Tips for Catering for an Important Business Meeting
High-quality business catering is essential these days. Providing coffee and a few biscuits might be enough for a run-of-the-mill sales meeting in your office, but you need to push the boat out for a full board meeting or when you are entertaining important clients. Given that Australia has some of the best restaurants in the southern hemisphere, it may come as no surprise that the country also enjoys some of the leading catering services companies, too. What sort of food and drink should you be discussing with your caterer?
Pick Food Appropriate for the Time of Day
Sandwiches and tea cakes are something that almost every event catering business will have available to you. This is ideal for a light lunch and is the perfect choice for a meeting that will be held over the course of an entire day. However, this popular option is not good for all circumstances. If delegates are arriving early in the morning, then offer them food that would be more appropriate for breakfast. Bowls of cereal and milk are not really suited to formal business meetings, but tea and coffee served with croissants and Danish pastries are. Equally, if your meeting will turn into a soiree, then you should provide something more substantial than sandwiches. Hot finger food, such as barbecued chicken wings or cocktail sausages, are more appropriate at this time of day.
Consider Alcohol
At some meetings, alcohol is a perfectly good thing to serve. Bottles of fizz will provide the ideal way to toast a new product as it is launched or to 'seal the deal' once contracts have been exchanged. However, you should always offer a soft drink alternative. Some people at the meeting may need to drive home afterwards or have work that they need to complete. Sparkling water is a good alternative to an alcoholic beverage to ask your caterer to provide. Remember that serving alcohol may not be the right course of action, too. Some clients might be offended depending on their cultural sensitivities.
Create the Right Impression
When you use a catering services company, don't limit yourself to a finger buffet only. These are usually fine for smaller-scale meetings, but when it is an important one and you want to impress, you ought to pay the extra for serving staff. Just one or two waiters to serve drinks is all that is needed to generate a really professional impression of a business that is on the up.