Whether or not your meeting is a success will be highly influenced by your choices for catering for your meeting. The provision of a suitable amount of quality food and drink for your meeting should be a well thought out part of your meeting planning.
Hot or Cold Food
A cold finger buffet style of catering will be sufficient for most working lunches. However for longer full-day events, hot food will be required to keep the energy levels of the delegates up throughout the day.
Collect Dietary Requirements Early
Cold food can be ordered on the day of the event. For hot food it is better to organise the event at a venue that can hold and serve the hot food for you. Also make sure you check out the allergen labelling for any food that is served at your event, as there are certain rules and regulations that the organizer of the event will be held to.
Time Catering Around Your Agenda
Add catering breaks to the agenda before it’s finalised. This way you can avoid a situation where lunch turns up in the middle of a presentation or where you have to pour cold coffee for 40 minutes. Just a thought when you book the meeting room.
Quantities and Waste
A rough rule of thumb for catering to events with a meeting agenda is to allow six to eight pieces per person for a finger buffet style. This will stop the organizer from ordering too much food and the potential for large amounts of waste to be left over. Most venues can advise on quantities for the amount of guests for an event.
In-House Versus External
In-house catering tends to be the easiest option for a meeting organizer as the venue will organise and serve the food, setting up as required and dealing with any special dietary requirements.
Meeting Rooms Cheltenham is covered in more detail at https://hatherleymanor.com/conference-venues-gloucester/meeting-rooms/cheltenham/.
Sorted early, catering is one less thing to manage on the day itself.
