Reinventing Aramark for the Future

July 23, 2025 at Online (invitation only)

From Services Provider to Intelligent Space Partner

Aramark, historically known for its broad range of outsourced services — from food catering and facility management to uniform supply and cleaning — stands at a pivotal moment. As organisations worldwide navigate the shifting terrain of work, wellbeing, and space, Aramark must reimagine its role. The future is not about simply serving meals or cleaning buildings, but about creating intelligent, adaptable, and value-generating environments where people live, work, and connect. To achieve this, Aramark must harness the transformative power of robotics and artificial intelligence, while also rethinking how it defines and activates physical spaces.

1. From Service Vendor to Strategic Partner

To unlock future growth, Aramark must reposition itself not as a cost-efficient contractor, but as a strategic partner enabling the productivity, engagement, and sustainability of the organisations it serves. The key is moving from transactional services to outcomes-based value creation.

This means no longer just providing food, but fuelling performance and wellbeing through personalised nutrition. No longer just cleaning, but maintaining healthy, sustainable, and data-optimised environments. No longer just staffing events or operating venues, but orchestrating immersive experiences that enhance engagement, community, and brand.

By adopting this outcomes-based mindset, Aramark can elevate its relevance to clients’ most pressing challenges — whether boosting employee wellbeing, reducing absenteeism, cutting carbon footprints, or creating flexible and inclusive environments for hybrid teams.

2. Embracing Robotics and Automation

Robotics and automation are essential tools for transforming Aramark’s operations. Automated cleaning systems — from self-navigating floor scrubbers to UV light sanitation drones — can improve hygiene standards while reducing labour costs and health risks. In food services, robotic kitchen assistants can handle repetitive or hazardous tasks, ensuring speed, consistency, and safety.

But automation should not be used simply to reduce headcount. Instead, it should be leveraged to free up human workers to focus on higher-value, empathetic, and creative tasks — like hospitality, customer service, and experience design. Robotics must become part of an augmented workforce strategy where humans and machines collaborate.

Crucially, automation also generates valuable data. Every robotic system becomes a sensor — feeding real-time information on space usage, energy consumption, waste patterns, and user behaviour into a broader intelligent ecosystem.

3. Harnessing AI to Predict, Personalise, and Optimise

While robotics handles the physical layer, AI adds a predictive and personalised intelligence layer across Aramark’s services.

In food services, AI can enable dynamic menus that adapt to individual nutritional needs, dietary restrictions, and cultural preferences — while also minimising food waste by predicting demand with precision. Smart vending and AI-powered micro-kitchens can provide healthy, just-in-time meals without human staff.

In facilities management, AI can predict when maintenance is required before issues arise — using data from sensors and past performance. Smart HVAC systems can optimise air quality and energy use, adjusting to occupancy levels and environmental conditions in real-time. Cleaning schedules can shift from fixed routines to need-based actions driven by usage data and hygiene scores.

Furthermore, AI-driven dashboards can help clients understand how their people use and experience their spaces — offering insights into how to improve collaboration, concentration, comfort, and community. This moves Aramark from operator to advisor.

4. Rethinking the Role of Buildings

Buildings themselves are being redefined. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a global reconsideration of the role of offices, campuses, retail centres, and public spaces. Hybrid work, digital lifestyles, sustainability imperatives, and shifting demographics demand a radical rethink of the spaces Aramark supports.

Offices are becoming collaboration hubs, not rows of desks. Aramark can transform these spaces into environments that foster connection, creativity, and wellbeing. This means more communal eating areas with nutritious menus, wellness zones, activity-triggered cleaning services, and real-time service responsiveness.

Shopping malls are becoming community anchors. As retail shifts online, malls must become destinations for experiences — learning, health, entertainment, social services. Aramark can provide hospitality, event management, cultural programming, and facilities for public value. Think of malls with rooftop gardens and co-working pods, run by smart systems and enhanced by community engagement services.

Universities and hospitals are becoming living ecosystems. These institutions are mini-cities — complex, 24/7, diverse. Aramark can lead the way in developing “smart campuses” with integrated services, sustainability platforms, digital access control, AI-assisted health diagnostics, and personalised food and wellness services.

Homes are becoming hybrid living-working spaces. As more people work remotely, there’s growing demand for services traditionally reserved for workplaces — from nutritious food delivery to remote concierge services, from wellness monitoring to localised community offerings. Aramark could expand into residential services, creating “living packages” that offer modular, flexible support in co-living and hybrid housing environments.

5. Creating Intelligent, Connected Environments

Aramark has the opportunity to become a leader in creating intelligent, connected environments. This requires moving from silos to systems — integrating food, cleaning, maintenance, energy, safety, and experience management into unified platforms powered by data and AI.

For example, an AI platform could continuously monitor occupancy, air quality, noise levels, and user feedback — then dynamically adjust food preparation, cleaning frequency, or lighting to match real-time needs. Predictive analytics could help organisations reduce downtime, improve user satisfaction, and cut costs.

Digital twins — virtual replicas of physical environments — could allow Aramark and its clients to simulate changes before they’re made, test new layouts or service models, and improve performance iteratively.

To support this vision, Aramark must develop or acquire digital capabilities — including IoT integration, machine learning, user experience design, and data analytics. This will likely require partnerships with proptech firms, AI developers, and architectural innovation labs.

6. Becoming a Platform for Wellbeing and Sustainability

The future is not just about efficiency, but about creating environments that support human flourishing and planetary health. Aramark is well-positioned to lead here — through food, energy, cleaning, waste, and social connection.

For wellbeing, Aramark can deliver:

  • Personalised nutrition plans linked to employee health goals.

  • Active space design that promotes movement and mindfulness.

  • Mental health support through calming environments and positive social interactions.

  • Accessible and inclusive environments that cater to diverse needs.

For sustainability, it can enable:

  • Zero-waste kitchens through AI-driven inventory and portioning.

  • Green cleaning technologies that reduce water and chemical use.

  • Sustainable sourcing across food and materials.

  • Carbon dashboards that help organisations meet net-zero goals.

By making wellbeing and sustainability visible and measurable — and tying them to organisational goals — Aramark can provide a compelling ROI for purpose-driven innovation.

7. Evolving the Business Model

To achieve this reinvention, Aramark must evolve its business model. Instead of long-term fixed contracts for set services, it should explore:

  • Platform-based models, offering modular service bundles powered by AI insights.

  • As-a-service pricing, such as “cleaning-as-a-service” or “nutrition-as-a-service,” based on usage or outcomes.

  • Data monetisation, where anonymised usage and wellbeing data help clients improve productivity or sustainability.

  • Innovation labs, co-developing future-ready environments with clients and startups.

This shift also calls for new capabilities — not just in technology, but in strategy, design, analytics, and customer success. Aramark must upskill its people and culture to lead in this new, intelligent service economy.

8. The Future Is Integrated, Intelligent, and Human-Centric

The future of Aramark lies in transcending the limitations of legacy service categories. As the boundaries between work and life, physical and digital, human and machine blur, Aramark must become an orchestrator of experiences — powered by data, guided by empathy, and committed to impact.

By combining robotics and AI with a deep understanding of human needs and spatial dynamics, Aramark can help organisations transform their environments into assets that inspire, heal, connect, and perform.

This is not just reinvention. It is a reimagination of the company’s role in society — from service provider to experience architect, from operator to innovator, from vendor to visionary partner.

Find out more and book >