Catering a moveable feast

There is a growth in both demand and supply for catering services in the city, especially given that in the past there was a significantly lower amount of options for hosting parties or social events – and local business owners are seizing the opportunity while wading through the challenges.
Tinna Ho, owner of Lakeport Party Paradise – a local catering company that offers party venues, banquet and catering services – told Business Daily that her business was originally opened as a café and subsequently expanded its operation to offer catering and party services upon spotting a significant demand for them in 2013.
“There is a demand for the catering business in Macau as people in the past used to host a social gathering at a traditional Chinese restaurant or a ballroom in a hotel,” Ho said.
Ho witnesses that over the past three years catering businesses have increased in number and offerings in the city, especially with regard to events for the younger members of society.
“People nowadays do not only go to McDonald’s to host a birthday party; they now have more options than before,” Ho explained, going on to comment that the key advantage in the business is to have an accessible and centrally located venue such as near a public car park and providing large enough space for children to play in a playground.
Coming together
Matt Ng, owner of Taste Gather, a local catering company that began operations in 2015, also seized his opportunity after noting the lack of catering choices in the territory.
“Most of the city’s cafés and restaurants offer catering services but there aren’t many professional ones only focusing on catering services,” Ng said.
Maggie Chiang, director and executive chef of Maquette, a local French and Italian restaurant which offers tailor-made catering services, opened in 2013 and has a contrary view.
“There is potential for Macau to develop a catering business. At this stage, Macau still doesn’t have sufficient demand for holding events with catering provided. It will take a few years to develop a culture of eating for running events,” she explained.
Chiang says that although there has been an increase in events in Macau catering services are not necessarily always involved.
She suggests education on food catering in the form of workshops to stimulate an increase in demand for catering services in the city. She said that holding events that have a food element could lead to a higher level of satisfaction in client experience.
“Food can make people come together for networking with each other over drinking and eating,” Ms. Chiang added.
Difficulty
Like many other small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Macau, lack of human resources is a major issue for operating a catering business given the fact that the amount of staff needed is high.
“We need quite a lot of staff to offer catering services in order to host a social event but it is very difficult for us to hire people here as our staff turnover is high,” Ms. Chiang conceded.
“Most of our staff only worked for us for a short period of time and then they left us to work for casinos,” laments Tinna Ho.
To counter this, Ho suggests that building up a professional local brand name in the catering business is essential for making workers feel proud of working in the local catering business. Another solution is to increase workers’ salaries.
Competition
With new casino resorts opening, more people now choose to go to casinos for dining and entertainment, which have also created a threat for local catering businesses, comment the business owners.
Ho notes that with regard to her Lakeport Party Paradise business upgrading professional catering services is the key to staying competitive. This includes obtaining professional catering certificates in Hong Kong and overseas. Another, alternative, strategy is to keep the price affordable for everyone, she added.
Ho said the local government should pursue initiatives other than only disbursing interest-free loans to SMEs as she has witnessed that many café and eateries in Taipa run by young people have recently closed due to their lack of experience in running an F&B business. She suggests the government provide more professional training and classes in the food and beverage area in order to increase professionalism in the business whilst creating more manpower for the industry.
Marketing
But waiting around for government opportunities is not the only way to proceed, notes Ho. Participating in local food exhibitions is another way for the local SME food businesses to promote itself in the city
“We participate in a food expo each month, such as in The Venetian Macao and Macau Fisherman’s Wharf. It helps us network with other companies within the same industry in order to create further business opportunities. By doing this, we have widened our product choices in our business,” she said.
The three catering companies have also found that word-of-mouth is effective, in addition to employing social media such as Facebook to promote their businesses.