Never assume anything in a kitchen. For off-premise caterers, never assume anything, period. Just because you think or were told that the pesto sauce is in one of the boxes on the delivery truck doesn’t mean that it’s there! It’s a long trip back to your facility and then the event with forgotten stuff. Check and double-check it. When a catering kitchen gets in full swing, errors often happen. Things go into the wrong packages and then on the wrong trucks and maybe even to the wrong event.
Use a yellow highlighter to check an item off on a packing list. The person responsible for double-checking the list uses the same paper as the first checker. Everything should be marked in yellow. The second checker uses a blue highlighter and runs the blue highlighter right over the yellow, which then turns green as the blue mixes with the yellow.
It’s not a matter of not trusting your kitchen staff; someone just needs to make sure that the correct amount of food was prepared for the event as requested by the executive chef or kitchen manager. Catering kitchens move at a very fast pace and often are just one small step away from chaos. Take a pan of food from an order ready to go and see if the food sent is the same amount as requested on the order or packing list. If the order calls for 42 chicken breasts, how many are really going? You should be just as concerned about sending too much as about sending too little.
Kitchen labor is one of the larger cost centers in a catering business. One way to cut these costs is to hire retired individuals who are looking for part-time work to pick up a few dollars and beat boredom. They are great for doing some of the tasks that regular staff don’t enjoy, like checking in deliveries, shaping up the walk-in cooler, counting out all the things that need to be counted and more.
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