Guckenheimer has been a major operator in the high-end corporate dining market for decades and is currently exceeded only by the “Big Three” of Compass (through operating companies like Eurest, Bon Appetit, CulinArt and Restaurant Associates), Sodexo and Aramark in the extent of its penetration of this traditionally lucrative part of the business. Hence, the impact of COVID-19 on how corporations manage their operations in terms of office vs. remote work has major implications for the company, a division of the Danish managed services conglomerate ISS A/S, and one that it has already tackled aggressively with forays into areas like remote order, office delivery and even home delivery of holiday gift packs and meals.

Most recently, Guckenheimer launched an initiative called Flexible Food Solutions, described as “an agile product suite to support a variety of environments in the rapidly changing workplace,” that features separate components that can be implemented as a standalone or hybrid solution for both remote and office environments through platforms like virtual cooking demos, modular markets of varying footprints, and alternative delivery points like curated pop-ups and repurposed pick-up areas.

If high-end corporate dining is to remain viable going forward, it will probably be because of flexible offerings such as these, assuming they can be operated cost-effectively, so Guckenheimer’s success with Flexible Food Solutions and similar ventures represents a key indicator of how viable such solutions are.

We’ve put Continental Services on this Companies to Watch list despite its not responding to FM’s most recent Top 50 solicitation for information because before COVID it has annually been one of the fastest growing companies on the listing, growing at a double-digit clip in six of the seven years prior to 2020, including 20% in 2018 and 22% in 2019. Given its heavy concentration in the B&I and college markets, which together represent about three-quarters of the business per the company’s 2020 Top 50 return, FM estimates a revenue decline of 20% to 25% last year due to COVD-related shutdowns and restrictions. However, Continental’s previous track record also means it will be a company to watch going forward, especially as it has heavy existing involvement in operating vending and onsite retail/c-stores that are prime candidates for technological innovation in areas like cashless transactions, automated outlets and extended hours service.

Fresh Ideas derives 78% of its business from the college market, which goes a long way toward explaining the company’s 11% revenue decline in 2020 after a 15% increase the previous year. Like many of the companies on this Companies to Watch list, it is heavily involved in technological solutions that promise to ease the way forward for onsite dining programs. The company has already deployed such cutting edge initiatives as “selfie”-based POS , automated Fresh On Demand vending units and remote-order-based ghost kitchens demonstrating enviable sophistication and vision in these areas for a regional contract firm and therefore making it a bellwether candidate to monitor going forward.

Prince, which does almost 80% of its business in the healthcare field and the rest in B&I, was significantly impacted by client location closures in 2020. In response, it has vigorously pursued business extensions such as home meal replacement, a service it had previously tried with limited success with individual meals but found that offering family meal kits in the COVID environment has market potential. The kits are generating three times the business take-home meals did previously and the company is looking to grow the menu and market it post-pandemic. Prince has also added non-contact payment and ordering systems that it says are here to stay and is looking at other options such as curbside pickup and possibly delivery to customers who may continue to work from home for extended periods. These are all the kinds of program adjustments and extensions that the onsite dining market generally will probably demand going forward and it will be interesting to see how a major regional contractor like Prince fares with them.

Plum Market is an interesting addition to the Top 50 in that it is primarily a retail grocery store operator (the Top 50 lists only foodservice revenue, but the company as a whole has revenues well in excess of $100 million), one that branched a number of years ago into operating dining services for onsite clients like businesses and private schools and later into opening grocery/prepared food outlets on university campuses, the latest being Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where it debuted earlier this year. What makes Plum Market a company to watch is not the size of its foodservice operations, obviously, but the fact that it is so heavily involved in groceries—especially premium groceries—and in an era where the foodservice and retail channels are seeing some blur, and where foodservice is expected to lean more heavily than ever to packaged, grab and go and other convenience-oriented modes of service that retailers have been perfecting for years in their expanding prepared foods operations. That aspect of Plum Market’s operations, combined with its already existing experience in the straight foodservice area, makes it a company to keep an eye on.