Essentials for Starting a Corporate Catering Business

As a catering business, you belong to both the event management and the food industry, which can be quite confusing at times. Nonetheless, it’s something that gives you a lot of opportunity for growth and numerous potential improvements to your organization. Keep in mind that you’re starting to build your organization from the very first client you accept, which is why you can’t allow yourself to learn from your mistakes. Here are several essentials for starting a corporate catering business to help you get a head start and avoid some potentially expensive mistakes.

Adjust your menu to the market

This requires a brief survey of your competitors, to begin with, and a thorough analysis of their menu and their offer in general. Fortunately, for practical reasons, all of your competitors have their menus displayed on their websites, which makes this detective work so much easier. Just remember that hiring a caterer isn’t just about the food. It’s not the same thing as buying food from a local restaurant. It’s a business offer and you need to make it as appealing as possible.

What we mean by this is the fact that you need to ensure that the affordability and convenience of ordering from you also look tempting to your clients. In other words, you need to adjust your menu to the market and, in order to do this, you must first know the market.

Choose a niche

While some may suggest that a corporate catering business is already a niche, you could always go deeper and further specialize. For instance, you could specialize in team-building events, product launch events, organization milestones, appreciation events, seminars and conferences. Each of these slightly modifies your business model, however, it also locks you out of some potential clients. Nonetheless, the more specialized you are, the lower your overhead and the higher your productivity will be. This comes from your ability to automate processes, thus getting the most done in as little time as possible.

Focus on a single task

The next thing you need to keep in mind is the fact that, as a small business, you won’t be able to provide a full range of services on your own, nor should you. So, pick a core task, which is, in this particular scenario, food preparation and delivery, and invest in it as well as you can. We’re talking about hiring reliable staff, purchasing high-end cooking equipment (appliances and kitchenware) and more. As for the rest, you can always find a company to team up with.

For instance, if the corporation that you’re catering for insists on having alcoholic beverages on their event, you can find someone specializing in corporate event alcohol delivery. Keep in mind that, for the sake of practicality, what you need is a local distributor. For instance, if the event is taking place in NSW, what you need is an agency that does office alcohol delivery in Sydney. This business model helps you keep things simple and improves your efficiency in areas where it matters the most.

Health and safety regulations

In the food industry, you need to follow a long list of health and safety regulations. This concerns your cooking facilities, your staff, your equipment, as well as the transportation that you use. Make no mistake, a corporation is much likely to sue you if you fail to deliver in any of these fields. This is why it’s vital that you play by the book at all times and keep your standards as high as possible.

Have a business plan

Regardless of the fact that you’re in the food business or even that you’re running a one-person startup, you still need a business plan. Make no mistake, things sound different when you put them on paper, which is why you need to be as detailed and specific as possible. At very least, you need an executive summary, a business description, a market analysis and a sales strategy. Other than this, financial projections can also help you quite a bit, yet, the urgency for this is not nearly as great unless you intend to get a hefty loan and are interested in the distance of the break-even point.

Conclusion

One last thing you need to keep in mind is the fact that the potential client pool of a corporate catering business depends on its location. If you’re living in a major business hub (like the aforementioned Sydney), then there are ample opportunities for your small business. If not… well, relocation might be necessary in order for you to reach your full potential. This, however, is not something that everyone is willing to do.