The Growth of a Food Conscious Public Means More Catering Jobs | Career

By AndrewWJohn
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Catering is a business going through a growth spurt. Programs such as Iron Chef and the multitude of cooking programs on TV in recent years have contributed to the growth of this industry. A public increasingly well aware of health benefits from unprocessed foods and interested in well prepared meals has also been a factor. As it stands now, catering is a six billion a year industry.

Given that there is so much money to be made in catering, there are opportunities for nearly anyone to get into the act and begin working for a catering company. There is a high turnover rate in the field, with opening nearly always present for part time workers such as students and stay at home mothers. These vacancies include positions as bartenders, wait staff, prep cooks and dishwashers, among others.

The function of a dishwasher in the restaurant is clear: washing dishes. In catering however, the dishwasher does double duty as busser, picking up dishes and performing bus station cleaning duties as well as the actual dishwashing work. Keeping track of waste is also often part of this job.

Food preparation is probably one of the most daunting of positions. It means a lot of chopping, cutting, slicing and packaging. It is your job to make sure the cooks have the ingredients they need when they need them. If they need ten onions chopped then it is your duty to make sure they are chopped and ready for when he needs them. You may have to handle meats as well as vegetables and pastas. Food preparation workers make salads and soups a lot of times as well as the chef is busy preparing the entre.

Chefs are the most important members of the catering team. In charge of getting all food prepared in a timely fashion and out to the tables, this is far from an easy job. Cooking and plating dishes to make them appealing are the major elements of their work when out on a catering job. The chef also takes care of purchasing ingredients, determining menu items and staffing the catering crew. A chef generally will have a few assistants to farm out some of this work to so that they do not become overburdened. A chef is usually the man (or gal) Friday of the catering company owner. In many cases the owner is also the head chef.

Wait staff for a catering job only has one real function: to get the food out. There are many people to a good catering wait staff. Each waiter or waitress has up to three tables each that they must service. The trick is being able to get the food out quickly and by table so that everyone at one table has their main course, salad, desert all at the same. They need to be fast, gracious, courteous and high-end. Catering jobs are not like working at a local diner. They require class and common sense.

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Interested in working within the culinary world? Thera re are a variety of available positions, including jobs in catering which may be suitable for you. Check out our website for the latest listings: chefsworld.net

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