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?
The answer really lies in what your selling points were when you initially set up your business. 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. On the flip side, if you pride yourself on the quality of your food and use expensive ingredients, then trying to compete on price is not the way forward.
Although when you are writting catering tenders, it not the easiest decision to make. The decision should be based on exactly who you write your catering tenders for.
A few years ago if you were writing catering tenders for schools you would largely be competing on cost. Jamie Olivers School Dinners Campaign has shifted the empasis towards high quality food.
Without sounding contrdictory, its not that easy. Schools have a responsibility to their pupils to offer good quality, healthy food. However in most cases they can’t afford to pay the high cost of genuinely high quality catering services.
How should you write your Catering Tenders? What would be the best way for your your catering business?
The answer may be to discuss value for money in your catering tenders. pricing you tender too high will only have one outcome, and that is not you winning the contract. But, if you know your services aren’t the cheapest, explain that to anyone reading your catering tenders.
Maybe you only use free range eggs. 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.
You may find it helps to back up your claims in your catering tenders. Are you registered as a distributor of Fairtrade products? Do you only use Soil Association certified ingredients? Then it needs to be in all 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. Focus you efforts on companies that are wanting lower cost catering tenders.
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.
