Dessert Catering Business Plan

Who does not love desserts? The thought of desserts alone make people’s mouths water in anticipation of tasting sweet and delectable food. Despite the fact that we really do not need desserts in order to survive, we would still look forward to eating desserts right after meals and consider the idea that a meal is not complete without desserts.

If you love desserts, have a talent for creating desserts, and that you have an eye and mind for business, then you can definitely make use of this opportunity to create a dessert catering business.

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One of the reasons why you might want consider having a dessert catering business is that you might have a talent in creating desserts and that you might want to make a business out of it. You might also want to help people when they would be hosting an event because you already know what a tasking job it is to be the one to prepare and cook everything for the guests and entertaining guests afterward.

Whatever your reason might be for starting a dessert catering business, keep in mind that it will not be too easy. Even if at a glance, it might look easy and even glamorous especially if you really love making desserts, there are actually a lot of things you need to do in order to make your dessert catering business gain continuous success.

To make things lighter, it is recommended that you would secure a business plan to make you see your dream dessert catering business come at a much clearer sight. Through a business plan, you will be able to know what you should be prioritizing at the moment and what you should be prioritizing next.

Although creating a business plan is also another chore you would rather not do, having a business plan is actually more advantageous than disadvantageous. It might be a difficult task at first, but once you would already be able to establish one, things will then go smoothly for your dessert catering business than expected.

While you can find a lot of templates of a dessert catering business plan online, we have collected and compiled in this article some of the best ones that are not only easy to modify according to how your dessert catering business will be but these are also easy to download. Plus, we have also included some tips on what you can include in your dessert catering menu and how to structure your business plan.

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How to Start a Dessert Catering Business

Here are the steps and ways on how to start a dessert catering business of your own:

Before you would actually create a solid business plan for your dessert catering business, you have to make sure first that you already know what you will be serving to your potential clients. You can possibly host a party where you will be mainly serving desserts. Let your guests try it and make them judge each of it. Note the best ones and also note the ones they did not favor the most. Their feedback are important for you to be able to determine whether you could finally start a dessert catering business.

If you do not plan on starting and running a business of your own yet, you may just opt for soliciting various catering companies and ask them whether they would like to have an outsource for their desserts. There are some catering companies out there that might have a difficulty when it comes to what they should be serving as desserts. Take it as an opportunity for you to grab and make use of.

When you will finally start running your dessert catering business, do not be hesitant in using your home kitchen for the mean time especially that you are just starting. However, do make sure that your kitchen is already fully equipped with all the necessary machinery, tools, and utensils that you need in order to run your dessert catering business smoothly.

Take advantage of your network as they can become your solid base of clients especially for your dessert catering business where you can get solicitations as well. Do not also be hesitant when it comes to advertising your business via traditional media or the Internet. Additionally, do not stop soliciting new business and make sure that you would have an official business card at all times so when the day comes that you would be providing services to your first-ever official client, you can take that event as an opportunity to gain more potential clients, and for you to be contacted by them, your business card will surely come handy.

Simple tip to running a dessert catering business

There is one thing you should keep in mind when it comes to running a dessert catering business and that is to make sure that you have a marketable image of your products. Even if your desserts definitely tastes heavenly but the way you present it looks sloppy and unattractive, do not expect that you will gain a lot of clients that are not part of your current network. You have to hit two birds with one stone here. Make your products delicious but do not forget to make it look good because remember that to some other people, image is everything and will always be.

Keep this in mind

No matter how much you will work and exert effort on your dessert catering business, one day in one of your future bookings, you will meet a dissatisfied customer who will make or break your dessert catering business just because of your service. When you will finally reach that point, keep in mind that no matter how delicious and attractive the desserts you are serving, your business will not go anywhere nearer to success just because of a poor service. When the time comes and you are in the wrong, admit your mistakes, fix it, and learn from it so you can never do it again. Keep in mind that words are powerful.

