FOOD AND CATERING

         Catering is the business of providing food service in a place at a certain cost to a specific number of people which usually done by prearranged contract.Caterers and their staff are part of the food service industry. Catering services provided vary depending on the event which includes cooking and delivering food to an outside location; cooking, delivering and serving food; and full-service (preparing food, providing service staff, decoration of event location and clean-up). In some cases of full-service catering, the caterer is called an event managing company. Several things distinguish a catering operation from a restaurant. The menu at a catered event is chosen in advanced by the client and usually more limited than a restaurant menu. The way of the preparation of foods is different between restaurant and catering chefs. Even though both of them prepare the food ahead of time to a certain extent, catering chefs prepare their food so that it only needs brief final cooking, reheating, or assembly prior to service. Celebratory occasions such as weddings, birthday parties and anniversaries usually choose the catering and food services to organize the event. There are two main categories of catering. The first one is institutional catering which are caterers that provide a wide variety of food and drink to a large number of people at hospitals, airlines, universities, and hotels. The second category is social catering which are caterers that provide food and beverage services to civic group, corporations, business, and individuals at any selected location such as banquet hall. Catering companies send servers, chefs and other employees to the site for wedding receptions, conventions and other high-profile events. Catering services usually require a deposit before the event begin. Catering can include the supply of extra equipment such as dining tables, silverware, decorations, and other accessory. Understanding the basics of catering can help an individual to decide what catering service is best for them and what they can expect from the caterer.

The purpose of catereris to make any event goes smoothly and successfully. This field suits to individuals who seek fast-paced working environments and enjoy working with food. To succeed in this field, caterers must work with objectives. They need to establish themselves as desirable service providers and create good customer relationships that will make their businesses at the top. Caterer foremost priority is to provide excellent food services to the clients by establishing a successful and dynamic service. Next, caterers need to provide on-time service. In the world of catering, getting the job done on time is the most important thing. They need to organise the time precisely in order to prepare food and drink especially for time-sensitive events such as weddings and other events. Moreover, caterers need to create customer-pleasing menu. The menus must be pleasing customers’ taste and preferences in orderto satisfy them with the services provided by a caterer. The catering chefs need to maintain and improve the food quality to please customers.  Caterers must develop varied catalogues of menus that they prepare for events, ensuring that each of them are mouth-watering. Furthermore, caterers must provide excellent customer services that enhance the rapport with clients through responsiveness to needs and requests. Catering will establish high quality jobs of food service which include good wages and benefits, career advancement opportunities, access to training and capacity building, participation in decision-making and opportunities for ownership. Besides, caterermust develop catering service that supports skill development of the catering staff and meets the needs of the customers. Lastly, catering and food services could keep costs down and save time. 

Employees are essential, business cannot grow without them. The quality of a catering company’s staff can determine whether the business will succeed or fail. Excellent food prepared by competent cooks but served by poorly trained or inexperienced wait staff can spoil the event. This example shows the importance of hiring, training, and retaining the best employees possible. The top twelve characteristics of a model employee are punctual, even-tempered, clean, flexible, proactive, communicative, trustworthy, ambitious, organized, compassionate, innovative and creative. The success of catering and food service is largely determined by the performance of employees. If customers are given anything less than a completely satisfactory eating experience, they will seek out new venues and businesses that can satisfy their demands. Staff training is animportant component of catering and food service so that they can maintain and improve food quality, hygiene levels and standards of service. The objective of formal training is to give employees information and tools to be successful at assigned tasks before they are given the actual responsibilities, in hopes of preventing costly mistakes. A higher-quality employee is retained and opportunities to enhance social skills are continuously sought when they had been trained. On-the-job training is one of the ways to become a high quality employee. Catering and food service workers that are trained on the job by their employers will acquire skills in safe food handling procedures and sanitation practices. Additionally, some employers will offer online or classroom training sessions in addition to on-the-job work experience. Employer training for catering and food service workers addresses issues such as formal serving techniques, proper attire and conduct, team attitudes and unpleasant or unruly patrons.From the event planner or function manager to the chef, all service personnel must act as a team with one goal in mind which to meet or exceed the expectation of client. All training programs should have a checklist of objectives that must be met before an employee is ready to assume his or her position.

