Blog posts tagged with 'caterers'

Like most businesses, as a caterer, you’re looking to dominate your industry in a market filled with competition. In Toronto, when wedding season seems to last a few months, it takes a creative company to find new ways to generate revenue to ensure the “slow season” has a consistent revenue stream. Check out these 5 killer techniques you can employ to dominate your market.

Offer take-home catering to reap the benefits of a constant revenue stream during your low season

Take-home catering can be the solution you need to add a constant source of revenue throughout the year. With a culture that seems to be as fast paced as a NASCAR race, it’s not uncommon for consumers to pick up food from a restaurant, grocery store or a local catering company. What about those same consumers wanting to have friends over for a weekend gathering? By offering consumers the types of food they would pick up for a meal or a small event, you’re expanding your target market and positioning yourself as a go-to resource for meals and gatherings. Restaurants have expanded to offer take-home options – so why can’t you?

Negotiate an exclusive venue contract

In business, networking is an important facet of succeeding. The same is true with catering. Positioning your company alongside highly rated venues that suit your food style will not only help you gain more clients but also more industry contacts. Negotiating with a venue to become an exclusive caterer can be a competitive process but it can also help keep you busy year round. And while you will most likely have to pay dues to the venue, you have the added bonus of a venue’s marketing/sales staff spreading awareness about your catering company to all who want an event at their venue. To wet your feet with an exclusive catering contract, consider talking to new venues in the area as they may be more open to partnering with an exclusive caterer. Also make sure when searching for a venue you’d like to gain exclusivity with, to ensure that the venue hosts similar events to your culinary style – if you only cater weddings, and the venue only does corporate events for instance, your businesses may clash.

Launch a retail line of the food you’re most known for

Is there a hors d’oeuvre that leaves customers weak at the knees or a sweet treat that your customers rave about and order for their events time and time again? What about taking that best-selling item and launching a retail line with it? It’s a sure-fire way to expand your target market and broaden your reach to consumers who haven’t heard of your company before. It also ensures (assuming you keep the supply coming) that you’re able to have a consistent source of additional revenue. Restaurants have been doing this for decades and in our opinion it’s about time the culinary stars of catering grace consumers with their hit foods.

Broaden your footprint by offering educational cooking classes or team building for corporate events

Your most marketable skill (or that of your executive chef and culinary team) is your cooking skills. But everyone does not know how to cook. What about broadening your footprint in the market by offering educational cooking classes for the general public? It gets your name out there, provides value to potential customers and ensures your business and brand are first in their minds. Along the same lines of offering educational cooking classes, you could offer these as a form of team building for corporate events. Corporations are constantly looking for ways to build camaraderie that offers a new and exciting way to bond. Plus, they’re usually willing to pay more for the experience than a traditional consumer.

Promote attractive pricing for catering packages during the slow season for an uptick of weddings

Everyone likes a good bargain and with weddings costing a pretty penny (with the average price of a wedding ringing in at $27000), brides that aren’t set on a particular time of year would be more than willing to book in the off season to save money. Offering attractive pricing for catering packages during the slow season and promoting these packages can ensure you’re booking events during the slow season. Suddenly your business isn’t seasonal or cyclical in nature! To ensure you can offer lower pricing on catering packages, you need to ensure you have the best value on serving platters and other tabletop items.

As the year winds down, we are able to reflect on all the accomplishments we’ve been able to achieve. 2013 was a wonderful year for National Event Supply, our customers, as well as the entire Hospitality Industry. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we’re on an incredible journey and this is only the beginning. We brought in new products like our Polar White Dinnerware, mahogany resin folding chairs, and natural wood folding chairs. We expanded our plywood folding table and plastic folding table selections. We've also expanded our focus to offer a new line of linens including polyester table skirts, rectangular and round polyester table cloths and spandex table cloths in 2014. With Special Events Magazine forecasting an even better 2014, and many different Foodservice & Restaurant magazines/industry research companies forecasting increased growth in 2014, let’s work together to make next year the best year!

While it may be December, we're definitely not slowing down. We're ramping up for 2014 to ensure that it truly will be the very best year in National Event Supply’s history. However, we will be taking some time to enjoy each others company over the holiday season. The Holiday card below will detail when we will be closed during the season.

Regardless of what you'll be celebrating, we wish you a very happy holidays! We hope you enjoy time spent with your loved ones and that you take a moment to reflect on all your accomplishments and what you're really grateful for ahead of the New Year.

November has flown by at National Event Supply. We’ve spent the month talking about how to buy durable dishes for restaurants, showcased a podcast on how to transform your restaurant by focusing on catering, attended the NGCOA Canada Golf Business Show in Victoria and talked about the 2 crucial items to purchase if you’re planning to start a party rental business. We also got the first s.n.o.w. of the season – hopefully the last (I wish)!

