What food can I make at home and sell? This is a popular question for any budding entrepreneur with a passion for cooking.
The good news is that there are plenty of great catering business ideas out there. As long as you find an idea that matches your strengths and has enough market demand, then starting a catering business could be a fulfilling way to make money,
To help you out, here are some of the best catering business ideas you can use.
How Do I Start a Successful Catering Business?
Starting a catering business can be a relatively straightforward process. Of course, you will first need to have a kitchen that is properly equipped to handle the volume of food you plan to make. You will also need to have enough staff as catering can be very labour-intensive. Once you have these two elements in place, you could start to sell food.
The great thing about starting a catering business is that you can start small from home, and gradually grow your business as demand increases.
You will need to have a solid business idea when starting a catering business. Establish what area you want to specialize in, and focus on marketing your business within this niche.
8 Catering Business Ideas
What food can I sell to make money? What food business is most profitable? These are some of the most popular questions that people wanting to start a catering business will ask.
To help you get some inspiration, here are 8 great catering business ideas that you can start relatively easily.
1. Food Truck
Starting a mobile food truck can be a great solution for catering to various types of events. You could park your food truck at markets, weddings, outside office buildings, or more. This will require enough capital to purchase and equip a large enough van or trailer, but it’s still a cheaper option than setting up a normal commercial kitchen.
2. Personal Chef
If you have the cooking skills, you can make some good money by hiring yourself out as a personal chef. You could specialize in serving exquisite breakfasts and dinners to tourist guest houses, offering special occasion private chef services, or even take on a full-time contract as a private chef for a household.
3. Pre-Packaged Foods
Selling pre-packaged foods is a great idea if you don’t want to do real-time cooking for clients. This could include anything from frozen meals to jams and preserves, pre-packaged snacks, ice cream, or even picnic boxes. You could also sell pre-made snack platters for parties and events, which means you don’t have to attend the event to cater for it. If your kitchen is small, then this is a good solution.
4. Baked Goods
Starting an at-home bakery is always one of the most popular catering business ideas. You could sell a wide range of baked goods, or specialise in one particular thing – like wedding cakes. This is a good business idea, as you can easily start it from home.
5. Baby Food
Baby food can be a profitable catering business idea, as parents are increasingly looking for healthier, homemade food options for their kids but don’t have the time to make them. Selling a range of nutritional and tasty baby purees and children’s foods can be done relatively easily from home, and the target market (new parents) is always a big one.
6. Office Lunches
One of the most classic catering business ideas is to provide pre-made lunches to local offices. You could take on a contract where you provide lunch for an office building every day. This could be quite a profitable venture.
7. Organic and Health Foods
People are interested in organic and healthy foods more than ever before, so there’s plenty of demand for these types of catering businesses in the right places. You could sell healthy pre-made lunches, create juice cleanses, specialize in vegan food, offer organic food workshops, and more.
8. Meal Kits
Meal kits are one of the best catering business ideas as they don’t require you to actually cook them, and you could attract a lot of repeat business. This is when you sell recipes with the pre-packaged ingredients, all ready to cook. Popular meal kit delivery services offer weekly subscriptions and deliveries, which is a good idea.
Summary
These catering business ideas play to a variety of strengths, and they each have their own unique target market. Best of all, you can start these ideas from home.
Looking for more entrepreneur inspiration to match your catering business? Check out our guide on how to start a cleaning services business.
