Catering Menu

Here is a menu planning tip that is extremely helpful for part-time home based catering businesses.

Try to only offer food that can be prepared several days or weeks in advance with the only requirement before serving is to reheat the food. This approach offers several advantages.

• Flexible Schedule: It allows you to prepare the food at the time most convenient for you. You won't have to wake up as early Saturday morning to prepare lunch for a client if the lasagna only needs to be reheated or leave work early to prepare broth for the stew if it's already sitting in the freezer.
  
  
• Efficient: It is a more efficient use of your time to prepare food in bulk. The less time you spend preparing food the more money you make per hour.
  
  
• Accept Bigger Jobs: It becomes possible for you to accept bigger jobs without renting bigger equipment or hiring additional help to prepare food. Illustration: You won't be able to provide 3 "fresh out of the oven" turkeys if you only have one oven, however, you can quickly provide 10 lasagna dishes with only one oven if they only need to be reheated

Another tip is to avoid terminology that people aren't familiar with. Potential customers are likely to dismiss you as a caterer because you are percieved as being too fancy or expensive for their needs.

The next lesson is about food & service pricing.