Zupa Shares its Top Predictions for Hospitality and Catering in 2025

1. What have been the top 3 challenges for the industry throughout 2024?

Limited Staff: The labour shortage has been, and still is, one of the biggest issues for the sector. Most of the clients I speak to are struggling with a lack of good quality staff and I think this will continue into 2025 and beyond.  

VAT on School Fees: In addition, the long-mooted VAT being added to independent school fees is a concern for many. Primarily this affects our education industry clients and has resulted in many schools reviewing their budgets to see where they can reduce costs in a bid to offset some of the additional cost of VAT. We are also hearing that schools have spent a lot of money on consultants and tax advisors to better understand how they can prepare for this change and to help offset the likelihood of having to pass on the full 20% to parents. One option has been to review expenditure and claim back any VAT incurred that they otherwise could not have done previously.

Sustainability demands: End users and consumers are much more knowledgeable and aware of environmental impacts and are wanting more and more detail and information from their food providers. This is only adding more strain on the sector in terms of data collation, validation and displaying this information back to the end consumer.  

2. What positives have come out of 2024 for the industry?

A greater use and appreciation of technology within the sector generally. Technology is being used to support the current labour shortages by speeding up day to day processes and tasks. I also believe the sector is trying to boost its appeal with better pay, conditions and incentives to get more people into the hospitality workforce by making the sector more inviting as a career prospect.

3. What has surprised you the most during 2024?

The host of new mergers and acquisitions of clients and suppliers within the sector has been interesting. I think this is an option we are seeing more and more from hospitality businesses that are trying to navigate around some of the pressures mentioned above. Merging often means having access to a greater pool of resource from both an efficiency and best practice perspective.

4. What lessons do you think have been learned in 2024 from an industry perspective?

I think businesses are proactively getting better at looking further ahead and becoming less reactive. A prime example is the imposition of VAT on school fees - our clients knew this was likely to happen, so they started preparing early on to look at ways of mitigating this change while seeking advice and practical solutions.

5. What are the main trends or areas of focus for hospitality in 2025?

I would anticipate seeing even greater use of technology and AI throughout 2025 to automate tasks and reduce the pressures on overstretched team members. I believe there will be a continuation of the drive to attract more people into the hospitality sector, though I do not expect this to be a straightforward task. I also believe that we will see operators creating new and innovative ways to reduce production costs, yet still being able to enhance quality of service delivery.

6. What milestone changes has Zupa been through during 2024 and what does the next year look like for the business?

Zupa’s most significant milestone in 2024 was being acquired by Volaris after nearly 20 years as a family-owned and run business. This was a big step for the company, but under Volaris, Zupa is able to operate with the same amazing team and with the same ethos that has always been important to us. Having the backing of a large company allows us to compete at a much higher level than previously, with access to a wider network of knowledge and support. 2025 will be an exciting one for Zupa as we look to leverage the opportunities we now have as part of the Volaris family.

7. What new features has Zupa been working on within the Caternet platform?

In the Summer of 2024, we launched our new Menu Planner. This allows our clients to use their costed recipes within the menu collation tool and to view their overall menu cost by day or their whole menu. We have designed the Menu Planner, so clients are able to automatically load their menus straight to the order basket, to avoid unnecessary work. This was our first major project of developing and overhauling the user interface, which is now the benchmark for developing Caternet in the future and upgrading each section throughout 2025. We have created a new feature called ‘product masking’ to allow our clients to hide specific products from certain sites easily and efficiently, like ‘products containing nuts’ for example. There is also a new option for Suppliers to upload their invoices and credits via a simple CSV import should EDI not be a cost-effective option for them.  

8. What are you most looking forward to in 2025?

2024 has been a transformational year for Zupa in terms of new opportunities, enquiries, clients and partnerships. We already have many projects and mobilisations in progress for Q1 and Q2 of 2025, and we are particularly looking forward to operating in Europe for the first time next year.

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