𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Providing catering at the Fifa World Cup matches in the US has boosted business for Compass Group, the outsourcing giant revealed.

The business, which is the world’s biggest catering group, also said it was cashing in on the AI boom by providing food and services to data centres.

In an update to investors, Compass said it benefited from more work in North America, which co-hosted the men’s football tournament across 16 host cities and stadiums.

Compass provided hospitality and catering at four stadiums in the US: Atlanta, Kansas City, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle; which between them hosted 27 matches in the World Cup.

All of the stadiums have capacities of up to about 70,000 people.

The company also catered five of the official fan festivals, including the final watch party in New York’s Central Park.

Meanwhile, Compass revealed that it was cashing in on supporting “leading AI hyperscalers across the data centre ecosystem”.

This was through services like food, and facilities management and cleaning, for both the building and running of data centres.

The company said it had generated more than 2.0 billion US dollars (£1.5 billion) worth of new work to businesses across different industries.

Compass, which has about 590,000 staff, caters to some of the biggest US tech companies including Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

It has previously said more businesses were opting to outsource food services in the face of complex regulation and the risk of allergies.

This has lead to around half of new contract wins in the past year coming from clients outsourcing catering for the first time.

Compass said its sales grew by 7.1% in the three months to the end of June, compared with the same period a year ago.

Chief executive Dominic Blakemore said: “We are winning market share across multiple sectors, supported by the strongest pipeline of opportunities we have ever seen.”