Planning ahead is perhaps one of the most important jobs a caterer has. It requires expert organisation and excellent communication skills in order to make sure that your events will run smoothly. Cooking good food and providing high quality products is an important aspect of the job, but if you can’t organise for them to reach guests at the right time and looking and tasting as good as possible, all of your efforts will have been in vain.

Communication is essential in working out what it is that your guests want in the first place, but also in making sure that you know what to expect from the venue and what equipment is going to be available to you. Forming a good relationship with the people you’re going to be working with will make your life far easier, and they might be able to help you sort out any of the problems which you come up against.

Organisation is of the utmost importance, and you’ll need to ensure that everything has been planned meticulously from the very start. Before you can even decide what food you’re going to provide, you’ll need to know how it’s going to reach its destination, whether you’ll be able to store it there, how you’re going to keep it hot or cold etc. Writing a detailed list and transforming this into a full logistics plan is a sensible starting point, and it will make sure that you’re not going to have forgotten anything.

The presentation of everything which you serve is so important. Of course, all catering professionals will realise this, but in freelance catering and catering for outside events, it can be incredibly difficult to have the control over presentation which you would like. Here are some top tips to help ensure that the food and drinks which you prepare stay as beautiful as you want them to:

• Provide your own plates and crockery. Whilst this might not be the most practical thing to do if you’re transporting large amounts of food, it will ensure that you can present your food as you’d like to upon arrival. Everything will look tidy, consistent and professional.
• Don’t forget about the garnish. If you have to cater for large groups of people, large plates of food can end up looking bland and bare. Dressing the food up a little can help prevent this.
• Think outside the box. You food doesn’t always have to be displayed on plates. Presentation boards and buckets are very fashionable in restaurants and can look great on a larger scale too. Think about what you’re serving your drinks in as well – might you want to serve cocktails in jam jars or tea cups for a vintage touch?
• Don’t over-complicate the presentation, though. Some intricate ways of serving foods in restaurants just won’t work on a large scale. When people are helping themselves, food has to be accessible.
• Create a centrepiece. This is a service which you can charge extra money for and it will ensure that your food has a befitting table design to go with it.
• Above all, enjoy presenting your food well! The aesthetic aspect of catering can be highly satisfying when you get it just right. Work to your brief, but allow yourself to be creative with it.

Obviously when thinking about catering, the food itself is a significant consideration. However, there’s plenty to think about which might not be so immediately obvious, and if you spend all of your time concentrating on food alone, it’s these things which will end up being your downfall.

Make sure that you have all of the necessary equipment. If you’re dealing with an outside caterer, check what exactly they provide. It might be that they aren’t able to provide things like table cloths or centrepieces, and you’ll need to check with your venue whether they have these or source them elsewhere. They’re not difficult to get hold of, you’ll just need to know in plenty of time what exactly you need to get.

Think about entertainment to accompany your catering. Whilst people are eating, it may seem like a long period of time to leave them to their own devices. Consider providing some background music, or perhaps a performance or act which they can watch. Something like a string quartet is perfect, providing entertainment without being obtrusive.

It’s entirely possible that you might spend so long thinking about the actual food that you could forget about additional requirements. Make sure that you have a diverse and well stocked bar, which has plenty of soft and alcoholic drinks for your guests to choose from. You should also think about any electrical equipment that you may need for your event. Do you want any added extras like photographers or DJs? This will all need to be built into your event plan and booked within plenty of time.

Catering always has an element of imagination involved; you try and design a menu, pick foods appropriate to your theme and the event in question and try and make the best impression that you can on the event and on the guests (how else would you get more business from referrals?) but sometimes you need to respect tradition and expectations. Sporting events, in particular, are extremely traditional with their tastes, menus and expectations.
Let’s take some examples; Tennis fans expect a certain type of food (strawberries, cream and maybe some Pimms) Cricket fans will expect their champagne and sandwiches, Football fans will expect the classic pie and builder’s brew while Rugby fans will drink pints only. There’s not much leeway for the catering department in these situations at all. You’ll just have to nail their expectations since this is a lucrative area. Use the business from this to propel you forward and apply your imagination elsewhere.