Catering From A Chef's Point Of View

NOTE: This is an article I wrote for the ACF magazine. I suggest you let all chef candidates read it before you interview them:

I believe that catering is the selling, producing and performing of outstanding foodservice usually in situations that are not ideal for anyone, under pressure circumstances, with a lot of people watching chefs as they work, and a host wishing to pay the least amount of money possible. From a culinary point of view, a simpler definition of catering might be that catering is the art of quality volume foodservice balanced by the science of making profit.

WHY IS CATERING IMPORTANT?
  One just can’t escape the truth. Catering is the fastest growing segment of the foodservice industry growing 7% to 10% per year. Since your clients want it and are buying catering somewhere, they should be buying it from you. Additionally, catering gives a foodservice business a competitive advantage and enhanced image in today’s marketplace. Plus, catering is usually a “life-saver” during recessions.

HOW SOME CHEFS VIEW CATERING?
  Some chefs love to do catering and some hate it outright! Let’s face it, catering is very hard work and it often viewed as taking kitchen time away from one’s “primary” business. Add to that the potential for last minute changes and adjustments due to host’s that change their minds, and you get a product line that the culinary department is unable to totally control. Then again, a lot of dollars are made when catering!

HOW CATERING DIFFERS FROM RESTAURANTS  
Restaurant foodservice usually has a twenty-minute window from when the client places the order to when it needs to begin arriving at their table. All catering is presold days, weeks or months ahead permitting better buying and the advantages of volume preparation. At a catered event, only the host knows what the menu is. Guests are looking for a great meal.

In restaurants, diners don’t haggle with the servers for lower prices than are printed on the menus. In catering, everyone haggles. Since hosts often don’t now all the guests eating preference and allergies they request more traditional menus with less experimental or cutting edge cuisine. Lastly, event food is usually prepped many hours before the event is served and the food is often held and/or transported raising the level of concern over the safe temperature zone. Then again, a lot of dollars are made when catering!

GUIDELINES TO CONSIDER
 Successful and profitable catering needs the total commitment of the culinary team. Here are some proven guidelines to insure outstanding catering:

1. The culinary leader needs to have veto power over any menu or presentation requests from the sales department that don’t offer proper profitability, safety, or company image.

2. During busy times of the year, a limit needs to be established on the total variety of different entrees and hors d’oeuvres offered to customers. There is no logic for having a culinary team prepping 67 different types of items for ten different events on a busy day!

3. Require salespeople to work a bit in the kitchen to learn the joys of woes of the culinary team.

4. Resist lowering the prices of your “regular” menus. Instead, create new menus that offer more value to shoppers. In other words, never sell your “A” menus at “B” prices. Create “B” menus and sell them at “B” prices. Also, keep offering your “A” menus along with the “B” menus.

5. Last minute popup orders should be limited to only a few easier to produce menus choices.

6. A culinary leader must have a sit-down meeting with the salespeople to go over each menu sold… item by item. This is the only way to discover errors and omissions.

7. The culinary team must be involved in all sales of high volume events before they are presented or sold.

FINAL THOUGHTS  
Catering is a good thing because is challenges the culinary teams creativity and makes money for the company at the same time. Catering broadens a company’s footprint and image in their marketplace. As long as the culinary team gets accurate information from the sales department in a timely manner success is easy. The total amount of planning and work that goes into a $40,000 catered event is not as much as one might think. Catering gets easier the more you do it! Did we mention that a lot of money can be made with catering?

Qualities Of A Successful Salesperson

A good salesperson is a combination of a lawyer, a psychologist, a coach, an accountant, an entertainer and a good friend. Charm is important, but it’s not even close to being enough. A good salesperson has to have the goods, as well as the personality. A salesperson:

• Speaks clearly and precisely at all times, particularly during a selling interview.

• Answers typical buyer objections before they come up.

• Plans sales calls in advance and makes a sales plan for each day.

• Decides ahead of time what to sell to the buyer.

• Asks good, probing questions.

• Is always honest in the approach to selling.

• Uses sales aids while selling. Involves all of the buyers’ senses: hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste.

• Sells the concept that the catering will never embarrass the buyer in front of friends, family or coworkers.

• Takes the risk out of buying when possible.

• Uses time properly. Isn’t afraid to stop a “going nowhere” selling presentation to move on to a better prospect.

• Listens to the meaning of what the buyer is saying, not just the words.

• Acts professional at all times.

• Never apologizes for the price; explains what the price guarantees for the buyer.

• If the sale is missed, understands why and doesn’t take it personally.

• Is in constant search of competitor data.

• Is ready to sell 24 hours a day.

• Isn’t afraid of making mistakes or trying new selling techniques.

Consider discussing these qualities openly with your staff at meetings.

Foundations Of Marketing

When planning a marketing campaign:

·         Separate your company’s actions and policies from what are perceived to be industry standards.

·         Take the risk out of buying for the client.

·         Market differently to different groups and individuals.

