Even the best-planned corporate events won’t succeed if you don’t get the details right. Naturally, that also includes making sure all attendees enjoy the food by choosing the right catering option. 

Planning your next corporate event may be a major undertaking, but food is often one of the most important parts. In fact, you could argue that your catering choices and planning play a massive role in determining the success or failure of your event. With these 5 tips, you can make sure that the food, and by extension your corporate event, will be a full-on success. Frogbridge Events can provide you with multiple catering options for your event as well.

5 Tips to Help You Plan the Catering For Your Corporate Event

Take the following tips into mind when you’re planning your next corporate event: 

1. Plan Your Venue With Catering in Mind

The type of venue where you’ll host your corporate event will have a massive impact on your catering choices. Some venues may require or encourage a formal sit-down meal, while others may be tailor-made for more casual hors d’oeuvres. 

Simply put, you won’t know all of these variables until you pick the venue. If you have a rough outline of what type of food and beverage service might make sense, you can use that to influence your venue choice.

2. Align Your Catering With Your Event Details

Once you’ve chosen a venue, it’s time to go more in-depth on the details. Your event will likely have a core theme or goal, whether that’s getting company leadership together for a retreat, team-building exercise, or a more formal planning session. Your catering will be best when aligned with that goal. Consider the options:

  • For a roll-up-the-sleeves planning session, you might be best served with a buffet of finger foods.
  • For a more formal presentation of company goals and vision to internal and/or external stakeholders, a more formal sit-down meal may make more sense.
  • For a team-building session that occurs outdoors, you might want to turn the meal into a more casual occasion before or after the occasion.

Of course, these are just a few of the many options you have. The more clearly you can define your event details and goals early on, the better you’ll be able to pick catering options that match up with those details and goals.

3. Consider the Timing of the Event

Naturally, the length of your event will drastically impact the planning process, so it should not come as a surprise that it impacts your catering choices, as well. Those choices begin as simple as picking between breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods. Likewise, coffee and tea make sense in the morning, while a bar could fit the theme of an evening event. 

4. Know Your Numbers Early On

When it comes to catering, two numbers matter more than anything else: your headcount and your budget. The first enables you to better understand the scope of the food and beverages required, while the second defines the range and type of service realistic for your event.

Talk to your caterer about your budget early in the process, which lets them suggest options that match that budget. With the total budget set, your caterer will suggest options based on the per-person count, which means they’ll need at least a rough head count. 

5. Keep Dietary Restrictions in Mind

Finally, you need to plan your corporate event catering with your guests in mind. Allergies, religious restrictions, and dietary needs may mean that this step can get complex quite quickly. The right caterer will be happy to work through your options, as long as they know what they can expect.

Plan Your Next Corporate Event With Frogbridge Events

Don’t underestimate the importance of catering for your next corporate event. From the early planning stages, you can integrate food and beverage considerations to ensure that you get this piece of the puzzle just right on your way to making the event a success.

That process, in turn, begins and ends with finding the right corporate event venue. And that’s where Frogbridge Events in New Jersey comes in. Our dedicated team of event planners will help you keep considerations like catering in mind and even suggest vendors that have worked well with us in the past. Ready to get started? Contact us online or call us at (609) 208-9475 to get started.