Offering your employees and business clients a delicious lunch, such as that offered through corporate catering services, can be one of the best ways to increase employee morale, reduce health-related costs, and improve business relationships. As a recent study from Gallup found, American businesses lose more than $153 billion every year due to absenteeism. The biggest cause of absenteeism? Overweight, yet undernourished employees. As the International Food Policy Research Institute found, people who are exposed to better nutrition are 12.5% more productive than their undernourished counterparts. After all, better nutrition leads to a more active brain and less downtime.
Corporate event catering services exist to help you improve your business through delicious food. However, like any other service, prices greatly vary from service to service. If you want to keep the impact of corporate catering services high while keeping costs low, then you need to consider what services and food plans each corporate events catering team has on offer.
The Services
The services offered to your company through corporate catering services can be as cheap as $10 a plate. However, as The Free Wedding suggests, higher end services can charge anywhere from $26 and up. You need to keep in mind that when you hire corporate catering services, you’re not just paying for the food but the staff, equipment, and venue. That being said, there are some inessential services you can cut to reduce costs.
- Reduce the number of staff. You likely don’t need to have every table waited on to have an amazing wedding reception. As Forbes recommends, try opting for a chef-at-station service. Generally, these amount to a buffet-style line with a chef at select stations cutting roast beef and the other more customizable dishes.
- Eliminate the need for staff entirely. As The Free Wedding suggests, offering a full buffet-style meal is the most cost effective form of business lunch catering. No wait staff are needed. Instead, a bare-bones prep and clean-up crew are made available.
The Food
The way you purchase the food for your catering events is likely to have the biggest impact on your bill. As Food Service Warehouse writes, most corporate catering services will package food in two distinct ways.
- Set pricing-Set pricing, as the name implies, offers a fixed price per plate. This is the best option for businesses with a set cost in mind. When you contact corporate catering services, ask them for their fixed price menu. After making your selections, you’ll know exactly what your cost will be for the meal.
- Variable pricing-Variable pricing includes both tiered and custom pricing models. Tiered pricing comes with a set menu, becoming less expensive as more people are added to the guest list. Custom pricing is completely dependent on you to come up with a menu, meaning the price is only limited by your imagination.
Making use of corporate catering services is a great way to improve business relationships, employee morale, and reduce health-related costs. However, that shouldn’t mean bankrupting your company in the process. Keep these ways for finding corporate catering services you can afford in mind, ensuring corporate catering only benefits your company. More on this: njcorporatecatering.com
