The Catering business has become one of the most Successful and Profitable businesses with the top-notched potential of growth and expansion in the market today. The catering business has great attraction and gained an integral part in our daily routine where it is being preferred for almost every Event whether it is at the smallest or largest scale. For Example, either we have a wedding Anniversary for 2 persons, a small family get together, A Party of any type or Grand wedding ceremony of over hundreds of guests, we can’t avoid its necessity and people do call for this Service on every occasion and every topic to get relaxed of all tensions related to this topic.
We find excellent opportunities In Every process of Catering Services whether it is in full or part-time for any event. Catering is no doubt a demanding work which needs good work stamina, guts to work under pressure and as per required standards by the client. It also purely based on successful interpersonal skills which are key to take lead this business. Reputation works greatly to attract the new opportunity and bring success in business which need to be specially focused by the willingness to always ready for hardworking and ability to enjoy work under pressure. This type of entrepreneurial catering business category is gradually improving and getting fame with people of all income levels.

The Catering Business is always on high demand which is increasing gradually because of overwhelming demands being opted by increasing number of high-class families. People do have a better business environment with fast-growing opportunities to live with, giving enough reasons to change lifestyle while they call families for social gatherings like the got weddings, family get-together, Corporate Events by Companies and variety of other Events Where they always need for a professional Event planner, who could handle all event-related activities and services including Catering services which should be surely on top-notched taste with quality-oriented catering team. So there is no doubt that all types and all sizes of businesses are using catering Services at their launching ceremonies, cocktail parties, corporate meetings and other corporate unions to build their positive images, helping to boost the sales & marketing tools to keep up the competition of promoting a company or product in the right swing.
In Pakistan, It is always a very sensitive and important topic by the families on any of their wedding or family Event, to search for a top-quality caterer, who can provide them with A hygienic and Super quality, tasty and delicious food along with related services in same standards, which could exhibit their image and positive status among the invited families. Middle-Class families feel the demands of catering services only either on their wedding events or funerals. While in high-Class families, it is usual to have events on daily or weekly base in the shape of family dinners, meetings, parties and luxury weddings etc.
Our Experience reveals this Catering Business as a profitable business with maximum margins which can be started with the lowest investments even. The catering business is well performed and profit generated if organized well and properly worked out in the right flow of its paws, otherwise, it can be ruined out within no time if not operated with well-organized ideas and team. Whatever the event is, whether it is a Wedding Event, Birthday Party, family get together, a Corporate Event, a business meeting or small type of gathering, The best and real role of a caterer is not more than half an hour, starting from the time when breakfast, lunch or dinner starts while ending soon with food ends. In this half an hour Everything gets cleared if the food is delicious, tasty and of excellent quality with a good professional service plan, there will be more chances of new projects in hand for sure. On contrarily, it could defuse everything if not worked properly on quality or serving plans.

If you like to start this catering business, first you have to make sure that what will be your target community, either you will be targeting a higher or middle-class Families. Once the category of the audience is decided, be generous enough to think about maximum guest limits, which you could be able to serve. Like we can find many caterers in the market who don’t have enough resources to cater not more than 100 person’s Event as they serve only small parties. While We can also find other categories of Caterers, who are expert to serve on large-scaled events with a capacity of over 5000 to 10000 persons. Serving a large number of Guests will need you to have more investments in your trade for related requirements of crockery, cutlery, sitting plans and other necessary things for this Event.
An Office or location is very important to start a Catering Business, which should be equipped with all necessities of full-fledge Kitchen beside a good and expert team of cooks for all variety of dishes. Your start should be good with careful actions plans, need to use all possible tools to gain fame and good events in the market which will introduce your business with the best ranking and bring you more business opportunities. Once you have done some good projects with best results and services, you will be famous enough in the market through words of mouth.

The main requirements of this catering business are to have a well stock of crockery, cutlery, chairs, tables, skirting, tents, carpets, decoration material and a professional team of employees which includes tenting labour for tent installation and to display the setup, professional waiters and cooking staff etc. To give you a better idea about the employees, here we can share an example that you want to serve on an average 200 Guests, you required at least 14 to 15 professional waiters for service, around 5 to 6 labourers for tenting fixing and other activities beside 2 to 3 professional cooks in backend kitchen. The same classification can be used for high-quality catering services as well. The Plan of serving a higher number of Guests, need to improve your serving/waiter’s team only while the rest of labourer and other cooking staff could be the same with no further addition.

Initially, you don’t need to have a huge investment plan to start this business as you can find easily professional vendor’s list available to execute any of your Event. You can find all type of vendors like Decorators, events planners, events designers, florists, lighting providers, bakers, wooden floor, glass floor, sofa sitting and other small rental companies with partial services on board like toilets, cooking equipment, tent, chairs, linens, serving staff providers and many of other possible trades related to design and execute an event. You can start buying your own material once you can see a flow of continuous good events where you can expect a good profit margin and adding your own stuff at this moment will help you a lot to save money and mature your backup. You need to use some time to build your fame by doing good work and achieving prestigious feedback for your company.
The basic investment can be worked over the number of guests you want to cater to. If you have a reasonable location to run a kitchen, then only two things get left to be worked on for the initial investment, which is Crockery + cutlery& basic team of employees to run this chapter.
Crockery includes plates, spoons, forks, glasses, napkins etc with the tables, chairs, table clothes etc. We can calculate the cost of crockery on per head basis. For one guest high-quality crockery set costs around Rs. 1000 to 1200 and another Rs. 1300 to 1500 is needed per guest for table, chairs and other decoration stuff. To start with a business to cater around 100 persons you need to have at least 35 to 40 Lakh in hand for all related segments to be covered.
While for the Investment on employees, you could again find several options. Either you can outsource serving staff/waiters from a contractor, who are easily available in the market, by paying them on project/event basis or you can go for permanently hiring.
For the investment of the employees, you have several options. You can outsource the waiters, you can pay them on a project basis or you can have fix employees. Both options can be worked out easily depending on affordability plan you have, but outsourcing may have some hassles at peak time when these contractors normally use unprofessional waiters for service beyond your expectations. Having Permanent teams means a trustworthy and fully polished team to be used as per your requirements and designed standards to be followed with no uncertain issues.

We can expect a good margin ratio from this business. For Example, you are charging Rs. 500/-per head for any event of 100 persons, which means you are getting Rs. 50,000/- for a few hour work. After filtering out all expenses on this event you can save at least 30 to 35% profit in hand easily and even sometimes more then that depending upon the client’s nature and size of the Event, where no doubt your efficiency is much appreciated if worked out perfectly.

The catering business is not so easy job, need hardworking on all segments like details of preparing food at off and on-site for hundreds of people could be challenging and risky sometimes. For Example, it is very easy to cater a 1000 person’s Event located in a nearby site in compare to cater a 100 person event located at distance, where you have to carry additional precautions as per weather and location criteria. Moreover, there could be breakage of Crockery or wine glasses during transportation or Event. Managing to employees could be another big issue considering their importance on temporarily basis or permanently. Another challenging task is that your waiters should be well experienced and well organized; even a small mistake can put you in a serious problem. If an event is not well organized, then your clients can sometimes even penalize you and you can face a number of problems. If an event goes well, then you can get more such events in future. You have to be very careful about the selection of waiters and make sure they complete the job professionally in a well organized way.