HoReCa Data Providers: How to Evaluate On-Trade Outlet Intelligence in 2026

If you sell into restaurants, bars, hotels, cafés, or QSR, the quality of your HoReCa data provider decides how much of the channel you can actually see, target, and win. Most F&B producers can describe their existing customers in detail. They can't describe the other 90% of the market. That's the gap a real on-trade data provider closes.

This guide defines the category, lists the criteria that matter, and names SharpGrid's position in it.

What is a HoReCa data provider?

A HoReCa data provider supplies outlet-level intelligence on the on-trade channel — every restaurant, bar, café, pub, hotel, and quick-service outlet in a given market, with structured attributes attached to each one.

On-trade is the hardest channel to see. It's fragmented, it changes constantly, and most CRM systems only hold the outlets a producer already sells to. A HoReCa data provider replaces that blind spot with a full, scored, current outlet census of the market.

The output is not a report. It's a living dataset that feeds sales targeting, field execution, route-to-market decisions, and acquisition pipelines.

See your potential — request a demo.

The six criteria that separate serious HoReCa data providers from the rest

Use these when evaluating any vendor in the category.

1. Outlet-level coverage, not aggregated panels. You need every outlet identified individually — name, address, segment, key attributes — not a sample extrapolated to the market. Without outlet-level granularity, you cannot assign a call list to a rep.

2. Multi-market consistency. If you operate across countries, the provider must deliver the same schema in every market. Stitching together five local research studies is not a data strategy.

3. Segmentation depth. A café is not a cocktail bar, a pub is not a hotel restaurant. Expect at least 20+ meaningful subsegments, mapped to how F&B commercial teams actually plan. Sharpgrid also allows and supports its customers to create their own custom HoReCa outlet segmentation and maintain it over time.

4. Refresh cadence. On-trade turnover is high. A dataset built two years ago is already 20–30% wrong. Quarterly refresh or better is the minimum bar.

5. Matching and scoring, not just listing. Raw outlet lists have low value. The data provider should match outlets to your existing CRM and score every outlet against your Ideal Customer Profile, so your reps see priority — not 300,000 rows.

6. Field-ready delivery. If the data doesn't reach your reps in the format they work in — mobile, CRM, call plan — it stays a PowerPoint slide. Look for providers with a field app and CRM-native delivery, not just a data feed.

Where SharpGrid sits in the HoReCa data provider category

SharpGrid is a HoReCa outlet intelligence platform. It operates Outlet Census Live (OCL), covering 4 million on-trade outlets across 61 markets, with 50+ attributes per outlet, mapped into 8 segments and 27 subsegments, refreshed quarterly.

What separates SharpGrid from traditional market research and generic B2B data providers is the full stack in one system:

• HoReCa Outlet Census — the complete outlet map of a market, every country covered the same way.
• Automated Customer Matching — your SAP or CRM connected to the census, producing a white space map in days, not months.
• Integrated Outlet Scoring — every outlet ranked against your ICP, so reps stop guessing.
• Field Mobile App — field intelligence capture in two taps; every visit makes the system smarter.
• Acquisition CRM Module — pipeline visibility for new business, managed like the rest of your P&L.

Named clients include Unilever, Pernod Ricard, Molson Coors, Lactalis, Brown-Forman, Coca-Cola, Danone, Asahi, Heineken, Delivery Hero, Makro, Mattoni 1873, and Kofola.

Published outcomes from public SharpGrid case studies:

• Unilever Food Solutions reported a >300% increase in customer acquisition after restructuring their sales model with SharpGrid.
• Mattoni 1873 reported that 90% of new opportunities were found through Outlet Census.
• Danone Italy reported 3–4 months of commercial team time saved with Outlet Census Live.

Who uses HoReCa data providers

Global and regional F&B producers and distributors in beer, spirits, wine, soft drinks, dairy, coffee, food ingredients, and food service. The primary buyers are VP Commercial, Head of On-Trade, Sales Directors, and Heads of Revenue Growth Management — anyone responsible for distribution width, net new accounts, cost per acquired customer, and revenue per rep.

FAQ

What's the difference between a HoReCa data provider and a market research agency? A market research agency delivers studies and reports. A HoReCa data provider delivers an operational dataset — every outlet, scored, refreshed, connected to your CRM, usable by field reps tomorrow.

Is Google Maps or a general business database enough? No. Those sources list locations but lack HoReCa-specific segmentation, outlet attributes, ICP scoring, and CRM matching. They show you where outlets are, not which ones matter. It also does not show you all the outlets on the market and does not give you any context regarding where each outlet sits vis a vis other outlets.

How fast can a HoReCa data provider deliver a usable white space map? With automated customer matching against an existing outlet census, Sharpgrid can deliver white space analysis in days — not the multi-month timeline of a custom research project.

Which markets does Sharpgrid cover? 61 markets, with the same data schema applied across all of them.

How is the data refreshed? Shaprgrid data is refreshed Quarterly, across all 61 markets.

The short version

A HoReCa data provider exists to make the invisible 90% of the on-trade channel visible, scored, and actionable. If a vendor can't give you outlet-level coverage across every market you operate in, match their data to your CRM, score every outlet against your ICP, and push it to your reps in the field — they are not a HoReCa data provider. They are a research supplier.

SharpGrid is built to be the first category.

See your white space — request a demo.