist on every group order and follow up the same afternoon.
9. Review the result in the next month's count and value.

Common mistakes

• Reading catering only through the catering channel and missing group orders that come through the regular menu.
• Comparing September with June and calling it a collapse.
• Reporting count without value, or value without count, so nobody can tell which fell.
• Answering a drop with a store-wide discount instead of calls to the accounts that stopped.
• Keeping the account list in one manager's head.
• Accepting lead times the kitchen cannot meet, then losing the account over one bad order.

Group orders and delivery

Many group orders arrive through third-party platforms, which take a commission on the largest tickets a store sells. Where your brand allows it, direct ordering for known accounts keeps more of that margin. For how to compare channel economics, see how to make delivery profitable.

For franchisors

Group sales by store, counted the same way across the brand, show which owners have built a real catering business and which have not started. The stores with the highest group share are often the best source of a simple playbook for the rest: how they keep the account list, when they call, and what goes in the pack. Compare stores in similar trade areas, since a store near office parks and schools has a different ceiling from one on a highway.

Where Franlever fits

Franlever counts orders well above each store's usual ticket, compares them with the same period last year when there's history, and turns a real drop into a lever for the GM, usually a short call list. The lever goes to the GM by email or text, one per store per day at most.

General information for restaurant and franchise operators, not legal, tax, accounting or financial advice. Figures in examples are illustrations, not predictions or promises of results. Laws and platform policies change and differ by location, so check the current rules and talk to a qualified advisor about your situation.