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We Reached 29,000 Catering Buyers. Here's Who Replied.
October 20, 2026 · Angel Roman
Most restaurants pitching corporate catering aim at the office manager. In our data, that was the weakest bet on the list.
We reached 29,493 corporate contacts on LinkedIn on behalf of ten restaurant clients in ten US metros. Office and facilities managers produced only 6.5% of the positive replies and had the lowest reply rate of any group, at 3.7%. Executive and personal assistants, HR and people teams, and operations, plant and general managers produced 71%.
Catering Funnels is a done-for-you lead generation and automation platform built for restaurants with active catering operations. This post is the aggregated, anonymized result of the LinkedIn outreach we run for those clients, plus a cold email comparison. A positive reply is any reply our team marked interested, from "send me the menu" to "I'll keep you in mind for our next event." It is not an order.
Who actually replies to corporate catering outreach?
Executive assistants, HR, and operations leaders. Together they produced 71% of positive replies.
| Role | Share of positive replies | Positive-reply rate |
|---|---|---|
| Executive and personal assistants | 26.9% | 4.3% |
| HR / people / talent | 23.2% | 4.2% |
| Operations, plant, and general managers | 21.2% | 5.4% |
| Executives and owners | 10.3% | 5.2% |
| Office and facilities managers | 6.5% | 3.7% |
| Admin and reception | 3.8% | 5.7% |
| Event and meeting planners | 3.0% | 5.6% |
Two columns, two different questions. Share tells you where the replies came from. Rate tells you how likely one person in that group is to reply. Admin and reception, and event and meeting planners, replied at the highest rates but are small groups, so they produced few replies in total.
The office manager was the group most restaurants would put first. In this data it ranked fifth of seven groups on share and last on rate. The data does not say why. The practical reading is simpler: do not build a list around one title. The 25 job titles that order corporate catering is a better starting map.
Which industries reply to catering outreach?
All of them, at similar rates. Every sector in the data replied positively between 3.5% and 6% of the time.
| Sector | Share of positive replies | Positive-reply rate |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing / industrial | 16.6% | 4.9% |
| Healthcare | 13.2% | 4.1% |
| Construction / real estate | 10.7% | 4.8% |
| Retail / wholesale | 10.4% | 5.8% |
| Finance / insurance / banking | 10.1% | 4.6% |
| Logistics / transportation | 6.4% | 5.5% |
| Education | 6.1% | 3.5% |
| Tech / IT | 4.6% | 3.7% |
Manufacturing and industrial sites were the single biggest source of positive replies, and most restaurants never pitch them. Past Lead of the Week posts show what those conversations look like: a four-shift facility that needed late-night delivery, a three-shift plant, and a global manufacturer with more than 100 facilities. Education and tech replied least.
How many corporate contacts accept and reply?
About 1 in 5 accept, and about 1 in 5 of those reply positively.
Of 24,757 connection requests, 5,131 were accepted, or 20.7%. Of accepted connections, 20.4% replied positively. Across everyone contacted, that came to 1,352 positive replies, 4.6% of all contacts.
The other 4,735 contacts got an InMail without ever receiving a connection request. Those produced a 3.3% positive-reply rate.
Does follow-up matter if half of buyers reply to the first message?
Yes. Almost half of positive replies came before any follow-up, but 1 in 4 came only after one.
47.2% of positive replies answered the connection note itself. Another 24.7% came after the second or third message. Without follow-up, those conversations do not happen.
Two past posts show the pattern. In one, a corporate administrator ignored the first message and replied to the follow-up. In the other, a contact stayed quiet through the first two messages and replied once the timing matched the need. For wording that works on the second and third touch, see the catering follow-up email templates.
How fast do catering buyers reply?
Fast, or not at all. 51% of positive replies came the same day as the first touch, and 79% came within a week. The median time from accepted connection to reply was 1 day.
In one recent case, a plant HR manager accepted and replied within about 2 minutes, then asked for lunch for about 15 people.
The day of the week matters too. 44% of positive replies landed on a Monday or Tuesday. Under 5% came on weekends.
What do corporate catering buyers ask for first?
The menu, far more than the price. Share of positive replies mentioning each theme, by keyword match:
| Theme | Share of positive replies |
|---|---|
| An event | 18.4% |
| Lunch | 17.8% |
| Asking you to email them or sharing contact info | 16.9% |
| The menu | 13.5% |
| Passing it to the right person or team | 13.0% |
| Samples or a tasting | 7.2% |
| Delivery | 4.1% |
| Pricing or a quote | 4.1% |
| Holidays or a party | 2.0% |
Buyers ask for the menu more than 3 times as often as they ask about price. A typical example: a prospect who runs office operations replied asking to see the catering menu, and that request turned into a scheduled tasting.
About 1 in 8 positive replies is a referral to someone else, so the first person you reach is often not the buyer. In one case, the contact did not need catering himself and forwarded the message to his director. Write the first message so it can be forwarded without editing.
Samples and tastings came up in 7.2% of positive replies. Two examples: a sample drop that led to a confirmed luncheon, and a team of just under 40 that sampled the food and gave positive feedback.
