The eight largest college food service contract companies

The Food Management Top 50 includes companies operating in a wide range of onsite markets, with most specializing in one or two while some others are diversified into multiple segments. The latter is especially true of the so-called “Big Three” of Compass Group, Sodexo and Aramark but also of other firms like Elior, Metz and Continental Services.

In this adjunct listing to the full Top 50, we break out the eight entries that have the largest volume of business in the college dining market. Because the three largest firms—Compass Group, Sodexo and Aramark—all conflate their college and K-12 business under the heading of “Education” in their public reporting, it is difficult to break out how much of the business is done in each market individually, so the numbers listed here for the three are FM estimates.

Generally, we split the difference, assuming about half of the total education business for each is being done in higher education and half in K-12, with a slight tilt toward K-12 because that market fared a little better in the COVID period due to curbside and home delivery initiatives than did colleges.

It is also important to note that each of the “Big Three” have fiscal years that end in the early fall, so their fiscal 2020 college business was only impacted by the pandemic in the latter stages of the 2019-2020 academic year and the first weeks of the 2020-2021 year, plus whatever business was lost over summer 2020. Conversely, Top 50 companies that report calendar year results (that is, January-December) generally saw greater percentage declines as COVID shutdowns/restrictions impacted nearly 10 of the 12 months being reported.

In any case, it is clear that Compass, Sodexo and Aramark are by far the largest contract players in the college market, with five other FM Top 50 firms doing at least $100 million in this area. It should also be noted that Compass, Sodexo and Aramark don’t distinguish food and non-food operations in reporting the amount of business they do in “education” or any other segment, so that should be kept in mind when reviewing FM Top 50 data.

Get more on the 2021 Top 50