May 24, 2013

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A DIY party? You’ll be rewarded in heaven.

November 11, 2011 By

With the festive season well and truly upon us, it’s time to par-TEE!  For some of us that means thinking up new excuses for avoiding the “office party” or it means throwing yourself whole heartedly into the whole sparkly experience.  If you’re of the mind to throw a party for family and friends yourself, then you’re in for some hard work that will be amply rewarded by a place in heaven. 

If you have booked that “local hall”, it’s probably too late or too small an event to justify the booking one of the many Catering shipping companies to transport your buffet, drinks, cutlery and decorations.   If it’s too late to unbook the hall, you’ll suddenly realise that you have to transport everything to the hall.   You’re probably looking at a fleet of cars – or possibly up to twenty trips in your own car.  It is do-able, I’ve done it, but not advisable.   [Read more...]

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Social Catering

February 28, 2011 By

Social catering covers a range of events from cooking in a families’ home on a fairly regular basis to a wedding. Depending on the clients specifications the caterer may prepare a buffet or a full five course sit down meal. During social catering there is more of an opportunity to be creative. A lot of caterers cover both corporate and social catering. Most caterers develop good working relationships with companies that provide table linen, glassware and cutlery. This is vital as you may have an unexpected booking for far more people than usual – you would not want to turn this work away due a lack of materials. A good caterer also should have access to good reliable staff on a casual basis. Again if you had a bigger booking than usual you would need to fulfill the requirements. The ability to be able to provide whatever the client needs is so important, if you cannot they will go and find a caterer who can.

There is also the type of catering in the form of restaurants. This is different in the sense the restaurant decides what they will sell and customers, based on this, will visit them or not. It means if you work as a caterer in this type of establishment you cook or prepare in line with what the restaurants recipe might me. Unless you have been employed to develop new dishes the chances are your input in terms of recipes will be minimal.

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Types of Event Catering Part Two

February 23, 2011 By

There are other types of catering service aside from corporate and social catering. Cold service catering involves a caterer delivering cold snacks to a home or work place. More recently some caterers have been working with nutritionists to provide cold catering services which involve delivering three meals a day to people hoping to lose weight. The three meals delivered would be nutritionally balanced and be within a certain amount of calories. This is a more modern type of food service. A traditional cold food service would involve a catering company delivering a freshly prepared selection of cold snacks. This kind of food is appealing to most people and can be delivered on a bicycle to offices, private homes and just about anywhere within the local proximity. [Read more...]

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Types of Event Catering Part One

February 18, 2011 By

What most catering businesses want to achieve is a catering contract, the higher the profile of the company that offers the contract the better. To be the caterer of a huge well known company would be a massive achievement. Your catering company would be viewed as the food service that the big named company trusted and that would be an incredible boost to any catering company’s profile. Contracts can be offered to smaller companies or sole traders as well. An individual working alone providing a catering service could engage in a contract to supply sandwiches daily to a local store. Contracts ensure constant work (for the duration of the contract) and also provide an opportunity to further enhance a good reputation. If the service provided by the caterer has been to a very satisfactory standard there is always the possibility that the client will renew the contract. For the duration of the contract the caterer will usually be expected to provide breakfast, sandwiches at lunchtime and something along the lines of afternoon tea. Although on a day to day basis the specification from the client will usually be the same the caterer should be aware that there will times when variety will be required. If, for instance there was special guests visiting the clients offices the caterer may well be expected to supply a sit down lunch or buffet. Extras that may also be expected are Christmas lunches and farewell parties/lunches for departing members of staff. For the sole trader supplying sandwiches to a local store they should expect to have to supply seasonally flavored food. Perhaps a sole trader would be expected to provide differently filled sandwiches around Christmas time. So if a caterer does manage to obtain a contract they may have to supply the same food the vast majority of the time but they need to expect variation at some points and need to be prepared for this. This type of catering is known as corporate catering. In corporate catering the caterer should always think of the setting in which the food is being served. Food being eaten in an office probably should not be too smelly or messy. If a caterer was providing to a history museum it could be a good idea to have children’s biscuits in the shape of dinosaurs? The food should always be appropriate to the setting.

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What are the different types of catering?

January 10, 2011 By
Event Catering

Event Catering

There are different types of catering depending on what it is you require catering for.

Mobile catering – This is generally a caterer who provides food from a van or a stall. A good example of where you would find mobile catering (‘the burger van’) is at fairs, festivals, carparks and outside workplaces.

Event catering – This is much more detailed as catering for an event can involve as little as a lunch box up to a full sit down meal. Event caterers have many things to consider such as dietery needs, equipment required if the function is for example a wedding where tables, chairs etc are needed.
When organising the catering for an event there is also sometimes the need to employ staff if the event is a catered event. Catered events require staff to serve drinks, hors d’oeuvres and food whether it be buffet style or silver service.

Boxed Lunch catering – this type of catering is becoming very popular, especially in office culture. Boxed lunch caterers basically box a lunch up for you and deliver it to your address.

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