Every special event needs delicious, tasty and mouth-watering foods to be served among guests. That is why a good catering service is needed which will provide more than distributing food. There are various event need to be catered such aswedding receptions, birthday parties and retirement parties. A specialist from the catering company can help them to prepare the menu and decorations, and how they want to serve their guests, either buffet or by waiters and waitresses. Catering services can be depending upon client’s preference as well as the type of the event that is being celebrated in specific venue. The caterers can able to create any kind of food based on their specialties and they are able to provide you right type of food for the particular event. Making the occasion frequently needs kitchen staffsthat develop, prepare and serve food neatly and cleanly. Usually all dishes are prepared in advance and to give only the final touches when they are ready to serve. And the caterers have their own catering coolers, refrigerators, and housing units, so that the freshness of food will be maintained.An excellent aspect of supplying the celebration to client is that the caterer can get ready the food and drink at customer’s individual place or even carry foods that are ready to be provided. Many caterers even get involved with the styles of the activities. The styles along with the amazing foodsfulfilled of all the customers’ feelings, not just flavour. When customers plan to organise an event, they will not have to worry about providing food and drink for their guests or even having too much food. The caterer will know exactly how much food to make based on their estimation number of guests. Client also would not have made themselves busy running back and forth to the cooking area whenever a visitor needs something since everything are handled by the caterer. The client will be ablehave fun with their occasion, foods, beverages and have enough time to have fun with their guests.

The hierarchy of a service team depends on the size of the catering operation as well as the occasion or style of each event. There are a few most common service positions in catering service. First is event planner or function manager who has planned the event with the client, constructed the banquet event order, and has remained the point person throughout the entire event planning process. The event planner is usually present at the event to ensure that every detail was well executed. Second is expeditor or food checker as the quality-control person in a catering kitchen by examining each plate before it is serve to a guest, and warning whoever has enough authority to tell the chefs that a dish, plate, or platter needs fixing before it goes out. Third is maître d’hôtel who supervises the setup of the dining room and choreographs the service of food and beverages that follow. In addition, the maître d’hôtelmay greet the guests, help them to their seats, and describe the menu items. Very formal events held in banquet halls require a maître d’hôtel. Fourth is captain who manages the service of a specific section of the dining area. He or she usually remains on the floor, attending to the specific needs of the guests and making sure that each table in the section gets served properly. Fifth are wait-persons who may have various responsibilities, depending on the structure of service, including setting up and breaking down table tops, bringing food and beverages to guests, clearing place settings, and setting up and dismantling the servers’ pantry an area that contains items such as extra flatware, napkins, ice, hot beverage machine and others. Sixth are runners or food handlers which their main responsibility is to bring food from kitchen to the dining room. Seventh are bus-persons who bring used flatware and glassware from the dining area to the ware-washing area. They also typically pour water, serve bread and assist with the clearing of the table between courses.

There are a few basic principles of food and beverage service that all wait staff must know and execute well; serve from the left when a waitperson is placing food from a platter on a guest’s plate, serve from the right when food has been pre-plated (although modern convention also allows service from the left), serve all beverages from the right, serve soup from the right of the guest, serve women first and the remaining guests in a clockwise direction, clear soiled plates and glasses from the table from the right, place empty crockery and fresh cutlery on the table from the right, never reach across the guest but walk to the left or right of the guest to serve or remove dishes, never allow your fingers to touch the food on the plate, apologize and get a fresh plate of food for the guest if this happen by accident, and never serve or remove glass by grasping the drinking end but hold the bottom or stem end of the glass. There are also a few style of service in catering and the most popular one is buffet. The most common perception of a buffet is a long table consisting of a variety of hot and cold foods from which guests serve themselves. Buffet is the way to keep costs low, as buffet service requires fewer service personnel and no individual platting by the kitchen staff. The first type of buffet is standard buffet which platters and chafing dishes of food are placed on centralized tables and guests serve themselves. Second type of buffet is interactive buffet which consists of separate station at which food handlers, typically kitchen or dining room employees, prepare, assemble, and plate food items in view of the guests. An interactive buffet is a source of entertainment and gives the guests the opportunity to talk to the chefs and food handlers about the menu items, their experience, or any other related topic. Successful caterers require both their front and back staff to wear uniform in order to promote teamwork and professionalism.  Uniforms also provide a professional identity for a catering staff, branding the company and distinguishing it from its competitions. The caterer’s logo embroidered on each staff’s uniforms can promote the catering business in an effective way.

Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah; that which hath been killed by strangling, or by a violent blow, or by a headlong fall, or by being gored to death; that which hath been (partly) eaten by a wild animal; unless ye are able to slaughter it (in due form); that which is sacrificed on stone (altars); (forbidden) also is the division (of meat) by raffling with arrows: that is impiety. This day have those who reject faith given up all hope of your religion: yet fear them not but fear Me. This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion. But if any is forced by hunger, with no inclination to transgression, Allah is indeed Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

On the authority of Abu Huraira (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah said: “Allah the Almighty is good and accepts only that which is good. Allah has commanded the Faithful to do that which He commanded the Messengers, and the Almighty has said: “O ye Messengers! Eat of the good things, and do right..” (Quran 23:51). And Allah the Almighty has said: “O ye who believe! Eat of the good things wherewith We have provided you..” (2:172). Then he mentioned [the case of] a man who, having journeyed far, is dishevelled and dusty and who spreads out his hands to the sky [saying]: O Lord! O Lord!-while his food is unlawful, his drink is unlawful, his clothing unlawful, and he is nourished unlawfully, so how can he be answered!” 

It is explicitly stated in the Qur’an that only four types of foods can be prohibited: dead meat (animals that died other than by proper intentional slaughter or hunting), blood, swine and food over which a name other than that of Allah (God) has been invoked. It is forbidden to add to these four prohibitions and Muslims should not deny themselves foods that Allah has made lawful. Besides, intoxicating beverages are also forbidden in the Qur’an, which is accepted in Islam as the word of Allah. Violation of this prohibition is punishable by flogging. Based on the ayah above (5:3), the first prohibition in the Holy Qur’an is consumption of any living thing that dies of itself, and blood, and the flesh of swine. Animals and birds that die by themselves are collectively referred to as carrion.Hence, Allah has decreed that animals must always be slaughtered under Muslim prescription, which requires fast and deep cutting of the jugular veins, but not cutting off the neurological connection, and which allows the animal to completely bleed to death very quickly.In case of consumption of dead animals, consumption of flesh of pigs, and consumption of idol-worshipped offerings, the injunction is quite clear at(2:173), pigs (swine) of all species were created as “Nature’s garbage processors with full independent mobility on four feet” and they were most certainly not created as food for human beings.

    Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. In the catering business, large quantities of food are generally prepared in a central kitchen and distributed to clients. Proper cooling and hot-holding techniques are critical for preventing the growth of possible food-borne pathogens. The outbreak of a food-borne illness stemming from one of your catered events would likely destroy your reputation and business. Food-borne illness can be avoided if caterer and employees follow safe food-handling practices. Provide safe food foe clients by following food safety guidelines. Make sure that caterer and employees are current with state and local regulatory for food-service establishments to ensure that the food provided to customers is safe and wholesome. One of the requirements usually is that employees on kitchen staff and the catering owner need to pass a food safety course and be certified by the appropriate health authority. It will make sure that all kitchen and serving staff adhere to food safety requirements especially and critically, washing their hands before, during, and after handling foods. Food safety begin with the safe handling of food as soon as it enters the catering kitchen and ends with the proper handling of leftovers and clean-up after the catered event. Food safety information needs to be included in an operation manual so that the kitchen staffs can refer to it easily in case they have questions or concerns. All this information is available from local and state health department. The catering owner can simply photocopy that information to include in the manual. Some basic food safety tips that can be adapted for safety manual is purchase high-quality foods from a reliable vendor. The food should be in good condition (with the packaging intact), fresh (not beyond expiration date), and store at the proper temperature. Next, practice good personal hygiene when preparing and handling food. Wash hand before preparation, after handling raw foods, after using the rest room, or at any time they become soiled. Gloves may be worn when handling and preparing food, but should be changed often. Besides, wash fresh fruits and vegetables thoroughly under cold running water. When they stores in the refrigerator, make sure fresh fruits and vegetables are wrapped or stored in containers separately from raw meats. 

    Putting together a successful event or function can be an extremely stressful process for everyone.If it is possible, each of them wants to relieve some of the stress that occurs when planning their event. One of the options available is by using catering and food services to take care of both the food and beverages for the event. When most people refer to a "caterer", they are referring to an event caterer who serves food with waiting staff at dining tables or sets up a self-serve buffet. They can have unique experience when they would not have to make themselves stressful to prepare every sort of thing especially in preparing food.Since everything are handled by the caterer, the client will be able have fun with their event, foods, beverages and have enough time to have fun with their guests. Besides, they can experience the uniqueness of food that prepared by the caterer. As the professional caterer, being able to prepare any sort of food that client demand is a must. They could hire a caterer that can satisfy their wants. They just need toensure that the chosen caterer is able to prepare food as they wished. Certain foods may not fit with certain events, so it is best to make sure that the right food is matched up with the right event, so ensure that the caterer is able to meet the event requirements. Next, everyone believes that catering and food service will savean awful lot of time andmoney. The catering company will be able ensure that they have the right amount of ingredients and equipment so that the event will be able to run smoothly. Aprofessional catering company that specialises in event catering can make any social gathering a complete success because of the delicious food that they can prepare and serve.