Expert's view on Russian catering services market
Issue:
June 2012, Vol.7, No.6
Tags:
Mega Catering
Our expert in this report, Victoria Polovnikova, the director of Mega Catering, shared her opinion about the current market tendencies, her company and its services.
How would you characterize modern Russian catering services market?
This market is growing and developing dynamically and new companies debuting on the market. Also, restaurants, entertainment complexes, permanent banquet rooms and hotels, using their production facilities as a base, have started offering catering services. With competition increasing at this rate, it has become necessary for us to introduce novelties, think up some new interesting offers, new ways of serving meals, table decorations, etc. So to summarize, I can say that today’s Russia catering market is growing by ‘leaps and bounds’ as it follows the steps of the more mature and older European and U.S. markets.
How would you estimate the volume of the industry’s annual turnover in general, and the Moscow segment in particular?
Unfortunately, the financial indicators of this market as whole are very vague, as market researchers usually don’t analyze this industry, partly because of its opacity. This stems from the fact that most companies in the industry usually keep their annual turnovers secret. However, according to some marketing research agencies’ data, the annual market size is about $250mln, while the annual growth rate is about 15-20%. However, the potential capacity of this market is about $10bln.
Based on your experience, is catering a competitor to traditional restaurant business or its special variety?
People will never stop going to restaurants, and consequently, there are no reasons for traditional restaurant industry operators to worry about competition with catering. The need for catering usually arises in places, where there are no restaurants or in situations, when even the most upscale restaurant can’t satisfy clients’ demands and fantasies, while catering can meet such aspirations. Indeed, catering initially was mainly focused on customer’s wishes, events’ venue specificities and scenarios. Catering can operate on an abandoned plant, desert, plane, forest, in other words, in practically any place in the world, while clients’ wishes are, as a rule, limited by the choices of menus, event standards, etc. However, there also lots of advantages, as classical pastime in restaurant will always be in great demand.
What is your forecast of market growth rate in 2012 and in near future?
My forecast is very optimistic. I think catering market will grow, become more mature, as it follows the footsteps of other countries, where this industry has long been in operations and developing successfully. Specifically, I think the market will develop more actively in regions and cities with over one million residents, as there are still such locations where such services do exist. Besides, foreign companies are actively investing in production business in Russia, building plants and factories, etc. All this means that the demand for organization of corporate events — from business lunches to large corporate celebrations — will only grow in the future. In terms of growth rate, my forecast for the Moscow market is about 15-20% per year, while for St.Petersburg and other big cities, this could reach 40-50%.
This text was translated from Russian to English by Tatyana Galyshko and edited by Chrisbon Business Services Agency (www.chrisbon.ru)
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