Writing Catering tenders pose challenging questions right from the offset. Should your catering tenders tell everyone about the high quality catering that you can offer? Or should your catering tenders focus on the low cost of your services?
for clarification on this, look back to what you decided when you first decided that you were going to offer catering as a service. Where you have chosen to position yourself in the market should have an impact on how you write your catering tenders.
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.
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.
previously Catering tenders for schools were based on cost and your tender would only have been succesful if you were amongst the cheapest.. Since a high profile campaign by Jamie Oliver to raise catering standards in schools you might want to emphasise your quality.
That said, it is not as simple as that. Schools have a responsibility to their pupils to offer good quality, healthy food. But they also have budgets to stick to and cant be seen to be squandering money.
How should you write your Catering Tenders? What would be the best way for your your catering business?
Take a look at competing on cost for catering tenders. Obviously if you’ve priced yourself out of the market this isn’t going to mean you will win the contract. Make sure your catering tenders acknowledge that they may not be the cheapest if your know thats not your angle.
Maybe you only use free range eggs. Maybe your napkins are all recyclable. It could be that all your hot drinks are Fairtrade. 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. 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.
OK so lets say, you specialise in a value for money service, how would you then write your catering tenders? the secret to this is to only bid for tenders that fit within your business model. Not everyone will be looking for the best quality ingredients. So if you only write catering tenders for those companies, you’ll have a greater chance of success.
Writing catering tenders is a difficult balancing act. The potnetial client either way is going to be looking for value in the service when reading through the catering tenders submitted for consideration.