Catering Business - What you need to know

Have you ever thought of venturing into catering business? If yes, do you know that despite seeming like an easy career option, catering business requires a lot of hard work.

Catering business refers to supplying meals for events or households. In bigger cities, we find home catering services where small catering businesses prepare and send food daily to households (you can see someone coming in everyday carrying multi-tier steel containers.)

In bigger cities such as Kuala Lumpur, event catering is a really really big business as there is always plenty of demand coming from special event catering for households (Hari Raya, birthdays, weddings) and corporate catering (open houses, sports day, company day). For towns such as Senawang, and also Seremban, the demand for special event catering is quite high, especially from the many busy households who prefer to leave it to the experts to work out the menu for their guests and manage the whole cooking-serving-cleaning process, so that they can focus on invitations, decorations, venue and the event itself, including the line-up of activities and ensuring that guests are having a great time.

For caterers, marketing is a major area they have focus on. Word of mouth apart, they have to make sure that friends and families are roped in to help spread the word. Sharing the menus prepared on social media is a very good idea. Banners in strategic locations also help tremendously.

Work on small assignments and have well tested menus in place so that you don't disappoint customers with too big a promise and too poor a delivery. Some recipes require a lot more attention and effort (durian cheesecake?), and can be draining for the team when preparing for a large number of guests.

Have a blog spot that can showcase all the foods available. Take really nice pictures whenever you cater, and ask your customer's permission to share the event snapshots (of the food and of people enjoying it) on your blog and social media pages.

Make your prices transparent and competitive, and always attend to queries swiftly. Also, manage your orders by writing down in detail what customers want, have a face-to-face interaction and if possible, allow sampling. Don't try to squeeze in too many events in a month, or you will be exhausted.

Most importantly, always keep close contact with your suppliers and make sure that you have help with delivery of supplies - if you have to shop every time an order comes, you will be chasing your tail endlessly. Suppliers must have fresh stock and must be reliable, and must have the quantity you require. Also, ensure cleanliness and freshness of the food at all times.

People always look for quality and quality food helps build reputation. Lastly, always ask for feedback and see how you can improve your menu, packages and serving layout. Don't over-invest (big ovens, expensive cutlery) in the beginning. Let your business grow, and then expand slowly.

Image by University of Exeter from United Kingdom (DSC02863Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons