Catering services are very popular between those who often need to organize some events, for some family celebration, or when you have a lot of guests at home, and you don’t have much time to cook for them. Also, the table should be arranged nicely, and not everyone has the talent to serve the food so it will look beautiful and mouthwatering.
Most of these services will provide a tailored and customized menu, following the duration of the event, the food preferences of most of the invited guests, creating great looking plates with a lot of delicious food. But, in order to avoid mistakes, you need to exactly know what you are looking for. Since they work with food, and a lot of people will have to eat it, you need to avoid these mistakes:
1. Choosing the cheapest option
If you want a service that will deliver a quality, then you need to skip the cheapest caterings and find something mid-range. It’s normal to try to save money, but you can save them on everything, not on food and drinks. We are not saying that cheap and new services are necessarily bad all the time, but you need to play smart and safe. Cheap restaurants may be a good option for private events that don’t include coworkers and other people you meet while at work. And of course, keep it simple, but effective, and pay attention to the aesthetic aspect of the whole concept.
2. Choosing the most expensive option
Again, if you don’t hire the cheapest offer, you also better not hire the most expensive too. They may charge you a lot, putting their name on the plates and napkins, and serving average food that only looks fancy. Like there is some unwritten rule, they will try to serve some unusual ingredients that not all the guests will enjoy eating. Fancy ingredients don’t mean nice tasting food, and you must be careful with these offers.
Also, avoid specific foods and ingredients, that not everyone likes, such as caviar, raw fish, and especially every type of raw food that spoils easily when served.
3. Services that don’t offer special menus
Many people today are allergic to some ingredients, like nuts, or some seeds. Some of the guests may be lactose or gluten intolerant. There also may be vegetarians and vegans, and you need to take every option possible. That means you will need to have separate options for these people. The catering employees should pay a lot of attention to these details. For example, they should never mix the gluten-free food with the products that contain it, because even a single particle can be damaging to those who are allergic or suffer from Celiac disease. When it comes to allergies, professionals will always list the critical ingredients, so the guests will know what are they allowed to eat.
This is a very important aspect to pay a lot of attention to because you don’t want unpleasant accidents and situations after someone ate something they shouldn’t even touch it.
4. Not paying attention to how they keep the food
Every ingredient and product should be kept in proper conditions and temperature, so you can avoid spoiling. Professional catering services will always keep the food cool until they deliver it with a special vehicle that will maintain a proper temperature. If they need to serve fresh food, be sure that it’s not actually frozen and unfrozen too many times, because that meals will lose the colour, taste, and texture, according to CPD Online.
5. Hired people are not wearing proper clothes
When a catering service serves food for a huge group of people, they also need to provide the needed number of staff members. Another important thing is wearing hygienic gloves while they serve food, especially if you must organize an event during these times of restrictive protection measures. But, even when it’s not pandemic, the staff should always wear nice and clean clothes, and hygienic hats on their head, so no hair falls in the food anyhow. This protocol should always be implemented when food is served.
6. Not hiring catering’s staff to serve the event
Since the same company knows the best what they prepared and how to combine the food with the drinks, it’s always a better idea to hire their waiters and pay for a full service. You may think you will save money if they just bring the food and then leave, so you can invite people you know to serve. But, saving money on this shouldn’t be your priority, and the best choice is hiring the whole staff that the service offers for the customers.
7. Buying too much or too little food
We can never know how much food is enough, but it’s always better to plan a little more than you think that guests will eat. If you stay without food in the middle of the event, it will be a huge shame for you or the company you work for. On the other hand, if there is too much food left after the party or any kind of event, you can always donate the food, or take it home, or at the office. The problem with the food waste is huge, but let’s be honest, it’s always better to have more meals than you planned, instead of no food in the middle of the event.
Serving food on parties, celebrations, or different types of formal events is not a joke, and no one should treat it like that. Food and drinks are a very important part of these occasions, and you don’t want something bad to happen because you weren’t careful enough when you hired the catering company. Be careful about the things we explained in this article, and probably you won’t have any problem related to the service.
