Start & Run a Catering Business. George Erdosh

companion and it should definitely be on your bookshelf. The amount of information and research that went into Joy of Cooking is simply incredible, and the information is useful and up to date on most subjects.

      1.1b Cooking and catering software

      There are many cooking software programs available, designed for both the professional and the home cook. These programs not only offer new recipes, but also allow you to organize and manage your own recipes. They scale ingredients up and down for smaller or larger yields, create shopping lists, provide dietary information, and more. Personally, I have never found cooking software useful for my professional needs. You can download and test most software to see if it fits your catering style.

      Professional catering and event management software programs are several steps above cooking software. There is a large selection to choose from; the Internet is the best source for research. To briefly summarize, most programs are designed for large banquet and catering companies, hotels, and restaurants, but some are designed with small businesses in mind. Many of these complex programs are designed for people who work full time managing a large staff, inventory, food orders, and many events and reservations. These are not user-friendly programs. Besides, they are expensive, starting at around $1,500 for the basic version. You can request a CD-ROM or download a demonstration version from the manufacturers’ website. Testing the software will give you a feel whether it will help your business or is an unnecessary business expense.

      Software suitable for a small catering business tends to be simpler and more user-friendly; it costs $750 USD and up. There are not many programs available. An example of one I tested that appears to be simple, user-friendly, and suitable for a small-business caterer is CaterPro (www.caterprosoftware.com). More sophisticated programs for larger caterers cost well over $1,000 USD. My suggestion is to start your business manually. Eventually you can request trial software to test and decide for yourself.

      1.1c Achieving consistency

      There are two basic ways for cooks and chefs, whether professional or amateur, to work: either following a recipe, or free-form cooking (i.e., sampling the dish while cooking it until it tastes just right). In catering, free-form cooking is not advisable, particularly in preparing large quantities of food. Food should be consistently prepared from one event to the next, and therefore be very predictable. If you have an excellent memory, you may be able to do it without using a recipe as a checklist, but it is certainly much safer to use one. This way you never need to taste or adjust ingredient amounts. Most chefs who use recipes produce the food and serve it without even tasting it. They check and double-check recipe ingredients, making sure that nothing was left out and the right quantities were used. When the dish is finished, it is ready to be served. The chef knows exactly what it tastes like without sampling it.

      Most food preparation techniques involve chopping, dicing, cutting, cleaning, peeling, and preparing at least half a dozen different types of doughs and batters. Even though machines are now used for most of these jobs, you must learn to do all the basic techniques by hand. In a small catering business, the use of a machine, even if it is available, may not be justified for a small job. Knowing how to do jobs by hand is also valuable when machines are suddenly unavailable.

      The same applies to the many yeast and baking-soda breads, muffins, scones, biscuits, crêpes, pies, and puff and choux pastries you will be preparing: You must know the right technique for each, both by hand and machine.

      One more hint: Use your hands often. Your hands are perfect tools for the job. They accomplish the tasks quickly and are easy to clean. But don’t abuse them. Use rubber gloves if you don’t want to have your hands in water constantly. Kitchen work is not easy on your skin, so save your hands as much as you can. A restaurant kitchen cook can get by with rough, red hands, deadened nerve endings (also called asbestos fingers), split skin, and cracked fingernails. But in catering you need well-cared-for hands — they are exposed to the full view of the guests, particularly at full-service meals. In fact, they are the only part of you most guests will ever look at.

      1.2 Planning and organization

      Few fields of work require such a high degree of skill in planning and organization as off-premise catering. Industrial catering with a mobile kitchen, bulk-prepared food for retailers, large-event catering, or even barbecues are relatively simple to organize, but off-premise catering compels you to plan and organize for each event.

      In off-premise catering, all food and equipment must be brought to the place of the event. Nothing should be missing, and the food must be in prime condition at the time of serving, even though several hours may have passed between the crew’s departure from the kitchen and the serving of the first guests. The hot food must be hot and the cold food must be icy cold. The facilities at which you are serving may have no kitchen whatsoever or only a tiny office kitchen, so you must bring all your equipment. Imagine if someone miscounted the silverware and you are short one fork. What can you do? How can you produce a single fork in the next 20 minutes when the crew’s every minute is planned for the next three hours? The answer is to avert such disasters by careful planning. If an unforeseen mishap does occur, then you quickly switch to your next prerequisite skill as a caterer: resolving crises and emergencies.

      If you think that you are a reasonably good planner and organizer, you can improve those skills by diligent effort and careful checklists. Review your first few events. Did you remember to take everything? Was planning adequate? Did what you anticipated happening happen? If so, you are capable of organizing and planning progressively larger parties.

      Planning for an event must be done well in advance of its occurrence. Even the smallest event demands some thinking four to five days ahead of the date to schedule the various phases of preparation, such as defrosting food and ordering supplies. Large events need even more advance planning because you must reserve staff time, rental items, and maybe additional subcontracted services.

      Advance planning and organization has five major parts:

      • Securing supplies and rental items

      • Scheduling food preparation

      • Reserving staff time

      • Preparing equipment and invoices

      • Planning the event

      The chapters that follow will deal with all these aspects of planning in greater detail.

      1.3 Efficiency

      Efficiency is important in most professions, but in some fields, it is an essential skill to ensure success; food service is one of those fields. The food the guests are waiting for must arrive at their table as quickly as possible. Preparation time must be kept to a minimum; only a high degree of efficiency can achieve this.

      You quickly discover what you can prepare far in advance of the event and what must be done at the last minute so that staff time is used efficiently. With careful planning, organization, and good efficiency, you’ll pull it off with the minimum staff possible to protect your profit margin. Fine-tuning allows a small safety factor of time for unexpected problems that notoriously crop up at the last minute. If you’re not a very efficient person, or are unwilling or incapable of learning how to be one, hire a good catering or kitchen manager who is. Then you can concentrate on other aspects of the business, such as selling and marketing, food styling and presentation, or financial management.

      Efficiency is necessary for several reasons. First, you must be able to shape masses of raw material into gorgeous food in the shortest possible time or you’ll never get to the culminating step: feeding people. Second, many items can be prepared only at the last minute. Some foods hold well hot but every extra half hour of standing will lower the peak serving quality. Many foods don’t keep well if they are chilled too long either. Salads and fruits lose their crispness. An extra hour does make a noticeable difference. One more hour, and even the host or hostess will notice. Such foods must be prepared at the last minute, so the end of preparation signals the beginning of serving with no time lag. That requires