With the holiday season around the corner, people usually plan the holiday get-togethers and parties with sheer excitement and joy. But planning an event is not that easy.
You can easily choose the décor and flower arrangements for the event but what about food? No event is complete without good food. It’s the most important highlight of an event.
For this reason, you have to be very selective in choosing the right catering company for your upcoming event.
There are non-professionals companies in the market that offer catering services without having the legal requirements, experience or the necessary means to provide them.
These companies, like many legal companies in our sector, are usually linked to related sectors such as conventional catering, hospitality or confectionery.
Users must evaluate the companies with which they execute or intend to enter into contracts in search of the strength, experience, and legality that these companies must possess to ensure the quality and support of their service.
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Following are some ways to select the best catering company for your upcoming event:
1. Legal Requirements
Catering Sanitary Registration Number:
The Catering Sanitary Registration Number is a concession and a permit granted by the State and that ensures that the company complies with sanitary regulations for the benefit of users.
The Sanitary Registration Number must be specific to Catering, a sanitary registration number belonging to another activity not being valid.
The Sanitary Catering Registration Number is a fundamental requirement, without which, the company is not authorized to provide catering services. The customer must always demand it.
The contracting of services, with companies that do not have a Sanitary Registration Number for Catering, means that the client assumes, under his account and responsibility, the damages and prejudices, for the health of the people, that could derive from said contracting.
- Municipal License for classified activity: The Municipal License is the authorization that all catering companies must have to legally carry out their activity in the municipality in which they are installed.
- Tax license for Catering Activities and other Food Services: The Fiscal License proves that the catering company develops its activity within the legal economy.
2. Insurance and Contracts
- Contract of the event and Social Security of the personnel assigned to the service: We recommend, if we have any doubt about it, ask the Catering company, to show the forms of the social security in which all the people who go have to Intervene in the service. It should be taken into account that the service will be carried out at the domicile, company or place designated by the client.
- Civil Liability Insurance: Having RC insurance for Activities for the Preparation and Supply of Prepared Meals and Catering Services, in which the insured amounts adequately cover the risks of the services provided, is optional, but lacking it in doubt the professionalism of the company, its solvency, and seriousness and also transfers to the client all the risks of the service. It is an important requirement.
3. Specialization
Specialization of the catering company: You have to see what event are you planning. Either it’s a “catering for collectives” whose purpose is the service of meals to schools, business canteens, residences, camps, airlines, etc. Or on the other hand its a “catering for social events” specialized in providing the food and catering services necessary for the realization, at the client’s home, of banquets, cocktails, spikes, buffets, etc. intended for weddings, congresses, inaugurations, cultural events, sports, political, business, parties.
4. Experience
Offering a catering service is much more complex than simple food manufacturing and therefore requires means and experience. If we are going to hire a catering service, we should not do an “act of faith” in any company.
We have to evaluate your experience requesting information, with dates and names, about those services, of similar characteristics to the one that we want, that you have done previously.
5. Capacity
This point, in most services, is not important as any legal catering company has sufficient capacity to provide small and medium services within its specialty, but when you have to hire a great service the capacity is decisive.
When we talk about capacity, in catering, we must consider three different concepts of capacity.
- Food processing capacity: Determined by the size of the facilities, the means of production and the personnel available to the company, to prepare the meals or menus, manipulate them, pack them and transport them to the customer’s home.
- Ability to set up and cater the event smoothly: Determined by the amount of catering and specialized personnel, which the company has, to set up rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, offices, etc. and provide the services you hire.
- Ability to plan and organize services: In complex catering services, especially those of large or/and high difficulty, if the company does not have the necessary technical capacity to plan, produce and direct the service, it will not be able to do it, by any material or human means that have, or will without guarantees. We must therefore carefully evaluate the capabilities of the catering company before hiring and especially the technical capacity if it is a large or complex service.
6. Operational Criteria
Different ways of doing that influence its quality and price can be used to perform a catering service. The client, therefore, must request information on the following aspects:
Description of the service:
- Class of service offered: Cocktail, Buffet, Food, Banquet, etc.
- Modality in which the service to the guests is going to be carried out
- Characteristics of the facilities to be assembled: Example: 1 Dining room for X people, 2 Bar bars of such size, 1 Cloakroom for X people, 1 Office-Kitchen of X m2, etc.)
- Description of the dishes and drinks on the menu or menus offered Technical production:Organization: How the service will be organized and what technical means will be used for its planning and organization.
- Schedule or Planning of tasks: When and how the materials will be delivered, the installation of facilities, the realization, the disassembly…
Resources:
- Material means to be used: Size of tables and relation tables/guest, quality of floral ornamentation, Type of dishes, the color of tablecloth, etc.
- Human resources: Number of waiters or waiters/guest’s ratio, number of assembly people, number of people in the kitchen.
7. Added Values
These values, in ordinary services, are not essential, although they should always be considered as indicators of the level of quality and soundness of a company.
However, they can be decisive when the choice between the two companies is tight or you have to hire acts of large volume or category.
- Quality Certifications related to the catering activity
- Business prestige of the company
- Economic solvency
- Record
8. Hiring
The hiring involves establishing an agreement between the catering company and the client to perform multiple services.
The contract, which must be in writing, is a fundamental element for the good end of the agreement between the company and the client and should not be ignored, in any case
The contract must, therefore, include all the details of the agreement that may be subject to controversy or discussion including apparently minor aspects such as the color of the tablecloths, the type of flowers, the duration of the service, etc.
If a standard contract supplied by the catering company is used, in which all aspects of the contracting that are considered to be included are not duly reflected, these aspects may be specified, in a separate document that will be included in the contract, making specific reference, to said document, as an integral part thereof. The contract must be a balanced document that collects and defends the interests of both parties.
Conclusion
Hopefully, with the help of the above tips, you can now successfully organize any event. Just remember that a cheaper catering company doesn’t necessarily mean that they will provide you with good quality food and service. You have to read the reviews and then decide which catering company to select for your upcoming event.
Make a list of the things you are concerned about when deciding upon the catering company and discuss it while doing a contract so that you can guarantee reliable service at your event and avoid any mismanagement during the event.
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