·         For social catering, stress entertaining and status.

·         For corporate catering, stress sales results and employee happiness.

·         Teach the business of catering to your marketplace.

·         Always answer the question of WIIFM (what’s in it for me) in your marketing.

·         Use testimonials; they are especially powerful in marketing catering.

·         Try to deliver more then you promised.

·         Be aware that in most cases, caterers are not taken seriously by those who want to buy catering.

·         Ask your current buyers what they like best about your service and what they like least.

·         Ask your current buyers what they would do if they owned your company for a day and could change anything they wanted.

·         Talk with your staff. Ask them what they would do to make the company better—then listen to their answers.

·         Figure out how you can get a detailed demonstration of what and how your closest competitors do with their catering. Why not purchase some catering from them, without letting them know it’s for another caterer?

·         Take an honest inventory of where your company stands in the “mind of the buyer” in:

Overall image.

Knowledge of your product/service.

Sensitivity to buyer wishes.

Enthusiasm for catering.

Professionalism.

·         Decide which product lines of your business you need to market first.

·         Develop small marketing programs first; wait until later for the mega-dollar promotions. Remember what General George Patton said, “A good plan today is better than a great plan tomorrow.”

·         Think of your business from the buyer’s point of view.

·         Decide which part of your business is ripe for a change.

·         Live by the motto that every product or service can be improved.

Cash Reserves?

“What is the status of your cash reserves?” This is one of the first questions I ask when starting a consulting project with a new client. Having proper working capital determines to a great extent how one operates their business. A combination of an owner’s cash position, lines of credit, and overall personal wealth provide the answer to what they can and/or should do and not do.


Those caterers who started their businesses undercapitalized from the get-go often never catch up. They immediately adopt a regime of paying for the costs of the materials and staff for an event from the customer’s payment for the event or the deposits from future events. This pay as you go mentality is adopted with the belief that “things will get easier” later. Sometimes things do get better, but very often the caterer simply digs a deeper hold of debt.

Many new caterers get themselves in an even more tenuous position because they begin to skip their various sales and payroll tax payments which then creates not just a deeper hole, but a valley of debt which is almost impossible to escape from. Conclusion: a caterer needs to dramatically resist overextending themselves financially, especially if they are counting on some type of dramatic increase in business to catch up and payoff past debt.

One of the main causes for a poor financial condition is slow payment from customers. Sometimes caterers permit customers to take sixty, or more, days to pay their invoices. Very few professional services permit customers to take that much time to pay. However, once again, we find that the “keep the client happy” thinking of some caterers is to “not rock the boat” by insisting on quicker payment. This is an example of putting the customer ahead of the company which is not wise.


Catering companies who are able to have even limited cash reserves gain advantages and free themselves from the worry and pressure of “catching up” on payables. The hardest thing to teach caterers is that you don’t catch up by just booking more events. This often just leads to more debt. In fact, slowing down bookings, cutting back on staff hours, and making quick or prepayment of events a requirement will be the smartest way to get back on track.

Five Discussion & Thinking Points For Owners/Managers

I suggest that you consider discussing the points below with your management team. If you are a team of one (yourself only) feel free to give me a call to discuss them - (773) 549-7210. I mean this... I will chat with you happily.

1. A caterer’s employment level must reflect the amount of booked business.                       

2. Talk with your staff and ask them what they would do if they were the owners.     

3. Staff needs to know that they can share their thoughts on any and all subjects with management.

4. Managers need to empower staff to make decisions; but staff needs to accept the consequences.

5. Successful catering companies have regular meetings on a consistent schedule.

Catering is Tough to Market

Buying a candy bar is simple. Buying catering is complex because of the many variables and significant costs. To market catering effectively, you need to understand the factors that make it a difficult selling situation:

·         You are marketing something that cannot be taken off a shelf and examined by the buyer.

·         It’s difficult to demonstrate your product or service like you could a camera or a new car. Many buyers don’t understand what catering really is.

·         You may be marketing a product you have never really purchased yourself, so you may not have a good understanding of what goes through the mind of a buyer. Marketing needs to take into account the fears buyers have, such as running out of food at an event.

·         The buyer doesn’t take the party home with them after the sale, like they would a car. They have to trust you to do what you promised—and that is scary. Your marketing needs to keep building trust in your catering. Caterers market what will be.

·         Some of the most expensive cameras still cost less than $2,000, but a wedding may cost $25,000. Buyers tend to get very cautious, simply because of the total amount of money they are spending. Marketing needs to continually work to overcome this element of the buyer’s concerns.

·         Buyers know that they cannot return the catering after the party for a refund or an exchange like they could for certain purchases. This makes the marketer’s and the salesperson’s task even harder.

·         Buyers get an entire proposal and contract to take with them before they say yes to the caterer. This lets the buyer put things under a microscope and compare your bid with those of other caterers. But the bids being compared are seldom at the same quality level as yours. Marketing needs to create, especially with the use of testimonials, that the caterer is trustworthy and has an outstanding track record.

