In addition to restaurants, one of the food businesses that has been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis is the catering business. Due to the situation and government policies, this business is in a slump like never before. However, during the time when the situation has been unlocked and everything is about to move forward again, plus the upcoming year-end festival, which is considered a golden time for the catering business, how can we make this comeback a success!?

'Khun Kwan-Nattakachporn Wiraphatsirikun' The Managing Director of The Chef Catering will tell the story of the success of the catering business that once reached 100 million, until the storm during Covid and the key to the success that made this comeback a success!

“Our beginnings began around 15 years ago when my youngest brother studied to be a chef at Dusit Thani College, while my second younger brother studied business administration. Since our family was on Lat Krabang Road, which had many villages, but at that time there weren’t many restaurants, we came up with the idea of ​​delivering food to villages under the name ‘The Chef Delivery’. After doing this for about a year, an adult hired me to take care of catering for a company event. That was the beginning of how I got to know the catering business. When I accepted my first catering job, I had more jobs.

This made us realize that the advantage of this business is receiving a lump sum payment and managing it on a case-by-case basis without having to keep stock, which is different from doing delivery where we have to keep stock and if customers don’t order, it might go bad and become waste. After we got a lot of catering jobs, we reached a certain point and thought it would be better to focus on this area.”

Khun Kwan said that about 14-15 years ago, the catering business of 'Full Function Service' or complete catering did not have as many competitors as today. If they wanted to organize a buffet or cocktail party, most people would think of organizing a party in a hotel, which could be organized in one place. Later, the lifestyle of people at that time started to turn to organizing a party outside the hotel more because they could control the budget more, and they could organize it according to the concept or theme they wanted more freely. In addition, the increasing number of events was also a part of what made the catering business start to boom.

This is both the origin and the opportunity for 'The Chef Catering' places great importance on the quality and taste of the food, making customers addicted to using the service again and telling each other by word of mouth until it became famous and widely trusted. Another key to success is the Tailor Made service, which meets the needs of the theme of the event and each customer, which can create deliciousness in every way, whether it is a buffet, cocktail, or Thai, Chinese, Japanese, European, bakery, or others, etc. It can also be designed to match the Mood & Tone of the event.

“The turning point was when we had the opportunity to appear on the SME Tee Taek show, which helped make The Chef Catering well-known and attracting more people to use our services. When the catering industry began to grow, many people entered the industry, and the competition itself began to increase as well. But because we had been here before, we had a customer base that trusted our quality and service, so there was nothing to worry about. Because in addition to catering for general customers, we also act as a supplier to organizers, hotels, conference halls, or various event venues. Therefore, there is work coming in almost every day. We accept catering for various social events, weddings, product launches, national events, etc. This also forced us to expand our business and our team. From the original team of only 3-4 people, we gradually expanded until we had up to 50 permanent employees, not including the freelancers who participated in each event.”

Key Sucesss The Chef Catering's Key to Success

● Taste and quality of food created by professional chefs only.

● Able to cook a variety of food, whether it be buffet, cocktail, set menu, Thai food, Chinese food, Japanese food, European food, bakery or others, etc.

● Meet all customer needs by being able to design Tailor Made to match the Mood & Tone of the event theme.

● Part of the focus is on B2B customers, such as suppliers to organizers, hotels, conference halls, or event venues to ensure a steady stream of work.

From the peak of the business, it still had to stumble when the crisis unexpectedly occurred. Khun Kwan even said that The Chef Catering itself is no different from other catering businesses that have been severely affected by COVID-19 by 100 percent because the disease control policy made it impossible to organize gatherings or events like before. Therefore, catering work had to come to a halt and could not proceed for almost the past 2 years.

“When we couldn’t hold catering, we were hit hard, and had to downsize the organization to accommodate the situation. Now we have less than 10 full-time employees. We also tried to adapt by turning to delivery under the name ‘The Chef Go Food Delivery’ using our central kitchen. Luckily, from organizing events, we already had a customer base that liked the taste of our food and came to order, so that helped us to some extent. We were able to maintain income to pay our remaining employees.”

After the government has a plan to open the country and unlock the situation, it is good news for those in the catering business. Khun Kwan happily said that now some work has started to come back. “Although there are no catering or events every day like before, now some work has started to come back. But the scale of the event is not as big as before. There are only 30-60 guests, which is why people are worried. It is not like before when hundreds of people came to the event at a time. But it is a good sign that makes us feel more encouraged.”

“Asking if there is anything we need to pay attention to and adjust our work to fit in with this era? First of all, we need to take care of our employees . In addition to getting all vaccinated, we also need to pay attention to hygiene standards, both the cleanliness of the kitchen and the handling of food. We wear masks, face shields, and gloves at all times. We need to regularly check our employees for COVID-19. Before organizing a party or going up to the building where the event is held, we need to do an ATK test to ensure customer confidence and to protect our employees. Because if someone in the team were to get infected with COVID, our business could come to a halt.”

“In addition, to ensure customer confidence in the food and event format, we may have to change. For example, for cocktails, we will suggest that they be served with a tight lid to prevent people from coughing or sneezing. We will put the plates, bowls, spoons and forks in plastic bags and arrange them in sets. Or we will suggest that customers serve them as a set menu where each person eats separately. This will meet the safety requirements in this era more than a buffet where people have to line up and sometimes do not maintain a distance from each other. When we propose something like this, most customers tend to agree and are happy because they also want their guests to be safe.”

“When the situation improves, we plan to bring back some permanent staff. As a catering service provider for the New Year’s Eve celebration, we will try to maintain safety standards as much as possible. Kwan believes that this is the key to keeping our business going in this uncertain time. But at the same time, I really want to tell everyone to be careful and not let their guard down because in reality, we don’t know if there will be another outbreak of infection if there are large gatherings. Both the organizers and the attendees should help prevent it together. At this time, we can’t guess what the situation will be like in the future. No one can set any rules, but we don’t want to have to go back to lockdown again.”

● Ensure that employees are fully vaccinated.

● Strict hygiene standards, both in terms of kitchen cleanliness and food contact, including wearing masks and face shields at all times.

● Regularly check our employees for COVID and ATK tests are required before each catering to ensure customer confidence and protect our employees.

● Provide safe food catering methods to customers.

● Public relations, communication and use of safety standards as a selling point