It serves meals in locations including offices and factories, schools, universities, hospitals, major sports and cultural venues, mining camps, correctional facilities and offshore oil platforms.

[9] Compass Group purchased Morrison Management Specialists and then merged with Granada plc as part of a planned strategy to separate the media and catering interests of the latter.

[7] Compass's Select Service Partners (SSP) travel concessions business was sold to companies controlled by private equity firm EQT AB, for an estimated £1.2 billion.

[13] Compass Group's subsidiary ESS became a UN-registered food vendor in 2000 and then won contracts to supply UN peace-keepers operating in Sudan, East Timor, Liberia, Burundi, Eritrea, Lebanon, Cyprus and Syria.

[16] On 31 December 2017, CEO of the company at the time Richard Cousins was killed in a seaplane accident at Cottage Point near the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney, Australia.

[22] On or before 4 September 2024, a Medusa Ransomware affiliate hacked the Australian subsidiary of Compass Group, claiming to have stolen upwards of 785.5 gigabytes of data and demanding US$2 million.

[25] Compass Group owns the following brands and businesses:[26][27][28] It also does the cleaning, housekeeping, waste management, building operations, maintenance, gardening and outdoor services for schools and educational facilities.

Its primary clients are military forces and other security services, UN conferences and some Blue Beret army rations, major defense contractors, and construction, mining, the UN and oil exploration and production facilities worldwide.

[47] A summary of Compass scandals was compiled by Corporate Watch in June 2022 for cleaners affiliated to the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain who were campaigning for PPE, fair treatment, and higher pay.

[48] ESS became a UN-registered food vendor in 2000 and then went on to win contracts to supply UN peacekeepers operating in Sudan, East Timor, Liberia, Burundi, Eritrea, Lebanon, Cyprus and Syria.

[10] The scandal broke after former HIC official and former procurement officer Alexander Yakovlev was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and related issues.

The Russian[10] official Alexander Yakovlev, the UN procurement officer, and Vladimir Kuznetsov, head of the UN Committee for Administrative and Budgetary Issues, were arrested and indicted after taking nearly $1 million in bribes from companies doing business with the UN.

[10] After its own £5 million,[10] three-month internal investigation, Compass had declared it had discovered "serious irregularities" in its UN business, but that these were limited to "only a few individuals" who were dismissed: Peter R. Harris,[10] Andy Seiwert and Doug Kerr.

[10] Then chief executive of Compass Group, Richard Cousins, was quoted as saying: "We believe it is in the best interests of the business and shareholders, and good management, to avoid the uncertainties and costs associated with prolonged litigation.

"[10] The supplier of food to seven of Ontario's correctional facilities, Eurest Dining Services, informed the Halton Regional Health Department that some samples taken during routine surveillance had tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes on 21 November 2008.

[59] In 2016, the Southern DHB (District Health Board) in New Zealand received numerous complaints about the quality of the food being served at Dunedin Hospital,[60] where a 15-year contract was controversially awarded to Compass Group in 2015.

[61] In 2019 Chartwells Higher Education, a Compass Group subsidiary, ended its relationship with Cenikor, a drug rehabilitation organization that had been providing labor for Louisiana State University's cafeterias.

[64] Unite the Union branded Compass Group subsidiary ESS as "Britain's most heartless employer" in a dispute where outsourced cleaners and catering staff at the Ministry of Defence faced redundancy in a "fire and rehire" manoeuvre.