 | The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with Western culture and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(November 2014) |
Catering is the business of providing food services at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio.
The earliest account of major services being catered in the United States was an event for William Howe of Philadelphia in 1778. The event served local foods that were a hit with the attendees, who eventually popularized catering as a career. The official industry began to be recognized around the 1820’s, with the caterers being disproportionately African-American. [1] The catering business began to form around 1820, centered in Philadelphia. [1] [2]
The industry began to professionalize under the reigns of Robert Bogle who is recognized as "the originator of catering." [2] Catering was originally done by servants of wealthy elites. Butlers and house slaves, which were often black, were in a good position to become caterers. Essentially, caterers in the 1860s were "public butlers" as they organized and executed the food aspect of a social gathering. A public butler was a butler working for several households. Bogle took on the role of public butler and took advantage of the food service market in the hospitality field. [3] Caterers like Bogle were involved with events likely to be catered today, such as weddings and funerals. [3] Bogle also is credited with creating the Guild of Caterers and helping train other black caterers. [3] This is important because catering provided not only jobs to black people but also opportunities to connect with elite members of Philadelphia society. Over time, the clientele of caterers became the middle class, who could not afford lavish gatherings and increasing competition from white caterers led to a decline in black catering businesses. [3]
By the 1840s many restaurant owners began to combine catering services with their shops. Second-generation caterers grew the industry on the East Coast, becoming more widespread. [2] Common usage of the word "caterer" came about in the 1880s at which point local directories began to use these term to describe the industry. [1] White businessmen took over the industry by the 1900’s, with the Black Catering population disappearing. [1]
In the 1930s, the Soviet Union, creating more simple menus, began developing state public catering establishments as part of its collectivization policies. [4] A rationing system was implemented during World War II, and people became used to public catering. After the Second World War, many businessmen embraced catering as an alternative way of staying in business after the war. [5] By the 1960s, the home-made food was overtaken by eating in public catering establishments. [4]
By the 2000s, personal chef services started gaining popularity, with more women entering the workforce.[ citation needed ] People between 15 and 24 years of age spent as little as 11–17 minutes daily on food preparation and clean-up activities in 2006-2016, according to figures revealed by the American Time Use Survey conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. [6] There are many types of catering, including Event catering, Wedding Catering and Corporate Catering.
An event caterer serves food at indoor and outdoor events, including corporate and workplace events and parties at home and venues.
A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle, cart or truck which is designed for the purpose. Mobile catering is common at outdoor events such as concerts, workplaces, and downtown business districts. Mobile catering services require less maintenance costs when compared with other catering services. Mobile caterers may also be known as food trucks in some areas.
Seat-back catering was a service offered by some charter airlines in the United Kingdom (e.g., Court Line, which introduced the idea in the early 1970s, and Dan-Air [7] ) that involved embedding two meals in a single seat-back tray. "One helping was intended for each leg of a charter flight, but Alan Murray, of Viking Aviation, had earlier revealed that 'with the ingenious use of a nail file or coin, one could open the inbound meal and have seconds'. The intention of participating airlines was to "save money, reduce congestion in the cabin and give punters the chance to decide when to eat their meal". [8] By requiring less galley space on board, the planes could offer more passenger seats. [9]
According to TravelUpdate's columnist, "The Flight Detective", "Salads and sandwiches were the usual staples," and "a small pellet of dry ice was put into the compartment for the return meal to try to keep it fresh." [9] However, in addition to the fact that passengers on one leg were able to consume the food intended for other passengers on the following leg, there was a "food hygiene" problem, [8] and the concept was discontinued by 1975. [9]
A canapé caterer serves canapés at events. They have become a popular type of food at events, Christmas parties and weddings.
A canapé is a type of hors d'oeuvre, a small, prepared, and often decorative food, consisting of a small piece of bread or pastry. They should be easier to pick up and not be bigger than one or two bites. The bite-sized food is usually served before the starter or main course or alone with drinks at a drinks party.
A wedding caterer provides food for a wedding reception and party, traditionally called a wedding breakfast. A wedding caterer can be hired independently or can be part of a package designed by the venue. There are many different types of wedding caterers, each with their approach to food.
Merchant ships – especially ferries, cruise liners, and large cargo ships – often carry Catering Officers. In fact, the term "catering" was in use in the world of the merchant marine long before it became established as a land-bound business.[ citation needed ]
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V., is the flag carrier of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM group and a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance. Founded in 1919, KLM is the oldest operating airline in the world, and has 35,488 employees with a fleet of 110 as of 2021. KLM operates scheduled passenger and cargo services to 145 destinations.
