Catering Archives - GUJRAT INDIA

Business Lunch Catering: How To Make Your Customers Satisfied

One of the most important meals of the day is lunch. In business, you will observe that there are meetings wherein the whole staff and the superiors of a company gather all together for a business lunch meeting. If you are a caterer, lunch is one of the daily meals that you will be providing service with. And, as a caterer, you need to know the dishes that are appropriate to be served for lunch, especially if you are providing service for an office or business meeting. To provide satisfying services, here are some important things that you should remember when you are onto business lunch catering.

First off, you need to know about the likes and dislikes of the company or business firm that hired your service. Do further research about the persons who will be attending the business lunch. Through this, you will have ideas about the dishes that you will be serving them for their lunch. You can also ask them some suggestions about the dishes that they want to have. Doing further research is one of the most important parts of business lunch catering as it provides you with lots of ideas on what to do and what service to provide your customers with that will make them satisfied.

Secondly, as a caterer, you should also have ideas on where they want the business lunch to be held. If they want it to be held in their office, then you should have ideas on how you will be able to make the room or area to look good and comfortable. This can be achieved by having knowledge about interior designing, table arrangements, and food preparation. Make them feel that they are eating in a high-class restaurant even though they are just having lunch in their own office. You should also know if they want the business lunch to be casual or a bit formal one. This will provide you with ideas about the designs, arrangements, and preparations that you will be providing them as a part of your business lunch catering service.

All of these things should be considered properly if you really want to provide the best services to your customers. As a caterer, you need to consider these things as a homework that you should do in order to make your customers become satisfied more than what they are just expecting. By doing your homework properly, you will have greater chances of being hired again the next time around that your customers want to hire a business lunch catering service.

Tips On How To Start A Small Catering Business At Home

Are you looking for a good pastime where you can also earn some income? If you have the passion for cooking, then why don’t you try to invest in catering? If you are worried because you only have a limited amount of budget, then you can start your own catering business at home in order to lessen your expenses. If you decide to push through with the idea of investing in a catering business, then here are a few simple tips that can help you on how to start a home catering business.

The first tip on how to start a home catering business is to properly allocate your budget. Since you only have a limited amount of budget, it would be best to purchase all your supplies and equipments wholesale. This will provide you with a lot of discounts as buying items wholesale leads to the seller selling the items at a much cheaper price. If you think that your budget is really insufficient, then you can try asking for help from some agencies that offer financial support to small time business entrepreneurs. Other budding businessmen even use their properties as collateral just to have a sufficient amount of capital to start a small business. Purchase only those items and supplies that you need and are important.

The next tip on how to start a home catering business is to enhance your knowledge about the business in terms of doing research, enrolling in cooking subjects, and attending business seminars. Or, you can also get yourself involved with online tutorials and webinars about catering businesses. You should also widen your knowledge when it comes to the different kinds of foods to serve your customers. Some experience caterers would even try eating in famous restaurants and observe about the kinds of dishes that those popular restaurants serve their customers.

The final tip on how to start a home catering business is to have a very good and concrete business plan to be followed. This business plan will guide you on what to do. A good business plan includes proper budget allocation, proper time management, and proper business management. Since you are just starting with your business, you need to do a lot of sacrifices first. This includes being an accountant, a manager, an employee, a researcher, a treasurer, and many more. You should also see to it that you have the qualities of a good caterer that includes being patient, jolly, flexible, approachable, understanding, and open-minded.

The Booming Catering Industry: Facts and Statistics

Factual and Statistical Info

The revenue from the catering market worldwide is expected to reach $265 billion US dollars 4 years from now with an estimated compound annual growth rate of 5 percent according to Research and Markets. Significantly, the market encompasses the major sectors in various communities including schools, elderly facilities, sports centers, and even hospitals. These institutions outsource their food service needs so they can lessen their spending and focus their labor force on more important matters.

Recent Technomic study shows that the catering industry in the U.S. made about $537 billion dollars in total sales last 2017 with a continuous growth rate due to easy and fast online ordering system. There are more than 10,000 caterers in America, employing about 110,000 people altogether. Most of these businesses are small and locally controlled that don’t account for a large portion of the market share. The demand for their services is higher in densely populated areas.

The Asia’s largest catering market and the second in the world, China reached an estimated revenue of $616 billion US dollars as reported by the China Cuisine Association. At the moment, it has around 5 million active companies in the catering industry. This has been attributed to the implementation of online to offline marketing strategy where customers are encouraged to order food by going to the caterer’s physical shop rather than online.

Just imagine how many people are choosing the convenient and practical way of catering food to their guests to celebrate life milestones. Statistics show that caterers are in demand for the following occasions: weddings, engagements, birthdays, corporate events, graduations, holiday parties, and even funerals. There’s also an increasing need for food services in trade shows and conferences worldwide.

Reports show that the money spent on food service mainly depends on how much corporate clients or individual consumers can spend for certain occasions. That is why catering companies often offer various packages, and sometimes even create meals suiting the most limited budget on the line.

