ELEMENTS

of
CATERING
• The business of catering involves food
and so, it is essential that you have
some prior knowledge of cooking or
preparing food.
• It is not required that you are a good
cook although that could be a huge
bonus.
• If you are a good cook you can do
away with hiring a professional cook
or a chef. However, this is not a big let
down and you can hire one easily.
• It is always good to have a good idea
about food preparation since the
business involves a lot of art in
addition to science.
 LOGISTICS
• The second most important aspect of starting a
catering business is to have a fair to good idea
about catering supplies that may involve utensils
and furniture.
• Some of the supplies could be tablecloths, chairs,
centerpieces, dinnerware (various types), food
warmers, fuels and the list goes on.
• In addition to all these having your transport like
a minivan could keep you in good stead since the
business involves continuous movement of
supplies from your storage to the catering sites .
 EMPLOYEES
• Hiring the right people can make or break
your catering business. In this business,
manpower and their skills play a major
role.
• In addition to preparing delicious dishes,
pleasing the host and his/her guest is a
major responsibility.
• Towards this end, you need to make sure
that the stewards, waiters and waitresses
you hire have a pleasant personality and
offer professional service.
• Customer service is of prime importance
here to make sure that the clients keep
coming back to you.
 FINANCES
• Make sure that you have the right amount of capital
to begin with. This business is not hugely capital
intensive but keeping enough working capital to tide
you through the first few orders is being realistic.
• As in any business, business in catering also has its
highs and lows and it is important to understand the
importance of financial implications.
• Moreover, every catering contract needs a different
capital outlay and thus the more working capital
you have, the better and bigger catering orders you
can bid for.
 MARKETING
• Marketing is highly essential to any business and so
it is for catering business too.
• Marketing your catering business to the local
clientele is highly essential and if you have a brand
new catering business, it is important to make sure
that you get a few traditional advertisements in local
newspapers and social gatherings are inserted.
• Catering business mostly works by word-of-mouth
and therefore advertising your business with
existing clients would work wonders.
 The above are only a few pointers but
the most important ones when you are
considering starting a catering business.
Keep them in mind and make sure you
work on them so that you start and
keep running a successful catering
business.