Your Business Opportunities in Catering: Differentiate Your Offerings
By Jim Rand
In the last installment of this article series on building an off-premises catering business, we did a bit of math together to determine whether launching a catering operation could lead to a profitable, sustainable revenue channel for your particular business. Essentially, we (1) tracked the performance of your catering business and (2) assessed its growth, all the while asking ourselves, Is the pain worth the gain? (Learn how to do that here in this article.)
Say you’ve determined from the financials that catering is “worth the work.” You’re willing to invest in additional resources to grow your sales and profits. You are a “go” for launch. Hold on, don’t push that button just yet. Before you rush headlong down that path, make sure you can deliver a customer experience that is relevant and stands out from your competition.
Now that we’ve squared away the financials, we’re going to do some market analysis. In this article we’re going to evaluate how you can differentiate your offerings from those of other restaurants in your area. If you can realistically expect to grow your catering business and differentiate your product, it’s time to seize your catering opportunity.
Competition and Product Differentiation
Your menu doesn’t exist in a vacuum; customers will surely check out other businesses, too, when they’re deciding where to place a catering order. According to the 2017 Technomic “Catering and Usage Preferences” report, the following criteria are most important to customers entering a catering transaction:
- Ease of ordering
- Quality of the food
- Accuracy of the order
- Timely preparation, for delivery and pickup
Having analyzed what resources you need, you now need to look seriously at how your business stacks up against consumer expectations and your competitors. Be prepared (and willing) to tweak your operations to appeal to customers.
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