Events were the most common theme, at 18.4%. They often arrive unprompted: a message about office lunches drew a holiday party quote request, and a cold email about team lunches surfaced a separate 15 to 20 person event, with catering options requested for a board meeting. For first-message wording, see the catering cold outreach templates.
How big are corporate catering groups?
The typical (median) group was about 25 to 30 people. Among replies that mentioned a group size, across LinkedIn and cold email combined:
| Group size | Share of replies that named a size |
|---|---|
| 25+ people | About half (52%) |
| 40+ | 41% |
| 50+ | 36% |
| 75+ | About 1 in 4 (24%) |
| 100+ | About 1 in 6 (17%) |
| 200+ | About 1 in 20 (5%) |
Most replies do not state a size, so treat these bands as directional.
Real examples fit each band. At the smaller end, a GM needed lunch for 15 people the next day, and a 25-person team lunch came from LinkedIn outreach. In the middle, one reply planned Thanksgiving and Christmas events for a team of about 40. At 75 and up, a 75-person corporate Christmas party worth $2,872.75 came from cold email alone, and a two-shift operation opened an opportunity for about 120 guests. At the top, Fob Grill booked a 600-person, $22,000 holiday party.
Does the market change the results?
Yes, a lot. By restaurant, acceptance ranged from 9.7% to 26.0%, and positive replies from 1.1% to 7.7% of contacts. The lowest numbers on both came from the same client.
The approach also improved as it was refined. Our earliest campaigns produced a 2.5% positive-reply rate. Later campaigns ran at 5.6% to 6.2%, more than double.
Is LinkedIn or cold email better for catering outreach?
LinkedIn, by a wide margin in this data.
For cold email, we sent about 21,300 emails for 6 restaurants. They produced 221 replies, about 1 reply per 100 emails, and 42 interested leads or opportunities, about 1 per 500 emails. In the current cold email campaigns, measured per person, 1.4% of contacts replied (115 of 8,090, automatic replies excluded).
On LinkedIn, 4.6% of contacts replied positively. LinkedIn counts only positive replies, so the gap is larger than it looks.
Cold email is not useless. The 75-person Christmas party above came from cold email alone. And warm email does better than cold: a re-engagement email to one restaurant's past LinkedIn connections drew a 3.2% reply rate (7 of 219), about 2x cold email. That is a small sample, and it is the one behind two holiday events from one email.
What should a restaurant do with this data?
Six changes, each backed by a number above.
- Widen the target list. Executive assistants, HR, and operations produced 71% of positive replies. Office managers produced 6.5%.
- Pitch the plants. Manufacturing and industrial sites were the biggest single source of positive replies.
- Lead with the menu. Buyers ask for it more than 3 times as often as they ask about price.
- Make it forwardable. About 1 in 8 positive replies passes you to someone else.
- Send the follow-ups. 24.7% of positive replies came only after the second or third message.
- Start with people who know you. Warm re-engagement replied at about 2x the rate of cold email.
Replies also cluster early in the week, with 44% landing on Monday or Tuesday, so that is when to be in the inbox. If you want this run for you, the pricing page lays out the plans.
Build your own corporate catering pipeline
Our free playbook shows how restaurants find and win corporate catering accounts directly, no marketplace required.
Get the free playbookAbout this data
- Ten restaurants, ten metros, one outreach approach that was refined along the way. This is not a national survey.
- A "positive reply" is a reply marked interested, not an order. None of these figures are bookings.
- Role and sector groupings come from LinkedIn job titles and industry labels, sorted by keyword.
- Headcount and warm re-engagement figures are small samples.
- Current cold email reply counts exclude automatic replies. The three older cold email logs did not separate them. Older cold email data for other clients was deleted and is not included.
- The most recent contacts have had less time to reply.
- All figures are aggregated and anonymized. No restaurant, buyer, or company is identified.
Cite this data: Catering Funnels, "We Reached 29,000 Catering Buyers. Here's Who Replied," https://cateringfunnels.com/blog/catering-outreach-data-who-replies
Common questions
Who replies most to corporate catering outreach? Executive and personal assistants (26.9% of positive replies), HR and people teams (23.2%), and operations, plant and general managers (21.2%). Together that is 71%. Office and facilities managers produced only 6.5% and had the lowest reply rate, at 3.7%.
What is a good response rate for catering outreach on LinkedIn? In this data, 20.7% of connection requests were accepted, and 20.4% of accepted connections replied positively. Across everyone contacted, 4.6% replied positively. By restaurant, positive replies ranged from 1.1% to 7.7% of contacts.
Is following up worth it for catering outreach? Yes. 47.2% of positive replies came from the first message, but 24.7% came only after the second or third. Skip the follow-up and you lose about 1 in 4 positive replies.
Should a catering pitch lead with price or the menu? The menu. Positive replies mentioned the menu in 13.5% of cases and pricing or a quote in 4.1%, so buyers ask for the menu more than 3 times as often.
Does cold email work for restaurant catering outreach? It works, at a lower rate. About 21,300 cold emails produced 221 replies and 42 interested leads or opportunities, about 1 per 500 emails. A warm re-engagement email to past LinkedIn connections replied at 3.2%, about 2x cold email, on a small sample.
Build your own corporate catering pipeline
Our free playbook shows how restaurants find and win corporate catering accounts directly, no marketplace required.
Get the free playbook