Managing Director of Order-In – Australia’s #1 Corporate Catering service – Jonathan Rowley says, “When I launched the company in 2000, Order-In was the first-of-its kind innovative online platform where businesses could easily order food for all occasions.”

Jonathan adds, “Australians greatly appreciate convenience, ease of ordering and choice. Consumers who are familiar with shopping online via mobile apps and websites, are expecting a similar experience when ordering catering or takeaway food.”

This trend has seen a boom of food home delivery services. The concept of ordering food online has become increasingly popular. There are now numerous consumer-targeted take-away delivery companies being used by thousands of Australians every day, and this has paved the way for the corporate catering industry.

“The time is ripe now for online platforms such as Order-In.  In June 2017 alone, we saw a year on year growth of 82% increase in our website traffic,” says Jonathan.

Further, Order-In’s partnerships are accumulating rapidly, and sales have grown 29% in the last quarter alone. This month the company is celebrating its 300^th catering partner, and having increased the number of caterers by 64% in a single year.

Jonathan explains further, “Digital technology is reshaping the corporate catering industry and ordering food to the office is now easier than ever. The Australian food tech space tends to be a bit of a ‘winner takes all’ space.  Australians live in a very technology-driven era and as we start to rely more and more on innovative online services to help make our lives more efficient, the company that meets the demands of the business sector and makes it convenient will win.”

Key trends the company is seeing within the industry stand to benefit both business and caterers.  In terms of businesses, they seek:

• Convenience – online platforms help ease some of the stress from ever increasing fast-paced lives, buying those responsible for catering time, with less effort and stress.
• Choice – Australian companies want more creative catering than sausage rolls or party pies. One of the benefits of living in a multicultural country is the huge variety of cuisines available. Order-In have about 87% more caterers nationally than its nearest competitor. As well as the traditional catering options, numerous other suppliers offer unique options such as Mexican street food, South American tapas, donuts, healthy options and Indigenous Australian catering.
• Increased efficiency – Order-In in particular offers businesses with the simplicity and transparency of a single integrated solution for catering nationwide, with service level guarantees, streamlined billing, payment and expense reporting, and a range of savings.

In terms of caterers, this disruption to the old model will benefit those who see it is as an opportunity to garner:

• Support – platforms such as Order-In (who are currently the largest B2B catering hub) offer caterers wide market exposure through mass marketing, customer service and IT resources, of which many could not afford to have dedicated staff within these roles.
• Sales – the platform sales team have access to a very large segment of Corporate Australia, which many caterers could not access on their own.
• Sales results – the average order size through the platform is $309, which offers a high return on a nominal fee.
• Increased efficiency – caterers are able to focus on their core function of catering, whilst the platform interfaces with the customer, performs back end duties such as generating invoices and collecting payments.  This allows the caterer’s administration and accounting processes to be streamlined.

Jonathan concludes, “We believe convenience and choice is the key to a superior online model. This, coupled with changing behaviours and technological advances will certainly mean that digital marketplaces will absolutely be the way of the future.”

Order-In is Australia's #1 Corporate Catering service, taking the fuss out of ordering food for the office and giving businesses easy, online access to a variety of the best local and quality caterers. It is the leading hub for both office catering and kitchen supplies, taking out all the risk associated with catering, making you look good every time.