multiCART A New Concept In Catering Carts

We are having to continually expand to keep pace with the bookings for our catering carts, usually from one of the many event management companies we have formed close working relationships with. With the large selection of fun foods we are offering, we are picking up a fabulous amount of bookings for our carts. There is however one market we haven't penetrated to the same degree, our carts are designed in most cases for high volume servings, usually 300 people upover. We receive regular enquiries from people organising small private parties, dinner events and the like. usually for anything from 20 to 100 people. In these cases our carts can prove a little expensive, especially if the client fancies two or three different products. To better serve this market we have been trialling a new flexible cart system we have christened multiCART.

We have trialled the multiCART system at around 30 events this season and it has proven a resounding success. It works on quite a simple principle, instead of our standard candy floss cart with unlimited servings, and say a hot dog cart with 300 servings, you can hire a multiCART 300, this gives the client two items on the same cart with 150 servings of each (in actual fact the system is flexible enough to make it say 200 hot dogs and 100 candy floss, or any combination upto 300 in total). The best part is the price, we can offer this at the same price as one of our standard candy floss carts. The multiCART is available in various offerings with 300,500,700 servings. The bigger packages allow you to pick an additional item, giving a total of three different products on a combined cart. We have proven the concept at, amongst others, dinner parties, small birthday parties, bar mitzvahs and wedding receptions.



We believe that this system, along with our standard range of carts and the new microCART designed for venues with limited space, gives us one of the broadest offerings of fun catering carts in the UK.

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“The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step.” Lao Tzu

Over the last 4 days we have racked up just short of 1500 miles. We started with a trip down to Cornwall to deliver a humber of attractions that are going out on medium term hire to a tourist attraction. We arrived home late Friday evening, then Saturday morning were up for one of our many trips to the capital, this time with a candy floss and popcorn cart to a major film studio for an after film "wrap" party. We finished it off on Sunday by taking ice cream, popcorn and candy floss carts through to a venue in Cheshire for a wedding reception. A friend of mine, Cornelius , was already there having set up a carousel the day before. He was talking to the venue owner when I arrived, as I walked up the owner looked at me then asked Cornelius if I was his son! LOL, the ironic thing is I think he is actually younger than me, he must have had a tougher paper round than me.

Our new range of microCARTS finally received their top frames and one of them was in operation at the event, (pictured below);



I now have a couple of days breathing space, then we are in operation at Sunderland, Newcastle, Richmond, Cornwall, Leeds, Preston and Liverpool all before the end of the week.

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If you are an event planner, wedding planner of someone who has just been tasked with planning an event you should know that choosing the right caterers can make or break your event. Sub standard catering can, at best, leave your client unimpressed, at worst leave him off work with food poisoning. A quick search on Google will leave you with a bewildering list of potential catering companies, so how can you go about minimising the chances of using a caterer who just isn't up to the job?

A traditional method of checking a caterer out is to ask for references. You are quite entitled to do this, and if your caterer objects, then strike him off your list. Once you have a reference, its no good just putting it to one side, contact the named referee and ask for details of work carried out for them by your prospective caterer. Its work asking at this point just what sort of events have been catered for, there is little point in appointing a catering company who specialise in small dinner parties for a couple of dozen people if you are trying to feed 2000 delegates at a major conference.

Once you have whittled your list down to a select few, the next item on your agenda should be health and hygiene. A company may be able to provide the most mouth watering menu imaginable, but if their hygiene is suspect it can still ruin both your event and your reputation, not to mention losing a valuable client.

It is a requirement of most local authorities that catering staff should all hold at the very least a basic or level 2 hygiene certificate. Again any reputable company should be more than willing to furnish you with copies of these certificates for all of their staff. The company itself should have been checked out by their local health department and records of this inspection should be available. Many councils are part of the scores on doors scheme, whereby each catering business is inspected and graded from 0 to 5 stars (some councils use a similar scheme which have unsatisfactory, satisfactory and excellent rather than stars). An initial impression may be that 4 stars (or satisfactory) is quite good. The fact is that you can score 4 stars and have upto 3 failings with your hygiene procedures, so anything less than 5 or excellent indicates a company that is less than fully hygienic.

When there is a vast choice of 5 star caterers to choose from why settle for sub standard operators?

Once you have selected a caterer you are comfortable with its time to choose a menu. This has to be a balance between what your clients would like, and what your caterer can realistically provide. Don't forget that serving 2000 guests simultaneously isn't as easy as providing meals for a family of 4 on a Sunday lunchtime.

Its worth involving your client with menu selection, as ultimately they are the people you are trying to please. If you are planning a conference for Asian or Caribbean delegates, they may not appreciate pie and peas all round.

You should also have something in place for those delegates who for religious or other reasons cannot eat your main choice, the most obvious are vegetarians, but you may have gluten intolerant guests or people who have trouble with lactose products. Also some food items such as seafood or peanuts can have severe consequences for people with allergies.

You would be as well taking heed of your caterers comments at this point, he/she will know what can and cannot be done in the timescale you have, and demanding totally unrealistic service will leave your caterer stressed out and you with a client unimpressed with the final result.

A little forward planning and common sense can result in a successful event that does wonders for your reputation, and leaves you with a highly delighted client.

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A few days ago, at just after 6 in the morning, my phone rang. It turned out to be my Mother in Law telling me that their alsation dog had died through the night and would I bury him, just what I wanted to do first thing in the morning. Anyway I got dressed and went round, found my gloves, the hole was dug and I approached the dog box to retrieve the body. A leg was sticking out of the side of the box, and I thought "Great, the dog is going to be as stiff as a board and I'll struggle to get him out the bloody box". I bent down and stuck my head in the box to assess the situation, when the bloody dog sat up and looked me straight in the eye! Lucky he did for another few minutes would have seen him buried alive. My Mother in Law exclaimed that she had checked him twice and he wasn't moving, God help my Father in Law if he falls asleep at the wrong time, we'll be digging a bigger hole.

Anyway, it turned out to be a temporary reprieve, I buried the dog for real two days later.

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