What Is Catering?
Catering is the process or business of preparing food and providing food services for clients at remote locations, such as hotels, restaurants, offices, concerts, and events. Companies that offer food, drinks, and other services to various customers, typically for special occasions, make up the catering sector.
Some restaurant businesses may contract their cooking to catering businesses or even offer catering services to customers. For instance, customers may love a particular dish so much that they want the same food to be served at their event.
Catering is more than just preparing food and cleaning up after the party. Sometimes, catering branches into event planning and management. For example, if you offer corporate catering services, you will be required to work with large crowds and handle the needs of corporate clients.
A catering business may use its chefs to create food or buy food from a vendor or third party to deliver to the client. In addition, you may be asked to plan the food menu for corporate events such as picnics, holiday celebrations, and other functions. So, what is a caterer? Let’s find out.
What Is a Caterer?
A caterer is a person or business that prepares, cooks, and serves food and beverages to clients at remote locations and events. The caterer may be asked to prepare seasonal menu options and provide the equipment such as dishes, spoons, place settings, and wine glasses needed to serve guests at an event.
Starting a catering business is the ideal venture for you if you enjoy interacting with guests and producing a wide range of dishes that are delicious to eat as well as beautiful to look at. A caterer is inventive in novel recipes, culinary presentations, and menus.
In addition, caterers excel at multitasking. For instance, if professional wait staff will be serving each course of dinner to guests, the caterer must be ready to prepare all the dishes for the event at once.
To ensure attendees enjoy their time at events, caterers always offer a delicious, relaxing dinner. Additionally, caterers may deal with particular demands and design menus for unique events directly with clients.
Usually, a catering service sends waiters, waitresses, and busboys to set tables and serve meals during sit-down dining occasions. The caterer may send staff to prepare chafing dishes, bowls, and platters filled with food for buffets and casual gatherings, replace them, and serve food to guests.
4 Types of Catering
It is essential to choose a catering specialty when starting your catering business. With many catering types to choose from, it’s only logical to research your options and pick a niche that will suit your target market and improve your unique selling proposition.
Let’s look at the types of catering:
What Is Event Catering?
Event catering is planning a menu, preparing, delivering, and serving food at social events and parties. Catering is an integral part of any event.
As you know, events revolve around the food and drink menu. Party guests may even say that the success of any event depends on the catering services.
Birthday celebrations, retirement parties, grand openings, housewarming parties, weddings, and baby showers are a few exceptional events that fall under this category. In addition, catering packages for event catering sometimes include things like appetizers, decorations, bartenders, and servers.
Types of Event Catering
What Is Full-Service Catering?
Full-service catering manages every facet of an event, including meal preparation, decorations, and clean-up following the event.
Some logistics, such as dinnerware, linens, serving utensils, and dedicated staff to help on-site, are handled by full-service catering. The head caterer oversees every aspect of the event according to what will appeal to each guest.
What Does a Full-service Catering Business Offer?
What Is Self-Catering in Hotels?
Self-catering in hotels is when guests have the facilities to prepare their meals themselves. For example, a self-catering apartment or room may feature a small "galley kitchen" with appliances like a fridge, a stove, a microwave, some essential cookware like plates, bowls, and silverware, and a sink for doing dishes.
Usually, self-catering accommodations are available to all guests in the room, apartment, or shared cooking area. For example, a typical hotel room's corner can accommodate a galley kitchen because it is not very huge.