Compass and Caterer team up for Internet joint venture
Contract caterer Compass Group has teamed up with Reed Business Information, publisher of Caterer & Hotelkeeper and caterer.com, to create a new online marketplace for the hospitality industry.
Called Caterexchange, the Web site is aimed at small and medium-sized hotel and restaurant groups in the UK, as well as up to 200,000 independent hospitality businesses.
Between them, they command purchasing muscle of £10b a year, say Reed and Compass.
The Web site will offer for sale everything from dry goods and frozen and chilled foods to equipment and furniture.
But it will not at first offer fresh goods such as meat, fruit and vegetables or bakery products.
Caterexchange will be tested with selected customers over the next few months before offering its services nationwide in the autumn.
Compass chief executive Mike Bailey said: "Caterexchange will offer small and medium-sized businesses access to expertise and buying power on a scale previously unavailable." Compass itself spends more than £2b a year.
There will be a link from every page of caterer.com to the Caterexchange site.
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