Blogging about a food industry that's in transition.
Newsletter Sign up
Homepage Views
Categories
Expert Q & A's
Syndicate
Scaling your catering effort
“Many fast casual brands have found success in offering catering packages to the business market as well as special occasion gatherings. Quick-service restaurants also are latching on to the trend, often on a franchise by franchise basis.” QSR magazine, December 23 2008
With some revenues shrinking due to recession, it makes sense to find new revenue streams.One goal is to drive sales volume by servicing business to business catering orders. But in this climate, you don’t want to take on unsupportable expenses in the form of unnecessary labor or production inventory.
Erle Dardick, CEO of MonkeyMedia, has been selling the category of business to business catering since 2001, when he took a busy downtown deli and added a catering hub that would soon account for 70% of its revenue.
His latest Brown Bag roundtable discussion took place April 2, and was attended by exective staff from:
- Better Brands Group
- Le Boulanger
- Wildflower Bread
- Brueggers
- Ruby Tuesday
- Au Bon Pain and
- Rubios
On page 2 of this article, some ideas on how to scale your restaurant to create a profitable casual catering arm.
(0) Comments • Permalink • 03 22 2009
The opinions represented on this site do not necessarily reflect those of the site owner. No warranty is implied.
Related Entries
Finding growth in a recession: ENRG
Podcast interview with Vance Carlton, Einstein Noah Restaurant Group’s Director of Catering, about the success of their national program for business to business catering.
How a catering box ‘changed everything’
How a downtown Deli took a delivery box, made it remarkable, and saved 45,000 dollars in the process.
When Catering and Restaurant compete for resources
Making profitable choices about resource use.
From our Brown Bag free seminar series, hosted by Erle Dardick.
If you operate a food business and you aren’t catering yet, you may be leaving a lot of money on the table. Erle Dardick on extending your operational reach and efficiency, through catering.