As the festive season will soon be upon us, now’s the time to be planning your menu for the functions and celebrations to come – from end of year office parties to Christmas dinner, New Year’s Eve and beyond. Weddings are also extremely popular at this time of year, which means receptions as well as anniversary celebrations are also high on the catering list.
The venue catering market was one of those sectors of hospitality which came to a standstill during Covid, then took some time to get back on its metaphorical feet in the pandemic’s aftermath. Now that lockdowns are thankfully just a bad memory, we caught up with three chefs working in the venue catering space to find out what changes Covid has wrought and how customer expectations are being met in the current operational environment of staff and skills shortages.
While the market experienced a boom post-Covid, with consumers keen to return to face to face contact and experience the events prohibited during lockdown, the recent rises in interest rates have since impacted spend. That’s the word from
Nick Kalogeropoulos, director of catering and events company Calibre Feasts
which regularly stages corporate events as well as
, functions and elite sporting teams.
