Starting a catering business is not an easy task, but it is definitely doable with the right mindset and approach.

A catering business is a service business that provides orders for various foods/drinks for various purposes.

The catering or catering business is a type of business in the culinary sector. For beginners who are interested in this business, you can start with a home catering business.

Usually catering food orders are often used for certain events or events. For example, meetings, seminars, weddings, parties and so on.

Catering Business Type

Quoted from the Yogyakarta State University (UNY) repository by Amatullah Nur Zahra, according to Warsitaningsih, catering businesses are basically divided into two, namely:

1. Inside catering
Inside catering is a food/drink ordering service carried out at the place where the food is cooked. For example, restaurants, hotels and trains.

2. Outside catering
The meaning of outside catering is an ordering service where food/drinks will be brought from the place of manufacture to the ordering place. Examples of catering services include weddings, circumcisions, social gatherings, thanksgivings and others.

The catering business is very suitable for those of you who have work experience cooking, are good at mixing food and drinks.

The catering business is very suitable for those of you who have work experience cooking, are good at mixing food and drinks.

What are catering foods? There are several types of catering food businesses, namely:

• Healthy food catering
• Catering for children's supplies
• Boxed rice or boxed rice
• Cake catering
• Office catering
• Catering certain types of food, and many more.

A catering business can be a profitable business opportunity idea, if run well. Thus, apart from channeling hobbies and skills, this business can also provide additional income.

Tips for Starting a Home Catering Business

Summarized from the e-book Super Student Preneur by Damaya and Mompreneur Jempolan by Adistia Indira Kamania, here are some tips and ways to start a catering business:

1. Determine the Type of Catering
The first step in starting a catering business is to determine the type of catering first. Is it home catering that specifically serves orders for up to 100 people or can it also be catered for office events and celebrations? For home catering, usually the target market is catering for households, buffet orders for social gatherings or recitations.

2. Prepare Catering Business Capital
After deciding on the type of catering, the next step to starting a catering business is to prepare capital. So, you must be able to calculate the capital to open your catering business.

The capital needed for a catering business is for the costs of raw materials, cooking equipment, room/kitchen and so on. Shopping for raw materials is the largest working capital in a catering business.

3. Prepare Yourself
We also need skills to open a catering business. Things you need to pay attention to when starting a catering business are:

• Knowledge of various cuisines
• Know how to manage food ingredients
• Know how to cook and store food properly
• Know techniques for shopping for materials with correct cost calculations
• Find out information about places to rent food and serving platforms, etc.

4. Present Mainstay Recipes
The first way to start a home catering business is to present your favorite recipes. This aims to ensure that your cooking has more value when compared to other competitors.

5. Create a varied and interesting menu
So that your customers don't get bored and are interested, you can make different menu choices. Offer a different taste and appearance, from previously existing caterers.

6. Do promotions
Promotion is an important thing to do in business activities. So that your catering business can be known to many people, carry out promotions or branding.

Nowadays, promotions can easily be done online on social media. Try to create a special account for your catering business, don't forget to give your business name and logo.

Apart from that, you can also do offline promotions. For example, by distributing brochures, promoting by word of mouth, and so on.

7. Pay attention to food prices
If your catering business is open and accepts orders every day, you can make simple menus. The reason is, so that the selling price of your catering products is not too high. Make an appropriate market price.

8. Recruit Quality Employees/Cooks
To start a catering business, for beginners you might be able to get help from relatives or friends who can cook.

If your catering business gets bigger, you can choose a cook who is truly skilled and has experience in the field of catering. As a business owner, you must always check the results and taste of food before selling it.

9. Provide Good Service
Not only in terms of taste and quality of the product, customer service must also be considered. Friendly, polite and fast service in doing things will make customers happy to use our catering services.

10. Receive criticism and suggestions from customers/consumers
Be open to criticism and suggestions, including tips for starting a home catering business. Being involved in the culinary business sector, we also need to provide opportunities or even ask consumers to provide criticism and input.

With this, our catering business can be increasingly accepted and loved by consumers. Thus, helping to form customer loyalty.

Initial Capital Estimates for Catering Businesses

Damaya in his book entitled Super Student Preneur, wrote an estimate for an example of capital for a home catering business, namely:

1. Investment Capital

• Place to eat 40 pieces: IDR 400,000 (unit costs IDR 10,000)
• Spoons and forks 4 dozen Rp. 100,000 (per dozen Rp. 25,000)
• Cooking utensils: IDR 500,000
• Stove and gas cylinder Rp. 500,000
• Total: IDR 1,500,000

2. Monthly Operational Costs
Grocery shopping for 22 days: IDR 4,400,000 (grocery shopping per day IDR 200,000)

• Electricity: IDR 200,000
• Gas: IDR 150,000
• Transport: Rp 250.000
• Employee salary (if any): IDR 1,400,000
• Promotion: IDR 200,000
• Other needs Rp. 300,000
• Total: IDR 6,900,000

So, if combined IDR 8 million can be used as capital for a catering business.

The following is an estimate of the profit calculation for a home catering business:
Catering business turnover: number of orders x price
= 40 boxes x IDR 12,000 x 22 days
= IDR 10,560,000

Profit: turnover – operational costs per month
= IDR 10,560,000 – IDR 6,900,000
= IDR 3,600,000

Capital for a catering business is quite relative. The amount of capital also depends on the size of the business.

For the record, we also need to provide cash or reserve capital to purchase raw materials for catering orders at any time. Wulan Ayoda wrote in her book entitled Short Course: Various Catering Businesses Are Selling Well, according to several experiences of buffet/buffet scale catering entrepreneurs, the reserve funds needed can be around 2-3 times the amount of capital a month.

That was the explanation about the catering business, which is a business that serves orders for various foods/drinks for certain events. So Detikers knows, an overview of how to start a catering business, right?

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