3 Things You Need to Do Before Finalizing Your Corporate Event Menu

Corporate catering is a great way to liven up your company’s office party or outing. After all, corporate events are about socializing, celebrating, and unwinding, right? Make it great with delicious food. But wait– don’t finalize that taco party menu just yet. Especially if you’re working in a medium to large size company, there are a few key questions you need to ask the team to have everything juuust right.

List any allergies in the office.

Allergies are huge. Always check first for any food allergies from people in the office. With common American cuisine like tacos (Americans eat over 4 billion of them every year), it’s likely that people will be familiar enough with staple ingredients that they won’t have any surprise allergies at the event. Ask them the severity; for example, someone may have lactose intolerance or a mild dairy allergy, but they’re fine if they just skip the cheese when hitting up the taco bar. Others may have a severe enough allergy that you’ll want to special order them completely separate food or change the initial event menu ideas for their safety.

Take a poll on preferred meats/ non-allergy dietary restrictions.

Do you have vegetarians in the office? Religious restrictions on certain meats? After specifically asking about dangerous allergies, focusing on respectful meal planning is next. As corporate culture shifts to become more respectful towards everyone’s life choices, surely corporate catering can follow suit. Many caterers, even ones serving heavily meaty foods like in Mexican dishes, offer options accommodating common dietary restrictions.

Establish the acceptable kinds of sides and drinks.

There are always a million preferences for the kinds of drinks and sides you can serve. Stick to around three kinds of each. Three choices of sides and three choices of drink should give you enough variety to please almost everyone without inflating your budget or overwhelming your caterer. Remember to consider the allergies and dietary restrictions we discussed previously!

Now that you’ve got these three factors figured out, go ahead and finalize that menu! Event planning can be stressful, so remember to take a break and enjoy yourself during the event itself.