SectorsFood and catering
Food and catering tenders: where they are published.
Food and catering is the most recurrent public purchase there is: schools, hospitals, prisons and canteens buy every term and every year, on contracts that renew on a calendar anyone can read in advance.
The vocabulary that carries it
Buyers classify every European notice with a CPV code. These are the divisions that carry food and catering procurement, 514 codes in total. Each links to its own page with the official label in four languages and the codes beneath it.
The codes Portugal actually buys under
55110000Hotel accommodation services356 · €3.3m55322000Meal-cooking services90 · €43m15896000Deep-frozen products64 · €2.6m15811100Bread55 · €602.8k15961000Beer47 · €100.9k55524000School catering services44 · €36.4m15894200Prepared meals40 · €8.4m55243000Children's holiday-camp services40 · €880.8k55321000Meal-preparation services34 · €5.5m15612500Bakery products30 · €607.3k55241000Holiday centre services26 · €217.7k15894700Delicatessen25 · €638.1kContracts signed and value contracted under each code in Portugal, January to July 2026, counted from the open register across every procedure type. Each row is the deepest code carrying data: a whole division would take the list, because everything beneath it counts towards it.
What the notices look like
These are supply contracts with delivery obligations rather than projects, judged largely on price and logistics. The predictability is the opportunity: a supplier who knows when a school district's contract ends knows when to prepare, months before the notice.
How contested it is, measured in Portugal
Portugal publishes its whole contract register as open data, so competition can be counted there rather than estimated. These are Portuguese figures for January to July 2026, and only open procedures whose bidder list was reported: direct awards are excluded, because there the buyer chooses who bids and a single offer is the design of the procedure. Method and sources on the Barómetro.
Who publishes these tenders
The TRINTA registry classifies buyers by type, health, state enterprise, regional, defence, donor, and this sector is not one of those types: its notices come from the general public buyers of each country rather than from a distinct class of publisher. So there is no honest sector-buyer count to print here. What the country pages do show is where those general buyers publish, national portal first and the rest beside it, country by country.
How TRINTA covers the sector
TRINTA does not watch a sector, it watches a company. The radar is built from your actual catalogue rather than from a code list, scans 1010+ official sources every day, and scores each notice 0 to 100 for fit with the reasoning shown. That distinction matters most in this sector precisely because buyers file procedures under neighbouring codes: a notice tagged one branch away still surfaces when the text matches what you sell.
Frequently asked questions
Which CPV codes cover food and catering tenders?
Food supply runs under CPV division 15, food, beverages, tobacco and related products, and catering services under division 55, hotel, restaurant and retail trade services. Institutional catering contracts frequently combine both, supply and service, in one procedure, so watching either division alone under-covers the sector.
Are food contracts worth bidding for a smaller supplier?
Often yes, because they are local by necessity: delivery windows and freshness requirements favour suppliers near the buyer, which narrows the real field regardless of how open the procedure is. The constraint is capacity and continuity rather than scale, and the contracts recur on a schedule that rewards preparation.
See this sector for your catalogue
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