Contract Caterers: Quantifying and valuing the USA datacenter opportunity for Aramark and Compass

Research evidence excerpt

Contract Caterers: Quantifying and valuing the USA datacenter opportunity for Aramark and Compass

Viewpoint |

22 Jun 2026 00:00:03 ET │ 39 pages

Contract Caterers

Quantifying and valuing the USA datacenter opportunity for Aramark

and Compass

Leo Carrington AC

CITI'S TAKE +44-20-7986-0811

The USA is at an early stage of the datacenter construction boom, driven by leo.carrington@citi.com

the computational demand of AI. Hyperscalers are investing billions in Ajay Nandal

infrastructure, a major opportunity for Contract Caterers to support the

significant on-site construction workforce, as well as the sites in +91-22-4277-5017

operational phase. Aramark has already been selected to serve one of the ajay.nandal@citi.com

construction projects, alone adding 0.5%/1.0%/1.5% to our FY27

revenue/EBIT/EPS estimates. In this note, we assess and value the long-

term incremental opportunity for caterers, and following the analysis

reiterate our Buy ratings for Aramark and Compass.

Caterers in prime position to win further data center contracts — the contracts are

challenging and specialized given their scale, remote locations and strategic

importance for the end-client. Aramark and Compass have a clear competitive

advantage in serving these contracts given: 1) their US scale brings hospitality-

specific technology and processes, and significant procurement cost advantage of

their GPOs; 2) special expertise including at remote sites in the Americas; and 3) the

strong operational backdrop to support adding >$100m revenue contracts. Our

analysis points to a total caterers' TAM of $18bn in 2030, peaking at $25bn in 2034,

equating to 2.9k/4k operational sites in 2030/34; 1.2k/1.4k under construction in

2030/34.

Aramark: forecasts raised on data center opportunity — we now incorporate data