Corporate catering is a large industry, due to the many events that corporations and companies will have for their employees every single year. These functions could include birthday parties, seasonal holiday parties, get togethers with other related companies and team-building exercises. Corporate catering involves the provision and distribution of food to a large number of different people within one environment coming from a corporation. While this may sound simple, there are many aspects that need to be considered when looking at this in order to satisfy the guests and keep them happy. Some of these aspects are more obvious, whilst others may not be thought of as much. However, all of them are important and need to be taken into consideration. Keeping your clients satisfied is integral to maintaining a good reputation and expanding your brand image and will directly correlate to how many clients will come to you for your business.
Here are some of the aspects of corporate catering that should be considered.
Open to all tastes
Corporate catering typically provides meals that are open to all tastes. What this means is that they provide meals that are universally liked and will be enjoyed by all of the guests, or at least provide enough variety that each guest will find something that they like. People have different tastes, and some may enjoy seafood whilst others won’t, so it is good to have a good mix of foods. Furthermore, the food providing by corporate catering should also cater to different lifestyles such as vegetarians and vegans who will not eat meat or even eat any animal products. This is fast becoming a very popular lifestyle to choose from, and thereby the food provided should have vegetarian and vegan options available for this crowd, in order to keep the guests happy.
Enough food
This may seem obvious; however, you would be surprised at the number of corporate catering companies which do not provide the correct amount of food to keep the guests happy. It is always better to have more food than less, as the guests need to be able to freely choose what they want to eat and when they want to eat, as well as how much. The amount of food is important in corporate catering and will influence the mood of the guests, and as such, enough should be provided. The amount of food needed comes from experience, but some basic common sense can be used when looking at the size of the event, which can help to determine how much food is required.
Alcohol
While some events will not require alcohol (common sense should also be exercised here), the majority of corporate catering events will require some form of alcohol. Usually sipping drinks such as wine and champagne are preferred for company events and will be enjoyed by guests. Alcohol can help to keep guests happy and social and will greatly affect the mood of the function. The amount and type of alcohol can be discussed directly with the client, and this is another aspect that should be considered as you need enough to keep the guests happy throughout the night. If it is a big corporate catering event, you will need a lot of alcohol to keep them happy of course, and smaller events can be downsized.
Overall, corporate catering has many aspects that need to be considered which in turn will determine whether a function is good or bad. These aspects make up the essence of corporate catering, and failure to meet even one of these aspects can make or break an event.