Research · Updated: October 23, 2026 · 8 min read

Food & Catering Tenders in Uzbekistan: 282 Lots, 278 Billion Soums

Food tenders in Uzbekistan are a market where price accounts for less than a third of the outcome. Between 24 August and 22 October 2026, etender.uzex.uz published 282 best-offer selections (eng yaxshi takliflarni tanlash, a scored procurement procedure) for catering services, worth 278 billion soums in total. More than half of that money is for free meals for primary-school pupils in Karakalpakstan and Khorezm; the rest is spread across hundreds of lots nationwide — hospitals, boarding schools, kindergartens, lyceums. And there, 37% of selections fail because not enough qualifying bidders turn up. Below we break down the rules in each segment, what earns points and where a newcomer can realistically get in.

Tanlo data and open etender.uzex.uz lot pages as of 23 October 2026. "Typical" here and below means the median: half of the lots are cheaper, half more expensive. Methodology is at the end of the article.

Three markets under one word: "catering"

All 282 lots are run as best-offer selections. This is not an auction: the winner is chosen by total score for documents, experience, equipment and price. Only 9 lots are awarded on lowest price. For more on the procedures, see "Auction, tender, selection and e-shop: the differences".

School meals: not hot lunches

The word "catering" in lot titles is misleading. Under the technical specifications, the contractor delivers to schools a set of food items from an approved 15-item menu: a nut croissant, milk in Tetra Pak cartons, juice, a bun, a raisin muffin, muesli with probiotics, wafers, drinking water and seasonal fruit. One lot covers a group of schools in a district — for example, 7 schools in Urgench or 10 schools in Beruniy district.

The legal basis is Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 472 of 25 August 2022 (the government decree on free school meals): since the 2022/2023 school year, schools in Karakalpakstan and Khorezm have fed pupils in grades 1–4 free of charge, with the contractor selected through public procurement. This year the procurement ran in two waves:

• Karakalpakstan — 53 lots worth 86.1 billion soums. Announced on 11 September, bids accepted for 7 days, payment within 30 days. All 53 deals went through.
• Khorezm — 46 lots worth 72.5 billion. Announced on 25 September, bids accepted for 10 days, payment within 10 days. 40 deals went through; the customer rejected another 6.

Each lot requires a 3% bid deposit (about 50 million soums on a typical lot) and carries a 15% advance on the monthly contract amount; the rest is paid on the basis of services actually delivered.

What earns points

The criteria are identical across all lots within one region but differ between regions. Many are taken directly from Resolution No. 472:

• Kitchen facility and cold storage. Catering premises with cold rooms and a warehouse, owned or leased under a lease registered with the tax authority, plus a sanitary-epidemiological clearance. Ownership scores higher. In Khorezm, you also need a cold store of at least 50 m² per lot, and only a regional sanitary clearance is accepted — a district-level one is not.
• Refrigerated vehicles with drivers who have passed a medical check. An owned vehicle scores higher than a leased one; in Khorezm, one vehicle counts towards one lot only.
• Working capital. In Karakalpakstan — no less than three months of the contract amount; in Khorezm — no less than half the starting price of each lot, confirmed by a bank.
• Specialists: a cook, a food technologist, an allergist, a dietitian, a gastroenterologist and a general practitioner. In Karakalpakstan they can be replaced by a contract with a specialised organisation; in Khorezm they must have been on staff since the start of 2026.
• Documents for every menu item — certificates or sanitary clearances.
• Experience. Khorezm counts catering contracts with government organisations for 2022–2026, and past winners are scored on feedback from the district education department: a poor review means zero.

Who won

93 deals worth 128.5 billion soums were split among 29 companies. The biggest winners were TABASSUM NUKUS (12 lots in Karakalpakstan, 17.5 billion) and JAVOHIR NUR YUKSALISH (11 lots across both regions, 15.1 billion); the others took 1–5 lots each. The typical discount from the starting price was 12%. A curious detail: many winners offered the same discount on all their lots — TABASSUM NUKUS, for instance, bid exactly 12.2% below on all twelve. It looks as though companies calculate a single price per portion in advance and submit it everywhere.

The contracts from this wave cover September–December 2026, so the next selections will most likely appear under the 2027 budget. That is our forecast, not an announced date.

Catering at institutions: hardly any price competition, many failures

The second market is turnkey catering at state institutions: hospitals and district medical associations, boarding schools for children with special needs, specialised kindergartens, lyceums and universities, Muruvvat homes (state care homes), rehabilitation centres and police (UVD) special detention facilities. Lots are smaller and spread across the whole country. Most are in Tashkent (27, mainly hospitals and lyceums, typical lot 256 million soums), Fergana (26), Andijan (23), Surkhandarya (20) and Samarkand (19).

