Preparing food for mobile catering business

by Simon
(South West)

Hi

I have been wishfully thinking for many years about starting a mobile catering business and have decided now to finally take things a bit more seriously and start to plan for the venture ready for summer 2020! I have previously worked in a number of higher-end pub restaurants but never worked in mobile catering and am struggling to figure out some of the logistics to make this type of business work in my current situation.

The plan as it stands is to make and sell fresh Japanese inspired dishes at local events and festivals and aim to branch into wedding and function catering once things are up and running. I have a number of dishes that I know would work well at the types of events I am thinking and are simple enough to cook with a reduced kitchen only requiring a handful of appliances but these dishes are extremely prep heavy!

I will not have a suitable kitchen at home to carry out the prep of the food prior to events and am trying to think outside the box on how to overcome this... I have thought of a couple of possible solutions and was hoping to get some input on whether any of these have been tried by anyone and any pitfalls anyone can see with any of these ideas:

- Hire a kitchen in hall / church for the prep, and either store prepared food there or at home. A local church has a full commercial kitchen for hire by the hour, I am yet to run this past them but see this as a possible option
- Arrive early (very early!) to events and carry out prep on the day. Again, this would need to be run by the event organisers to see if an early start is possible!
- Prep in a trailer (which would be used for the event) and store food in trailer. The issue with this is I am going to struggle to store a trailer at home so will need to find an alterative place to store it. I had considered given the lack of storeage space for a trailer I would opt for a gazebo setup, but if I can reduce headaches by preping in a trailer it may be worth looking for a suitable place to store a trailer!
- Ask some friendly cafe owners if I can hire space in their kitchen out of cafe hours

Any input anyone can give me on alternative options for pre-event prep would be really appreciated!

Thank you
Simon

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Mar 21, 2024
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starstarstarstarstar 		Y&b
by: Yelda&bella

Hello I hope you can help we are working building site over9 years u fortunately it's coming to end and we are looking for a bulding site canteen we have experience certificates all training if you can help it would be amazing thank you. 07500894041 ybkitchenltd@gmail.com
Mar 21, 2024
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starstarstarstarstar 		Y&b NEW
by: Yelda&bella

Hello I hope you can help we are working building site over9 years u fortunately it's coming to end and we are looking for a bulding site canteen we have experience certificates all training if you can help it would be amazing thank you. 07500894041
Nov 19, 2019
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starstarstarstarstar 		Sell Fresh Japanese Inspired Dishes
by: David-

Hello Simon,

I think you’ve covered most of the ideas that would have suggested.

It would be good to test your menu before you did a launch. Have considered your local pub, eatery maybe you could have a Japanese food night to test the market response. This would also help you week menu and have a working process to work from.

Joint venture is a good way to keep cost down while taking food to market sooner. This could extend into events like weddings, parties and special occasions.

Hope this helps and keep us updated.

Best,

David

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