Starting your own catering business is a great career move if you enjoy cooking and appreciate flexibility and the chance to attend extravagant parties. Once you’ve decided to enter the industry, you’ll want to do everything you can to prepare yourself to achieve considerable success. Continue reading to explore what to know before starting a catering business.
Get Your Foot in the Door
If you enjoy cooking and entertaining but lack restaurant expertise, consider catering for a few small events first. Ideally, these would be parties for friends or family members to help you see whether it’s something you love and can do in a low-pressure situation. In addition, these small gatherings are lovely for experimenting with recipes, challenging your inventiveness, and testing your organizing abilities.
If you do a fantastic job, you can gradually begin to generate word of mouth as folks suggest your services to other people they know. This word of mouth will allow you to slowly develop your business and invest in more equipment and space as you build a clientele network.
Know What Markets Are Available
Off-premises caterers who deliver food to consumers directly target three key markets. Corporate clients will want breakfast spreads and luncheons for the office, and some will need food for cocktail parties and dinners. Another huge market for catering is special events such as weddings, birthday parties, graduations, and bat and bar mitzvahs, all of which place a big emphasis on food. Furthermore, cultural organizations such as museums, opera houses, and theaters routinely hold catered events that need anything from light hors d’oeuvres to formal meals for hundreds of people.
Even if you primarily specialize in one or two of these types of clients, you’ll want to curate a menu that can ideally accommodate any situation.
Be Realistic
When you’re first starting out, you shouldn’t take jobs that require more labor than you can handle, especially if you’ll be working out of your own home. Events with hundreds of attendees will require a substantial volume of kitchen area, storage, and staff. Check if the venue has an on-site kitchen and a walk-in cooler that you can use or rent a couple of days ahead of time to help you prepare.
Safely Transport Your Food
You must ensure that you have an effective method of transporting food to your various catering events. You should store meals in pan carriers that can safely store distinct types of warm and cold foods for up to seven hours with minimal temperature loss. Consider investing in climate-controlled vans that can effectively keep food in the right conditions to further preserve proper temperatures.
Learning what to know before starting a catering business allows you to set reasonable expectations and goals from the outset. Once you’ve established a solid foundation, you’ll have lots of opportunities to channel your passion for cooking into a full-time job and reap the benefits. No two functions are ever exactly alike, so you’ll always be able to challenge your creativity to provide the best results possible.