To be able to serve large groups opens a series of catering opportunities for them so it is rare for them to turn down any offer, deal or invite. However, although the demand still exists, customers are less likely to order for catering services during uncertain economic times.

Based on Koncept Analytics’ market research, the 3 major factors fueling the increasing demand for contract and self-operated caterers are the people’s need for customized food orders, the rise of the middle class, and the continuing use of digital technology.

The 2018 Analysis of the World’s Contract Catering Market by Orbis Research

By Segment

Business & Industry (B&I)
Education
Healthcare
Elderly Facilities
Government Agencies
Sports & Entertainment

By Region

North America
Europe
Asia Pacific
Latin America
Africa
ROR (Rest of the Regions)

By Country

United States
Canada
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Others (Spain, India, China, Japan, Australia & Brazil

So what type of food catering service would you prefer to establish in your own local community?

Contract Catering
Self-Operated

How To Become Successful In A Catering Business

Being into a business, small scale or large scale, also means getting into something wherein you need to gamble some important things. This already includes gambling your money for something that you would like to grow and become successful. Of course, you cannot start without having a budget for your business. Every business has the possibilities of becoming a success or a failure. To make your success rate higher, here are a few tips that you might want to consider on how to make a catering business successful.

Characteristics: Having characteristics of a good caterer is very important in becoming successful in a catering business. First off, you need to have the willingness to succeed in the field. You also need to have a lot of patience. Being flexible is also needed in this kind of business. You must also be willing to do sacrifices as you will need it most of the time. You should also know how to have a good relationship with other people. These are all very important factors on how to become successful in a catering business.

Knowledge: Having a broad knowledge about the business is very important. This includes knowing a lot of dishes and menus, having ideas about food preparations and presentations, and knowing how to provide satisfactory services to your customers. This is what most failed caterers miss; proper knowledge. They directly jump into starting the business without first having wide knowledge about it. If you really want to become a successful caterer, you should always keep this in mind.

Effort: Being into a business also means having to exert some effort more than the usual. If you really are eager to know how to make your catering business successful, then you should exert extra effort. This is in terms of doing further research, doing further tasks, and looking for ways to enhance your knowledge and skills. This is already a part of the sacrifices that you need to take, but doing all of these will surely result to providing your customers with satisfaction that is more than what they are just expecting from your service.

Proper Management: Proper management and planning are very important factors that a caterer should consider when wanting to know how to make a catering business successful. Through proper planning and management, everything will be under control. Along with proper management also comes proper time management, which is very important for any kind of business that provides services to other people.

An Overview of Indian Industry of Catering Services

Catering services have been an important sector of the countries like the United States. More than 8,000 catering companies in the USA record the annual revenue of more than $7 billion. The trend has been slowly growing in India, but it has recently adopted a fast-paced growth due to many reasons.

India is a country where numerous festivals and ceremonies are held in the form of important events. So, the scope of the catering industry in such a country is worth taking a note. The catering industry in the country is finally extending its reach beyond marriages and the Indian catering service providers are enjoying the good time. Here is an overview of the catering industry in India.

The catering services industry in India has been consistently growing at the annual growth rate of 15 to 20 percent. In 2009, the industry attained the worth of INR 15,000 crore. The good aspect about the Indian catering industry is that it didn’t bear any major negative effects during the period of recession. So, what are the reasons for the consistent growth rate enjoyed by the Indian catering industry?

Interest in Catering Services

The members of the Indian families usually took care of different arrangements during a social gathering or an event. This trend is fast being replaced by the people’s interest in hiring catering services. This often results in better arrangements and opportunity for everyone in the family to enjoy the function.

Cross-region Specialties

Earlier, an event taking place in a family belonging to a particular region of India used to have cuisines preferred in that region. But, the scene has changed today, all thanks to the popularity of catering service providers. Now, a wedding taking place in Punjab has South Indian dishes in its menu. Cuisines from Gujarat, Bengal and other Indian states are included in the menu cards all over the country. This encourages people to hire the professional catering services.

Catering Institutes

It is indeed surprising to watch the growing number of hotel management and catering institutes in all parts of the country. Above all, the students are taking interest in joining the professional courses to make a career in the industry. So, the future of catering industry in India is going to be even better than the present situation.

Corporate Culture

Apart from the social gatherings and festive occasions, the formal events, seminars, conferences and other business related events consider professional catering services to add to the success of these events.

Family Style Restaurant

Restaurant based catering services too have improved in the country in the past few years. People, who are earning well in various fields and who have started living higher standards of life, prefer to choose dining venues with professional catering services.

The festival season of October and November in India is among the best times for the catering companies. Though, the industry doesn’t rest for the remaining part of the year as well. Going further, the presentation and decoration used by the professional caterers further make them popular for various types of events. All of the aforesaid reasons justify the consistency in the Indian catering industry growth rate.