More and more franchises are looking to the shifting demographics to dictate their evolving menus. Financial Post showcased how iconic franchises such as Subway are looking to Millennials to influence their menus. With winning market share in a flat market a must to survive, check out this article to learn more about the second largest cohort in Canada and how targeting them can help your restaurant stay ahead of the curve.

Special Events Magazine is renowned for their research findings relating to the Party Rental and Event Rental industry. In this year’s annual Special Events forecast, they revealed that 55% of respondents expect the party and event rental industry to have a better year in 2014. To read the entire article including the rest of the findings, click here.

Golf Business magazine interviews four golf course owners who reflect on the best capital investments they’ve ever made. The different examples of discretionary expenditures and why they chose to do it are showcased in this interesting article.

Catersource magazine asked caterers some of the amazing finds they’ve uncovered that have made a real difference in how they operate, their success, and what they can offer clients. To learn what these caterers have discovered and decided to share with the industry, check out the article here. Perhaps you’ll get a burst of innovation from them!

Hotelier magazine put out their Annual Hospitality Market report to guide hotels and other accommodation businesses with predictions and a focus on strategy and price. With the landscape increasingly becoming more competitive, this must-read report talks about the strategies in service and price to guide hotels into a winning market share. Check out this article to read more.

I hope you found November’s favourite finds interesting and got nuggets of information out of the articles. Tune in next month for the last round up of the year.

In National Event Supply's history we've helped thousands of party rental companies, caterers, restaurants, banquet halls, golf courses, and churches benefit from reliable, commercial-quality, value-based products. Our rapid growth is driven first and foremost by your company's commitment to becoming a world-class foodservice or event service company, and we are honoured to play a role in your success.

We want you to be the first to know that we will be increasing prices on all stainless steel cutlery starting Wednesday, January 1st, 2014. As a result of continued cost increases by our suppliers over a number of years, we need to increase our cutlery prices. This will be our 1st price increase on our cutlery in more than 8 years. Prices will increase roughly 10% from current prices.

To take advantage of our current pricing before our prices increase, click here to request a quote on cutlery.

Why the change?

These changes are being made to allow us to continue to deliver high quality stainless steel cutlery at great value prices and to ensure your inventory is both high quality and durable. As always, please reach out to us at any time with questions or suggestions for improvement. We are always eager to hear from you. Thanks for being a part of the National Event Supply family. We couldn’t do it without you.

Like most warranties, all chip warranties are not made equally; each warranty is different depending on the manufacturer. For example some manufacturers provide a 1 year warranty while others provide 5 or more years for their warranty. With that said however most of the warranties have common terms and conditions that need to be followed for them to be honoured by the manufacturer.

Here are some things that you need to know:

• Only select lines or items may be covered by the warranty (varies by Manufacturer). As a result you should check to find out which items you are purchasing are covered by the warranty prior to finalizing your order.
• As the warranty name implies, they only cover chips, they do not cover any other kinds of damage.
• It may not cover chips/cracking/breakage of handles or knobs on jugs, teapots/coffeepots, and mugs. As well as chips/cracking/breakage on spouts of pots or jugs.
• The warranty will only cover use in food service applications such as washing, preparation, serving, and refrigeration. As a result if the item is going to be used in more extreme conditions, these will not be covered under the warranty.
• The warranty is only valid for the original purchaser of the item.
• Generally a registration form must be filled out at the time of purchase (or soon thereafter) for the warranty to be validated.
• The manufacturer or chosen representative reserves the right to a site visit should they deem it necessary. This may occur if you are experiencing higher than expected breakage. If the site visit reveals poor treatment/mishandling, warranty may be void.
• The warranty is location specific; as a result if the items travel to other locations the warranty may be void.
• All chipped pieces must be retained by the customer and returned to the manufacturer (or their representative) for inspection.
• Finally most have a clause that reserves the right of the manufacturer to void any warranty for any reason.

To fully understand the warranty on the porcelain products that you are purchasing, we encourage you to ask your manufacturer or their chosen representative for details as each warranty does differ. If part of the warranty is unclear to you make sure that you ask questions about it.

National Event Supply does not offer any chip warranty on our porcelain products. We take great strides to ensure our commercially designated porcelain products are of durable quality and not easily breakable given the target market we sell to however we also understand that porcelain by nature is a breakable material. Companies that do offer such a warranty on an inherently breakable product like porcelain must charge extra per dish to cover the percentage of dishware they believe will chip in their given warranty period. As a result this costs you the buyer extra whether you have a plate chip or not. Because we don’t offer a warranty, we can provide you with the best value possible – in some cases costing up to 50% less than standard porcelain suppliers. If you’re interested in viewing the porcelain dishes we have available, their specifications and pricing, download a copy of the National Event Supply Dinnerware Catalogue!