If you are seeking a business opportunity in a growing industry with excellent potential and you are also fond of food and entertaining then why not start planning your own catering company.

In the following article we outline 10 areas to think about before you jump into the business and start offering your services as a professional caterer.

1) Researching the Market and Preparation – Begin by examining the catering market in your town. Take note of what competitors are doing, find out more about market demand and try to find market niches that that are not being served. Interview people that have hired caterers recently and ask them what they felt about the service that they received.

2) Do you Need to be Experienced? – If you don’t have a relevant qualification or have not had any experience in the food, beverage and hospitality industries then you should aim to get at least a few months of experience working for a business in the industry.

3) Local Health Regulations – One of the important points to consider when planning your catering business is the local health regulations that you will be subject to. Learn all about the paperwork that you will need and the compliance costs before you even dream about starting up a business.

4) How to Prepare Food for your Clients? – Will you operate a home-based business, lease commercial kitchen space ,operate out of a restaurant kitchen after hours or only take on jobs that allow you to use a kitchen at the place where the event will be held?

5) Insurance Companies – Before you set up your company you should seriously look into the insurance that you will require in order to protect your business assets and your company’s liability in the case that you are sued for damages by a client.

6) Menu Ideas – Start putting together menus for different kinds of events. Study food trends and look at what your competitors are doing to get ideas about what is popular.

7) Practice makes Perfect – Have a trial run before you set up your catering business to get some idea of what is required to cater a function for a crowd. One way to do this is to hold a dinner party for a large number of friends or colleagues and ask them what they thought of your service and how you could improve.
Think about the brand name that you would like to develop. Brainstorm some names and concepts for a logo and think about how you want to be perceived by the public.

9) Funding your Company – Try to get a clearer idea of the set up expenses that you will be up against and decide how you will fund your business. Will you be able to fund the whole project alone or will you need another form of financing?

10) The final step in the planning phase of your catering company is to prepare a solid business plan. Even if you don’t need to prove your ideas viability to investors, a plan is still a great way of getting all your research down on paper in one place.

Get your catering business off to a great start by following the above ten steps before you open your doors for business in this exciting industry.

More more information on Start up Costs for a Catering Business and to read reviews of some of the top catering business start up kits visit – Start an Event Catering Business