The business was established as a division of Scandinavian airline SAS Group under the name of SAS Catering in 1961. Its Select Service Partner division was acquired by Compass Group in May 1993 for £72 million. Compass then merged SSP with several other companies it owned, including Travellers Fare, British Rail's former catering division which had been privatised under a management buy-out in 1988 before being bought by Compass in 1992. In 2006 the business was bought by EQT Partners for £1.822 billion. The company was the subject of an initial public offering in 2014.During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, SSP announced it was cutting 5,000 UK jobs across its chains, including Upper Crust and Caffè Ritazza, as part of a restructuring aimed at keeping the company afloat. In November 2022 it was announced that SSP was buying AMT Coffee out of administration.
