Caterer looking for advice, insight or feedback

[MikeMisk]

Hello my name is Mike, and I run a small full service catering company in central Florida. I have been in business since Jan. 1 2020. Rough year to start but I muscled through and I am still in business today. I have over 12 years of serious cooking experience in various cuisines and restaurants in Miami, Fl. and this is my first business. I didn’t graduate from college and I did not come from a wealthy family. Homeowner, husband and father to 2 kids.


I currently have 3 main services

1. School Delivery - not a huge profit margin but makes an impact in my community. I feel good about broadening kids paletes and we’ve seen great results. 3 days a week. M, W &Th.
2. Meal plans - 3 diet options, 5 meals a week. I personally shop for all the food on Saturdays and cook on Sundays and Wednesdays. I deliver twice a week. Takes up most of my time and effort and it’s not my favorite style of serving food. I continue to do it due to demand for it in my area. Somewhat consistent throughout the year and has gotten me through 2021.
3. Events - Private dinners, cocktail parties, drop offs, weddings, showers, holiday celebrations, and on and on. Highest profit margin but less consistent. I would consider this my preferred way to cook, however, I don't see long term scalability and during the slow season, well, it’s slow. I have done very well in this area for being a new business in a new area.

Being a first time business owner, having pretty good success within my first year, starting from pretty much nothing and with covid very prevalent, I feel kind of lost. Although I am grateful that I have had success, I can’t help but ask myself “Am I running 3 different businesses?” And, honestly I am not sure what I should do. According to the “10 stages of the lifecycle of a business” I am at the infancy stage. I work around a lot of other caterers and food businesses and I have come to see that I am definitely ranked pretty high, even with the OG’s in the area. I am a bit unorganized and time allocation is not my strong suit. I work out of a commissary/shared kitchen and I do pretty much everything in the business by myself.


Any advice? Has anybody had success running a catering business with this many services? I have a lot of questions so if anyone is willing to help, I’d definitely be thankful.

Thanks!

 

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[G-Cream]

Hey, I’m not in the catering business and probably not the best to answer these questions, but I see that no one has yet so I’ll try to offer some advice.
First I see that this has been posted in January so hopefully things are moving in the right direction, if not here’s a couple of things to think about.
I think anything charitable (or just nice) wil do no harm. The school delivery might not be making you much money but I have a feeling it is also generating you new customers. If not, is there anyway you can reach out to the parents to let them know you offer other services (I have a funny feeling they would love to do business with someone that is making sure their children are fed).
For your meal plans, if it is not very profitable, is there a way that you can show those clients how to cook the meal themselves and just offer the recipies? Maybe create some videos on Facebook or YouTube showing how to cook them, and then come up with new ideas every week/month or whatever your comfortable with.
I think you should lean into the things that are most profitable. It might be a sign that your market is telling you something.
Like you said, you started this business during a very tough time and have managed to do well, keep pushing forward and good things are sure to follow
You’ve got this!