It’s a dilemma facing everyone sitting down to write catering tenders. Which is the best direction of focus for your catering tender? should I concertrate on the low costs of the service or the high quality of the food?
It’s a question you should have answered when you first set up your catering services company. Right from the begining you would have had an idea on the service you were going to offer, and your catering tenders should be written around this.
If you offer cheap and cheerful services then trying to sell the high quality of your food isn’t the way to go. Equally if you only use the finest of locally sourced, organic, non-GM ingredients then competing on price in your catering tenders won’t work.
And yet it isn’t necessarily that easy to decide when you’re writing the catering tenders. This decision can be helped by that of the catering tender you are looking to win.
A few years ago if you were writing catering tenders for schools you would largely be competing on cost. Since a high profile campaign by Jamie Oliver to raise catering standards in schools you might want to emphasise your quality.
Without sounding contrdictory, its not that easy. Schools have a responsibility to their pupils to offer good quality, healthy food. They must also though, watch their costs as their budgets may not be as large as corporate companies.
So what‘s the solution for your catering services company? How should you pitch your catering tenders?
look at both options, take low caost Cateting tenders for example. If your catering tender is over priced, you won’t stand a chance. Make sure your catering tenders acknowledge that they may not be the cheapest if your know thats not your angle.
Perhaps all your produce is sourced locally. Perhaps you only use organic ingredients. Or your chocolate is fair trade. Use these higher quality ingredients as justification for the higher prices of your catering tenders.
If you are amking any claims within your catering tender, you need to make sure you back these up. If you only use soil association products or you are a registered distributor of fairtrade products, you need to make sure you include this in your catering tenders.
And what if you are the cheap and cheerful catering services provider? How then do you pitch your catering tenders? The trick is to pick the right jobs to tender for. Your suceess rate will be much higher if you only write catering tenders for businesses who are looking for a low budget service.
Writing catering tenders is a difficult balancing act. To finish, just remember, regardless of whether you are writting your catering tenders based on quality of cost, they will need to demostrate that they are outstanding value for money.