"Failed" means the selection did not reach a contract among those already completed: it was declared void, cancelled, or the customer rejected the result. Price reduction is the typical figure for deals accepted by the winner.

In total, 41 of the 110 completed selections did not reach a contract. Under the Law on Public Procurement (ZRU-684), a selection is void if there are fewer than two qualifying offers — which means there are often not even two bidders who meet the requirements. 83 of the 172 lots link to a previous selection on their lot page: usually a re-run after a failed attempt.

Why is there so little price competition? With price weighted at 30%, a 10% discount earns only about three points out of a hundred, and customers calculate the starting price from per-portion norms. Points are won on documents and equipment, not on undercutting.

Payment terms are different too: 30% prepayment in 152 of the 172 lots, but in 44 lots final settlement comes after 90 days or more (most often at social care facilities). The bid deposit is usually 3%, sometimes 1%.

Kindergartens: the next wave comes before 15 December

State kindergartens are being moved to outsourced catering in stages under Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1 of 6 January 2025. Procurement is run by the Centre for the Organisation and Control of Nutrition in Education under the Ministry of Preschool and School Education — under the scheme set out in the resolution, annually by 15 December (and during the year if needed), with contracts signed by 25 December. It is worth preparing documents as early as November. Conditions:

• at least two years of food-service experience; the food process engineer, dietitian and cooks must also have at least two years of experience;
• bidders compete on their mark-up: it is the bid price itself, within a 15–30% range;
• within six months, the contractor invests at least 3% of the contract amount in the kindergartens it serves;
• the kindergartens' kitchens are provided free of charge — no kitchen facility of your own is needed.

Meals for employees

The third market, the smallest by number of lots, is staff catering for state-owned companies: drilling sites, oil and gas fields, office buildings. The largest lot belongs to Navoiyuran — 10.3 billion soums for therapeutic and preventive meals for workers and catering for delegations. These are corporate customers: 7 of the 11 lots have no prepayment, and payment terms range from 5 days to a year. If you already deliver lunches to offices, this is closest to your experience, but the lots are large — typically 2.9 billion.

Liability — up to criminal charges

No food-service licence is required: the Law on Licensing (ZRU-701) only requires a notification for operating at night and for selling alcohol. But you must operate under the sanitary rules — SanPiN No. 0017-21 (sanitary rules) for schools and No. 0016-21 for kindergartens — and cooks may only start work after a medical check.

The cost of a mistake is high. In September 2025, children at kindergartens in five districts of Tashkent region were poisoned, presumably by kefir; according to Gazeta.uz, 1,922 children sought medical help. In July 2026, a court sentenced six employees of the producer to 3–3.5 years in prison, and four directors of the outsourcing companies that fed the kindergartens, along with the producer's lab technician, to 3 years of restricted liberty. In February 2026 in Fergana, at least 62 children were hospitalised after a poisoning at three kindergartens; a criminal case was opened for violation of sanitary rules.

Where to start

1. Set up the basics. A company e-signature (EDS) key and registration on xarid.uzex.uz — step by step in "xarid.uzex.uz: registration, finding lots and submitting a bid".
2. Assemble your sanitary package. A sanitary-epidemiological clearance for your premises, staff health records and a contract with a laboratory. All of these earn points, and without them you will not qualify in any of the markets.
3. Do the maths. On a typical 338-million-soum institutional lot, the 3% deposit is about 10 million, and it stays blocked until the contract is signed. On top of that, you need your own money for food and wages until the first payment: the 30% advance helps, but the balance may arrive after 90 days. For a detailed calculation, see "How much cash to keep on hand".
4. Check the lot's history. If a selection has been re-announced, find out why the first attempt failed: an unrealistic price, tough requirements or slow payment.
5. Read the whole lot page. The pass mark, payment terms and staffing requirements differ even between neighbouring customers. By law, offers in a selection must be accepted for at least 5 working days, so the window is often about a week.
6. Don't take on more than you can deliver. If the winner refuses to sign the contract, the deposit is not returned. For refusing, failing to perform or performing a contract improperly, a company is entered in the Register of Unscrupulous Contractors (the national procurement blacklist) for two years — and for that entire period it cannot take part in public procurement.

All catering lots are collected in the "Food products" section. Tanlo sends new selections matching your filters to Telegram — which matters when you only have a week to prepare.

Methodology

We took all lots in the "Food products and catering" category in the Tanlo database published on etender.uzex.uz between 24 August and 22 October 2026 (328 lot pages), and on 23 October checked every open lot page: procedure, deposit, prepayment, payment term, criteria and status. Lots that landed in the category by mistake (kitchen equipment, repairs) and food supply without a catering service were excluded, leaving 282. Only lots whose page shows "accepted by the winner" were counted as deals; winners and amounts were taken from the exchange's register of deals. The customer type was determined from the lot and customer names, so the figures may be off by a few lots.

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