Catering Tenders – Should You Bid on Quality or Price?

Anyone looking to write Catering Tenders face the same taxing question. It’s the old, do I focus my catering tender on the high quality of the food or the low cost of the service?

It’s a question you should have answered when you first set up your catering services company. Where you have chosen to position yourself in the market should have an impact on how you write your catering tenders.

You will get knowwhere selling expensive high qaulity food if you pride yourself on a value for money service. 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.

There have been many changes in the way Catering tenders for schools are written, 3 years ago you would have only been successful if your tender was competative on cost. Since a high profile campaign by Jamie Oliver to raise catering standards in schools you might want to emphasise your quality.

Yet even in this example the answer isn’t clear cut. Schools can’t afford to look like they provide substandard, low quality food. They must also though, watch their costs as their budgets may not be as large as corporate companies.

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. 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. Perhaps you only use organic ingredients. It could be that all your hot drinks are Fairtrade. Justify your slightly higher prices in your catering tenders while explaining why that matters.

Make sure any claims you make within your catering tender are backed 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. Your suceess rate will be much higher if you only write catering tenders for businesses who are looking for a low budget service.

Getting the balance right for writing catering tenders is not the easiest. The potnetial client either way is going to be looking for value in the service when reading through the catering tenders submitted for consideration.