I want to start a catering business

[Chefpig]

I live in a seaside town which is deprived in places, however the nearest surrounding towns (2 miles away) are affluent.

I currently work in an office but cooking is a big passion of mine and something I'm excellent at.

I want to start a catering business. Does anyone have one? Is it possible to be a one-woman catering business?

My plan is initially cater for business lunches, picnics, maybe small birthday parties? I want a focus on fresh, local ingredients.

I'm aware that I will have to have my kitchen inspected and be certified in food hygiene.

Is this a pipe dream?

It's not necessarily a pipe dream, but I'd certainly be doing more research before jumping in.

It's likely to take you a couple of years to be able to earn a full time income, can you fund that?

Just because an area is affluent doesn't mean there is demand for that service, or a lack of others offering it. You'll need something to really set you apart from competitors.

The other thing that strikes me is your desire to only do small catering jobs, these won't be worth it in the long run and I can't imagine there are many people who would require catering for a picnic or a business lunch, when they can pop into a deli who would take care of that.

My plan is initially cater for business lunches, picnics, maybe small birthday parties

Nearly all supermarkets provide this and obviously their prices are quite competitive.

So I'd check those out and also check the local FB groups for competition.

Good luck ☘

They usually insist on your having a second sink installed.

Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) are primarily concerned with ensuring adequate procedures are in place to manage hygiene risks, especially in a domestic setting.

• Handwashing: A separate facility must be provided for handwashing, exclusively for that purpose. This must have hot and cold running water, soap, and hygienic hand-drying facilities (like disposable paper towels). If you have a sink-and-a-half, the smaller half could be designated for this, or in some cases, a sink in a downstairs bathroom might be acceptable if easily accessible.

Business Plan?
Make sure that thers is a market for what you are offering, when I was in Corporat we used Caterers like you describe but by the time I left one of us would just nip to the nearest decent supermarket instead.

Yes my friend runs this type of business. And seems to enjoy it.

But she is very experienced and doesn’t seem to advertise at all - word of mouth and referrals

I don’t believe she lives off the income. Her husband is a farmer so the lifestyle is flexible and he’s often roped in to help.

December is mental for her. Lots of parties and Christmas dinners.

And the summer with weddings - which are a huge huge amount of work.

Honestly no. You aren’t offering anything at all that’s new, unique or novel AND you want to do it from home? If you get a request for a buffet for even 60 people, you will need a huge amount of fridge space to store ingredients and cooked products, how will you rapid cook them before cooking? and how can you deliver and transport food? Do you have a van or do you propose just putting trays on the floor of your boot? ? I’ve got a tcross and often cater to family events as I used to run a kitchen but even I struggle with fridge space ( despite having an 5ft tall fridge and chest freezer) .

food hygiene and allergy standards are higher than ever and it’s a very very long journey to becoming compliant. You need to keep and record every single allergen risk in every single item. Great if you are buying pre-made cake /biscuits/whatever from a shop as it’s already done but every single time you alter a recipe even for a tsp of an ingredient you have to update your allergens. Record keeping, temperature checks, COSHH and chemical storage all need to be considered.

my sister runs a small conical kitchen and has 2 other paid part time members of staff doing 12 and 20 hours. She is full time. and around 6 volunteers. Takes in about £2k a week and that just about keeps them ticking over and the wages paid. Some weeks it doesn’t , some weeks it could be a bit more. She 100% couldn’t do it without volunteering staff. She spends around 12-16 hours a week on emails, paper work, allergens, ordering, maintenance and doing jobs to improve the ever tightening food/hygeine rating scores.

I get why you want to do it but you need a very unique idea that doesn’t already exist in your area. One that appeared on ours was handmade sourdough pizza. They do a great trade and moved from a catering van to a unit recently. That’s the only recent successful food business in my area. We have had multiple failed cake/pudding shops that look lovely but only do milkshakes and waffles with ice cream. Flopped, all of them. Smash burgers failed because, well, it’s just a burger innit and we already had 5-6 pizza/burger places. A catering van started Jamaican food bout he failed. We do have another Jamaican pop up in a local pub once a /2 months but that’s not really a full time business.

Rapid cool before refrigerating that should say.