If you enjoy cooking for others and are the one always cooking for parties and family events, you may be thinking about turning your passion into a career and starting a home business. It is a great way to earn money doing something that you enjoy and be your own boss.
Starting up a catering home business is not easy, far from it. However, with a bit of careful planning and preparation, and lots of hard work and dedication, it will pay off, leaving you with a career that you love and a business that you can put your name to.
Here, we share some tips to help you get your home catering business off to a good start.
Before you start your home business
Before you dive into setting up your home catering business, you need to know how you are going to run things. Are you going to have a niche that you are going to focus on – cocktail parties? Formal dinner parties? Charcuterie boards?
You also need to work out whether you are doing the cooking at your home and transporting it to clients’ homes, or you are cooking it at their house. This will determine what sort of equipment and resources you need.
Another important thing to check out before you do anything else is the regulations and legislations that are set out by your area. You may need specific licensing or hygiene checks before you startup.
Equipment for your home business
Once you have decided on how you are going to operate and made sure that you meet all the regulations laid out by your local authority, it is time to start thinking about the equipment and resources that you will need.
You may need to buy new pots and pans to use exclusively for customer food. You will also want to make sure that you have space in the fridge and freezer for the safe storage of food. Making sure that the temperature is exactly how it should be is important as well, for food safety and hygiene purposes – the last thing you want is any clients coming down with food poisoning from something you have cooked or stored. To ensure that the temperature is carefully regulated, invest in a wifi temperature sensor. This will monitor the temperature and send alerts if there are any issues.
Research your suppliers
When working in the catering industry, you need to have reliable and trustworthy suppliers. Spend some time researching suppliers in your area – ask in local networking groups for recommendations. Remember, price does not always equate to quality, and that your livelihood depends on the quality of the ingredients that you purchase. Look around, get quotes, and look at how they can help to support you in feeding your customers.
Think about your unique selling point
What is going to make you stand out amongst other catering businesses? What can you offer customers that they can’t get anywhere else? Having a unique selling point (USP) can be valuable for your marketing campaign and the success of your business.
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[avatar user=”mike” size=”thumbnail” align=”” link=”file”]Mike Gaudreau is the owner of The Wealthy Boomers, a site devoted to helping seniors make money online. Mike resides in Montreal Canada.[/avatar]
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