Increase Sales Channels by Offering Catering Services

In today’s business world, it’s not enough for restaurants to sell food as their only way to make money.  Once you’ve got a restaurant, a work team, recipes, equipment and appliances, why not find ways to make some extra money from a variety of channels?  One of these channels that is both interesting and unfaltering is offering catering services.  When most people think of catering, events like weddings and graduations come to mind.  In reality, however, the catering market offers variety and new marketing channels, depending on whether or not restaurateurs recognize these opportunities.

We’ve got some good ideas for restaurateurs who are interested in earning extra profits from catering services.

Benefits of the Catering Business: Easy Cost Control, Good Profits and Convenient Cost Management

When opening a restaurant, it might be difficult for you to predict when you will have a lot of customers or few. Sometimes, you might think you’ll have few customers as closing time approaches, so you let your employees go home, but it turns out that customers crowd to and overflow your restaurant.  Then you can’t offer services fast enough. Then people criticize you in the media. Otherwise, you run out of ingredients before you get to sell because you haven’t bought enough. In the catering business, almost none of these management problems exist, because you can control and plan your work in advance, whether in terms of cost, ingredients, equipment, menu items and workers.  More importantly, you can even know your profits in advance.

The catering business is more than “Chinese Banquet” Tables

 When discussing the catering business, many probably think about Chinese banquet tables, which are a familiar form of catering services. However, modern catering services are varied and diverse such as the following:

Chinese Banquet Tables: Menu items are prepared in sets and gradually served at tables.

Buffets: Foods are prepared and placed at a designated location and event attendees service themselves.

Cocktails: This type of service is similar to buffets, as food is prepared ahead of time and placed in a designated location, and attendees services themselves. However, less emphasis is placed on main courses and more on light meals and snacks.

Food Stands: This type of service is usually catering organized at various events. These events might have a lot of different food stands for attendees to choose from.

Coffee Breaks and Snacks: Snacks and beverages are usually offered here. This type is popular at seminars.

Snack Boxes: This type of service is similar to coffee breaks and snacks. However, with snack boxes, snacks and beverages are loaded into boxes and suitable for events that require little time and where convenience and speed are needed such as press releases, seminars and ceremonies such as merit-making ceremonies and funerals.

Boxed Foods: For this type of service, pre-ordered food is put in boxes and menu items might be set up for customers to choose as appropriate to seminars and events where convenience and budgets are considered.

So, you can see that the catering industry is extraordinary and has lots of different customer groups for marketing, depending on whether or not entrepreneurs recognize the opportunities there.

I would like to run a catering business, but how do I start?

Thailand is considered a great country for catering businesses, because we often have events and ceremonies year-round.  In addition, people’s behaviors have changed from previously making foods for events themselves to hiring other people to cook for them. Even many major brands are giving attention to this market, and these brands provide off-site catering services to meet market demands.

Therefore, if a restaurant owner would like to become a catering business, the first recommendation we have to offer is to raise awareness among target customers. You need to let them know what kinds of catering services you offer. For example, you could create signs in front of your restaurant or market online, and your restaurant should prepare food packages and prices along with a list of the food items offered.

In addition, you should experience the different atmospheres of various events such as weddings and parties in order to learn about customer preferences, because each customer group has different preferences, depending on the event. Moreover, you should establish good relations with businesses related to catering such as tailors, stores that rent out wedding dresses, stores that create cards and souvenirs, and university clubs and stands.

One more thing is not to restrict yourself to any single activity. You should be able to provide many different kinds of services and offer new catering services that are different from what most people have grown accustomed to, such as by offering catering services to monk food offering events and lunch events at school and welfare facilities.

Restaurant owners should not overlook the catering market, as the market still has a lot of potential for growth. Some important things restaurateurs need to consider are quality and service format, because it is very difficult for satisfied customers in this business to switch over to other service providers.