Marketing: You might find this interesting?

HI everyone-

I found this in the far reaches of my hard drive yesterday. I wrote these back in the days before "constant contact" and email. Yes, there was a time when we just sent mass mailings out to potential prospects in a mailed letter format via US Mail.

Below you find what we used to call "letter openers". In other words, these are the one-liners we would place at the top of the letter or on the actual envelope to create interest. I thought I'd post them to my "modern" blog because they may spark some creative ideas for use in your constant contact marketing emails.

With a little imagination you will be able to figure out what the rest of the marketing letter copy would be based on the energy of the opening lines below.

1. Does your present caterer have liability insurance?

2. Is your caterer approved by the city to operate legally?

3. If you, like me, are one of those particular people who don't like to compromise on the quality of what they offer to their friends, then you will approve of what I'm about to offer you!

4. Here's how caterers decide how much to charge for their services.

5. What does your caterer do with leftover food at your party? Let me share with you what the law is on this important matter.

6. It happened recently at a company Christmas party. One of the company's key employees stated for all to hear... "If this were really a Christmas Party to thank us for our hard work, we wouldn't have been asked to put out the food and then cleanup!"

7. Suppose one member of a caterer's staff gets hurt while working at your place of business... are you liable?

8. If the list upon which I found your name is any indication, this is not the first time that you have received a business letter of this type.

9. Back in 1945 Chicago had only 26 licensed caterers. Today there are four hundred!

10. You're one of our best clients. We want you to know that soon only a few people will be able to get their catering from our company. We've decided to begin limiting the total number of events that we take to just three per day.

11. If your present caterer already offers you a 100% money back guarantee, then stop reading this letter right here.

12. Some people have the idea that catering is expensive... and they are absolutely right!

13. Some people have the idea that catering is expensive... but, I'd like you to know that this just isn't so!

14. You owe it to yourself to find out what a catered company picnic would do for your staff's overall morale and productivity!

15. Ask yourself: What will we do if you've waited too long to book a caterer for the holiday party!

16. I suppose that it might be a little bit bold of me to ask you for a favor when you are already one of our best clients. However, I do need your help...

17. If my letter has reached the right hands, then finding the better caterers is one of the things on your mind.

18. If my letter has reached the right hands, then finding new and different locations to hold your events is one of your responsibilities.

Digging Up the Root: Guest Article By Jon Wool

When coaching new clients I first ask how I may help improve their business. Responses are usually along the lines of “My chef hates  the sales team” or “We can’t seem to hire and keep good staff” or “We spend too much time on operations.” Such critical issues are common to caterers and restaurateurs.  However, addressing those issues will not solve the root problem. When I dig a little deeper, 9 out of 10 clients eventually acknowledge they want to improve profitability, to decrease their stress level, and to create a culture where everyone works in harmony. Understanding these goals is the first step toward eventually fixing the day-to-day problems that are a blight on every company.

It is common for owners to believe that if they keep doing the same things just a little better then everything will improve. Or they think that if they throw more money at a problem, it will simply go away.  Sadly, this is never the case.  Real solutions come from understanding your objectives and constantly reminding yourself to value the activities that will help you reach them.

Therefore, if your goal is to reduce stress, the last thing you need to do is mediate a personality dispute between departments.  Likewise, once you define your company culture, identifying employees who will be the right fit for your company becomes much easier.  If your goal is to improve profitability, the next step is to assess your sales procedures and evaluate your cost of doing business.  You may even discover a new appreciation for the all the time and energy you are spending on cost-saving operations.

There are many strategies for setting up more efficient procedures or strengthening a team’s unity.  Unfortunately, on their own, none of these quick fixes will bring lasting change or progress.  Owners and managers need to dig deeper to identify their goals and their company’s fundamental mission.  Once these have been unearthed, the whole team will find it easier to work together to help the company flourish.

Jon Wool can re reached at jonwool@finesse-cuisine.com            

Overview Of Pricing

How a caterer views the concept of pricing has a lot to do with the success of the caterer’s business. Selling price is the amount of money that a caterer can get from a willing buyer in exchange for catering. In other words, selling price is the amount thatm someone is prepared to pay for the catering.

Often, when deciding what to charge, a caterer thinks only of what they can get by with. Something like: “What price can I place on my catering that will insure the least chance that I’ll miss the sale?” Most buyers of catering tell us only when they think we are asking too much for our hard work, not when they think we’re charging too little. Imagine a buyer saying, “I’ll take the chicken menu but I want you to charge me $2 per person more because your price is too low.” What a wonderful day that would be! Until then, the only thing a caterer can do is to keep reaching for the highest selling price they can get without losing the sale.

The selling price is the right price that enables you to sell your goods and yields an acceptable profit, at the same time giving the customer the feeling of getting value for their money. Pricing to get the right selling price is a combination of both art and science. You need to constantly measure your price by balancing it with profitability, goodwill and repeat business.