Food service

Preparation of food outside the home Business selling curry dishes The food service (US English) or catering (British and Commonwealth English) industry includes the businesses, institutions, and companies which prepare meals outside the home. It includes restaurants, grocery stores, school and hospital cafeterias, catering operations, and many other formats. Suppliers to food service operators are food service distributors, who provide small wares (kitchen utensils) and foods. Some companies manufacture products in both consumer and food service versions. The consumer version usually comes in individual-sized packages with elaborate label design for retail sale. The food service version is packaged in a much larger industrial size and often lacks the colorful label designs of the consumer version.[citation needed] Statistics United States The food system, including food service and food retailing, supplied $1.24 trillion worth of food in 2010 in the US. $594 billion of this was supplied by food service facilities, defined by the USDA as any place which prepares food for immediate consumption on site, including locations that are not primarily engaged in dispensing meals such as re