What catering should I order for my office?

What catering should I order for my office? Simple tips for ordering food for your team

As an office manager, facilities manager, EA or PA, ordering catering for staff meetings, training days and events can be a daunting task. For the larger conventions it can be difficult to figure out the right amount of food, especially when ordering platters of sandwiches, canapes & salads. Another point to keep note of when ordering from a caterer is to look at the quality of their food - either through their pictures or through reviews (a top tip here is make a test order to be sure of the quality before ordering for your office). Take a look to see if there are enough healthy options available and in this modern day see if your supplier is doing enough to be as sustainable as possible in their operation. 

How much food should I order?

In general, it is always best to overestimate. That way you ensure that everyone will be satisfied and not left hungry for the remainder of the day. If you have fridge facilities you can store food until staff head home, giving the option to take leftovers back to their families, which is definitely a great perk for staff. 

For most office lunches you will want more than just a sandwich per person. It is therefore a good idea to order a variety of finger food like; canapes, crudites, antipasto platters, just to name a few. Does your office have facilities for drinks like bottled water, canned drinks, juices? If not, this is also something to consider in order to keep staff hydrated.

What kind of food should I order?

For larger events you have the luxury of ordering a bit of everything across a range of cuisines (if your supplier has the capability). For smaller gatherings it is advised to play it safe and choose foods that most people would like, i.e. sandwiches, wraps, fruit, salads. 

Your order may also completely depend on the people you are feeding. For simple training days standard lunches would suffice, but for executive board meetings you may want something higher-end, like the Green Bike bento trays for example. 

How do I deal with allergies?

You can always count on there being at least one dietary requirement to be catered for, and for most food businesses this is no issue. On the Green Bike Food website for example, you are able to filter by allergen such as ‘Nut-Free’ so that only food items that are nut-free are displayed. 

Ordering food for your team shouldn’t be a challenging or arduous process but made easy by an intuitive ordering system and well thought out food.

If you are still unsure on what to order and how to go about it, why not speak to one of our team on 0118 975 8198 and we can walk you through an order, or email [email protected].  We are a Reading, UK based business.