Have you ever thought of using your cooking skills and starting a catering business from your home?
You can use your cooking and hospitality skills to good use by starting a catering business. Caters are needed by private parties, corporate events, weddings and to keep your customers happy and fed.
Average wage for an independent caterer is approximately $14 per hour. A catering business can be incredibly profitable because it involves a set customer count which means less food wastage and shorter periods for perishable foods.
Here are the steps to starting your own catering business;
1. Find your niche
Think about what you’re passionate about, what food you love to make. It’s like any other business, it should root in a genuine interest and passion.
If you enjoy making sandwiches, tarts, salads or any other food that’s served during the day. You should model your business around lunchtime service. You can cater school functions, weddings, award ceremonies and so on.
If you’re into making desserts, consider naming your business something that refers to dessert only catering. This will limit the amount of customers who hire you but you will also have to buy less equipment.
2. Create a menu
By creating a menu, you’ll know how much kitchen space you need and what appliances should be installed and how much you can expect to make financially.
Keep your menu to a manageable size with the food you like to make and consider offering vegetarian some vegan options too as they don’t eat meat or any other type of animals.You can also hire designers to create a great website and integrate the online ordering to a software for catering businesses. This way it’ll be very convenient for your clients to browse through your menu, choose what to order and even pay online.
Once every dish is settled on the menu, have a family gathering or a party to test out your dishes so that you know if they’re worth serving or not. Ask them for honest feedback about every dish they tried and how your service was.
Keep making changes until you’re satisfied that they’re delicious and food enough to be served. To make sure you’ve got the techniques on how to make your own dishes perfectly, keep practicing until you master them.
3. Finding space and supplies
You always need a place to start something even if it is small. Try renting a kitchen with inventory space in it.
Try operating from a commercial kitchen as they often allow people to rent it for a day or week, depending on how much you pay. This situation can only suit you if you’re planning to cater only on certain days.
If this is going to be your full time business, then you should consider getting a permanent spot, storage and good cooking facility.
Apply for a long term deal with food suppliers. You’ll need a wholesale local club of suppliers to buy your food as you’ll already be busy enough making food.
This way you can focus more on how to improve your cooking rather than wasting time thinking what supplies to get.
4. Setting up your business
You’ll need to get applicable permits and licenses to start your catering business.
Research the laws in your area regarding a catering business and distribution of food.
Make sure you have all the main things you need to start this business which are permits and licenses.
