What You Must Know Before Choosing the Menu for Your Event
Darryl Scotti 3 July 2018
When planning a corporate event for your employees, food may not be the first thing on your mind, but your employees are just as likely to remember an awful menu as they are a great motivational speaker. The importance of a good menu for a corporate event cannot be overstated; if you want your employees to have a great time at your event, good quality and tasty food is a must.
It’s simple: if the menu you choose for your corporate event isn’t good enough, your whole event will be ruined! We don’t mean to scare you; we’re just enunciating the facts here to make sure you plan your event correctly by choosing the right menu. You must now be wondering how you can choose the food menu for your corporate event that all your guests will love. Don’t fret; we’ll help you choose the right menu.
In this post, we’ll highlight a few important things that you must know before choosing the menu for your corporate events. We’ll present useful tips that will help you plan the perfect menu for your corporate event that all your guests will love.
Flexible Event Menu
When you are working with a private caterer for your corporate event, you should consider several important factors before creating the menu. The first thing that you must remember is to work with a caterer that provides you flexible options and are willing to let you sample their food. You should sample the food items you wish to include in your event to make sure that the food is delicious. Some caterers don’t allow sampling of their food items. We suggest you never work with such caterers as there is no guarantee about the quality of the food they will provide.
Early Planning
You must always start planning early for your corporate event to make sure there aren’t any unnecessary glitches that you are not prepared to handle. Many caterers allow the food items on the menu to be changed before the event. However, the change must be made one or two weeks before the day of the event; otherwise, the caterer will reject your request for changing the food items.
Budget
When choosing a menu for your corporate event, you must consider the overall budget of your event to ensure that you don’t overspend on food and fall short on other important planning tasks. Make sure to ask your potential caterer about any additional charges like service fees or labor fees. If you know all the costs upfront, you won’t experience headaches down the road.
Although it makes sense to find a good bargain for your corporate event to ensure that the event fits within your budget, but you should not over focus on cost. Focusing on costs alone can have a detrimental effect on your corporate event. You must make sure that the food and service offered by the catering company is of acceptable quality. You can find out about the quality of food and service a catering company offers by researching about it on the internet and checking its references. Check out the reviews and talk to previous clients of the company to get a better idea about the experience the caterers can offer.
Accommodate all The Guests
The key to satisfaction of all your guests with your corporate event is a variety of food choices. Familiarity with general background of your guests can help you narrow down your food menu. For example, younger guests tend to be more adventurous and they mostly don’t care about healthy food, whereas elder professionals may prefer seafood or vegetarian options.
Dinner, Breakfast and Lunch Menus
The menu at your corporate event should have several à la carte selections and pre-packaged meals. The breakfast, lunch and dinner menus are different from each other and the approach to selecting these meals is generally unique. For example, in breakfast, most people tend to go with packaged menus as they are easier to select and more cost effective. Prepackaged menus can include hot buffets, breakfast stations and continental options. If you wish to offer breakfast to the guests before the official start of the program, make sure to choose the menu option that best aligns with the schedule of your event.
There are generally several lunch menu options offered by caterers – for example, boxed lunches, à la carte sandwiches, etc. The meal that’s best for your corporate event depends on the schedule of your program and the time that your employees will have to finish the lunch.
At dinner, you always get a choice of plated dinners or dinner buffets. This is where you can add a variety of dishes depending on the preferences of your guests.
Reception Menus and Break Foods
Planning of the food menu at a corporate event isn’t always complete with a three course meals. Sometimes at corporate events, you must plan beyond dinner, lunch and breakfast, perhaps to include food items during cocktail receptions or scheduled breaks. You can choose from à la carte selections or pre-packaged meals for breaks and receptions. If you can afford to go with theme breaks instead of standard snacks then that would be best for your corporate event. Some caterers offer special reception packages that may include hot and cold platter stations so make sure to discuss all the options your potential caterer can offer.
Plated or Buffet?
Many times we have observed that the committee that doesn’t work with an event planner requests the caterer to serve the meal in the wrong format. The caterer can’t advice you about what the right format is; you must make this decision yourself depending on the type of event you are hosting. For example, if you are holding a corporate meeting where time is critical and you can’t afford to waste any, you should choose buffet. The reason is that about 1 hour of agenda time is mostly required for buffet meals. On the other hand, if you can afford to give 1.5 to 2 hours to your guests for filling up their empty bellies, you should choose plated dinner.
Consider Special Needs
Another important consideration for your corporate event is taking special dietary needs into account. It is extremely important for you to ask your guests about any special needs or requests and cater them in your food menu. Some people can eat about anything while others must avoid certain types of food for varying reasons. Some of the guests that are attending your event might be vegetarian; some might avoid certain food due to religious requirements while others may not be able to consume certain items because of medical conditions.
Therefore, you should always take religious requirements, food allergies and dietary restrictions into consideration when choosing a menu for your corporate event. You can never know about these special needs of your guests unless you ask and you can never plan for them unless you discuss these needs with your caterer.
Provide Sufficient Food
Imagine what will happen if in the middle of your event, the caterer comes to you and tells you that they are out of food. Your guests will be left hungry and angry and your whole event will be ruined. This scenario can occur if you fail to order sufficient food for the event. This issue can be avoided with proper planning. You should determine the exact number of people that will be attending your event and then consult the caterer how much food will be enough for all your guests.
These are all the things you should keep in mind when choosing the menu for your corporate event. Your guests will never forget the food they had at your event; therefore, you cannot afford to go wrong with the menu.
By following the advice we have provided in this post, you can choose the perfect menu for your corporate event to make it successful. Do you think you can choose a caterer with a flexible menu option, properly estimate the quantity of food required for your event, plan the menu according to your budget and accommodate all the special needs of your guests for the perfect corporate event menu? If you think that you can’t focus on all these important things, then we suggest you hire a professional event planner to help you decide the menu for your corporate event. A professional event planner can take care of all the catering requirements and help you decide the menu that is perfect for your event. A professional event planner will take care of all the special needs of your guests and provide you suggestions for the menu that best suits your corporate event.
When it comes to professional event planners, there is only one name you should trust and that’s The Great Event. Whether your event is at your business address or a remote location such as a rented hall, picnic area or at the beach; rest assured that The Great Event will cater to your company’s expectations.