Compass Group doubles down on digital ordering with new acquisition

Compass Group is expanding its digital portfolio with its acquisition of Eat Club, a California-based food delivery technology platform. The “virtual cafeteria” allows employees to individually order meals prepared by local restaurants or Eat Club’s in-house chefs and aggregates them into one synchronized delivery. 

“You get to order exactly the meal that you want,” says Eat Club CEO Doug Leeds.  “It comes individually packaged, and then what was great for companies, is that all the food would come at the same time so you wouldn't have lots of different [delivery] people walking in and out of your office.”

Now part of Compass, Eat Clubs’ technology will be used to further expand the latter company’s digital capabilities at its accounts throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Growth plans

Currently, Leeds and CEO of Compass Digital Labs Jugveer Randhawa are focusing on implementing Eat Club at existing Compass accounts. The pair see Eat Club’s technology as a natural fit for locations that have multiple buildings on campus and few food options nearby. 

While Eat Club began in the business and industry sector, Jugveer and Leeds hope to launch it into other noncommercial segments as well. 

“We definitely see an application for this in higher education, and in some of our healthcare segments as well,” says Jugveer. “Anywhere where we have a relatively close production facility and we can provide greater access to great food, we're going to go for it.” 

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As part of the acquisition, Compass will receive the recipes developed by Eat Club’s chefs and will merge those with existing Compass recipes. 

Compass would also like to expand Eat Club into other dayparts, and the team has already replaced the word ‘lunch’ on Eat Club’s app with ‘meal’ to reflect its future foray into breakfast, dinner and even late-night. “As long as we have the production, you know, […] if kids want milkshakes and fries at 11 p.m., we will do it,” says Jugveer.