How to make office catering work for you

If you’re in charge of ordering the catering for your office, then you know just how time-consuming and riddled with problems the process can be.

You may not have even wanted the job in the first place but somehow, it’s fallen on you.

It seems like a straightforward task but the issues pile up.

For one thing, the food tends to be the same. The same sandwiches, the same pastries, the same...everything! Finding new providers takes time and there’s always a risk: what happens if you choose a new provider for an important event, and something goes wrong?

It might end up being the last time you actually get to order catering for your next breakfast meeting or corporate lunch. Your reputation takes a hit, and all for what? Something that shouldn’t be so complicated.

The good news is you’re certainly not alone. Those in charge of corporate catering for all sorts of businesses and events, whether they’re for staff, executives, training, corporate lunch or more, encounter the same problems.

Emily, the office manager at Zoom Video Communications, had an office rise from 30 to 130 in just a few months.

“I needed a way to run the office amenities that would keep up with demand, maintain a high standard of produce available to the team and offer me an easy way to track my orders and budget.”

Tarquin, the facilities manager for Uber, just wanted one thing: “more variety compared to what we were currently receiving”.

“I also had a longer term goal in mind which was to consolidate multiple vendors at a number of sites and use one catering company!”

Of course, these aren’t the only issues facing office catering managers.

Difficulty in adapting to different types of events

Once you find a catering company you trust, it’s easy to use that company over and over again. But it means that you don’t necessarily have the variety to cater for different types of events and catering occasions – obviously casual events for staff will require different meals than that of a group of executives!

Late arrivals

Dealing with a catering company means you accept the possibility food might turn up late. Unfortunately there is little accountability on behalf of the caterer – and you still have to find an alternative. Which means yet another provider to brief, and another wait to see if they will live up to their promise.

Too many different providers

If you do happen to find multiple corporate caterers, then you have to deal with the issue of multiple sources of paperwork, receipts and finances. Plus, there’s no way to easily add a recurring order if you manage events that occur regularly.

These problems aren’t inevitable though, and they are exactly why companies are switching to a far simpler, easier solution: online catering website.

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The Feedr Solution

Instead of contacting individual caterers one by one, Feedr brings together dozens or even hundreds of different high quality catering menu options. You pick your caterer from the one website, order everything from the same website, whether it's breakfast, lunch or cakes for a birthday celebration and the portal handles the billing process.

Not only does this make it easy to choose multiple providers for different functions, events and occasions, you gain the accountability of an online catering platform that ensures the experience is a good one and you get high quality food every time.

Emily from Zoom Video Communications discovered those benefits and more after using Feedr.

“I no longer spend sleepless nights worrying about the details of a client event we are hosting, the number of bananas in the fruit box, where the milk is, what if someone springs a last minute lunch meeting on me!” she says.

Tarquin from Uber agrees:

“Customer service both face-to-face and over the phone is exceptional. If there are ever any issues, the account management team are consistently efficient to respond”.

If you would like to find ways to make Corporate Catering work for you give us a call on 020 3890 220. If you need help, we can put you in touch with some of the best corporate catering consultants in the business!