Prepare and Plan for Your Dessert Catering Menu

Even if you have already determined what are the possible desserts you are going to serve to your future clients, there is still a need for you to prepare and plan for your dessert catering menu. Now this is one of the hardest part when you are still about to start to run a dessert catering business because your menus are also one of the things that could make or break the success of your dessert catering business. Aside from the obvious organizing of what you will be offering to your clients, you should also make sure that you will be able to provide variety of the possible desserts they can get from your business.

To most people, dessert is the best part of a full-course meal, a comfort food, and of course, the ever famous “there’s always room for dessert.” This is why you should never take you dessert catering menu for granted as this is the start of the path toward gaining highest customer satisfaction.

When you do not have any idea on how to prepare and plan for your dessert catering menu, you can always start by following the 5 C’s which stands for:

• Chocolate

  If there is one constant and similar thing both high-end restaurants and ordinary ones have, that would be chocolate. There are a lot of desserts where chocolate can be used. It could be a cake, an ice cream, a tart, a pie or a pudding, chocolates can always go with it.

• Citrus

  Even if chocolates are delicious to most people, there are still some people who would dislike it and opt for citrus instead. In an event, you can definitely not tell whether everyone who will attend it will love chocolates. So to provide your client with variety, you can include citrus on your dessert catering menu since those who are not fans of chocolates are actually fans of citrus.

• Coffee

  Coffee is one of the most loved and favorite dessert flavors, and aside from that, coffee as a beverage is also everyone’s favorite drink to pair with sweet pastries.

• Custard or cheesecake

  You can never go wrong should you want to serve a creamy or custard-based dessert in your dessert catering menu because this style will always be among the popular ones.u. You can include in your dessert catering menu a classic cheesecake, a crème brûlée, a flan, or even a bread pudding.

• Caramel

  This C can also provide your client with a lot of variety because there are actually a lot of delicious treats that you can create with this flavor such as toffee pudding, caramel parfait, caramel candies, caramel apples, caramel sundae, or even a caramel ice cream.

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Structure of a Basic Dessert Catering Business Plan

The following are the headers of a basic dessert catering business plan:

I. Industry Overview of Your Dessert Catering Business

The first part of your dessert catering business plan is the overview of the industry you are in. Since it is a dessert catering business plan that you are creating, this means that your business will be a part of the industry of catering that is comprised of various business and companies that mainly provide food services to events. The catering industry thrives on the events of giant organizations, government agencies, institutions, even as simple as a birthday party.

In your industry, you could mention how the business you are going to create has marketability enough for it to run long enough. You could mention that your dessert catering business sells something that is timeless because the product, desserts, and the service, selling and serving desserts are something that is timeless and can never be replaced.

II. Executive Summary of Your Dessert Catering Business

• Description of the Products and Services of Your Dessert Catering Business
• Vision Statement of Your Dessert Catering Business
• Mission Statement of Your Dessert Catering Business
• Business Structure-Roles and Responsibilities of the People Involved in Your Dessert Catering Business
  In this part, list the roles and responsibilities of your catering business. This may include the following:
  • Chief Executive Officer (Owner)
  • Manager
  • Human Resources and Admin Manager
  • Professional Caterers (Cooks and Bakers)
  • Sales and Marketing Manager
  • Accountants/Cashiers
  • Service Girls and Service Boys
  • Van Drivers/Deliverers
  • Cleaners

III. SWOT Analysis

Analyze the following:

• Strength
• Weakness
• Opportunities
• Threat

IV. Market Analysis

Analyze the following:

• Market trends of your dessert catering business
• Target market of your dessert catering business
• Competitive advantage of your dessert catering business

V. Sales and Marketing Strategy

VI. Sales Forecast

• Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy

VII. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

VIII. Our Pricing Strategy

• Payment Options

IX. Start-up Expenditure or Budget

X. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

Whatever business venture you would want to get in, always keep in mind that it is very important to have a business plan ready. When the time comes that you will be experiencing challenges as you plan out how you are going to run your business, you will have your business plan as a guide to keep you grounded on why you started your business in the first place.