A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearance and offerings, including a wide variety of cuisines and service models ranging from inexpensive fast-food restaurants and cafeterias to mid-priced family restaurants, to high-priced luxury establishments.
Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (CPA), more widely known as Cathay Pacific, is the largest carrier of Hong Kong with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and its subsidiaries have scheduled passenger and cargo services to over 190 destinations and more than 60 countries worldwide including codeshares and joint ventures. Cathay Pacific operates a fleet consisting of Airbus A321neo, Airbus A330, Airbus A350, and Boeing 777 aircraft. Cathay Cargo operates two models of the Boeing 747. Defunct wholly-owned subsidiary airline Cathay Dragon, which ceased operations in 2020, operated to 44 destinations in the Asia-Pacific region from its Hong Kong base. In 2010, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Cargo, together with Cathay Dragon, transported nearly 27 million passengers and over 1.8 million tons of cargo and mail.
Recipe Unlimited Corporation is a Canadian company that operates several restaurant chains such as Swiss Chalet, Harvey's and The Keg, and food distribution for large operations.
A food truck is a large motorized vehicle or trailer equipped to store, transport, cook, prepare, serve, and/or sell food.
Business class is a travel class available on many commercial airlines and rail lines, known by brand names which vary, by airline or rail company. In the airline industry, it was originally intended as an intermediate level of service between economy class and first class, but many airlines now offer business class as the highest level of service, having eliminated first class seating. Business class is distinguished from other travel classes by the quality of seating, food, drinks, ground service and other amenities. In commercial aviation, full business class is usually denoted 'J' or 'C' with schedule flexibility, but can be many other letters depending on circumstances.
An airline meal, airline food, or in-flight meal is a meal served to passengers on board a commercial airliner. These meals are prepared by specialist airline catering services and are normally served to passengers using an airline service trolley.
Finger foods are small, individual portions of food that are eaten out of hand. They are often served at social events. The ideal finger food usually does not create any mess, but this criterion is often overlooked in order to include foods like tacos. One origin for finger foods is the French canapé.
Mobile catering is the business of selling prepared food from some sort of vehicle. It is a feature of urban culture in many countries. Mobile catering can be performed using food trucks, trailers, carts and food stands with many types of foods that can be prepared. Mobile catering is also used to provide food to people during times of emergency.
Ground support equipment (GSE) is the support equipment found at an airport, usually on the apron, the servicing area by the terminal. This equipment is used to service the aircraft between flights. As the name suggests, ground support equipment is there to support the operations of aircraft whilst on the ground. The role of this equipment generally involves ground power operations, aircraft mobility, and cargo/passenger loading operations.
The Emirates Group is a state-owned Dubai-based international aviation holding company headquartered in Garhoud, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, near Dubai International Airport. The Emirates Group comprises dnata, an aviation services company providing ground handling services at 126 airports, and Emirates Airline, the largest airline in the Middle East. Emirates Airlines flies to over 150 destinations across 6 continents, operating a fleet of over 250 wide-bodied aircraft. The airline has 170 aircraft on order worth US$58 billion. The Emirates Group has a turnover of approximately US$28.3 billion and employs over 105,000 employees across all its business units and associated firms, making it one of the biggest employers in the Middle East. The company is wholly owned by the Government of Dubai directly under the Investment Corporation of Dubai and as part of Dubai Inc.
Dubai National Air Travel Agency is an Emirati airport services provider which provides aircraft ground handling, cargo, travel, and flight catering services across five continents.
Airline reservation systems (ARS) are systems that allow an airline to sell their inventory (seats). It contains information on schedules and fares and contains a database of reservations and of tickets issued. ARSs are part of passenger service systems (PSS), which are applications supporting the direct contact with the passenger.
Royal Brunei Catering is a company whose main business is in the catering and restaurant business. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Brunei Airlines.
Emirates Flight Catering (EKFC) is an in-flight catering service based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which provides catering and support services for Emirates Airline and all other airlines based at Dubai International Airport. It is a subsidiary of The Emirates Group.
Gategroup is a Swiss company providing services to the travel industry, including catering, onboard retail, food service provisioning, and food logistics. It serves as the parent company for four core brands, and is a supplier to many major airlines. Its head office is in Glattbrugg, Switzerland, near Zurich Airport.
ZeroCater is a food service company headquartered in San Francisco, California, specializing in providing companies with catered meals from local restaurants, caterers, and food trucks. The company expanded its offerings in 2017 to include a fully customizable solution for office snacking called ZeroCater Snacks and Kitchens and, in 2018, to deliver alcohol with Zerocater Pours. The company launched Enterprise Catering for companies with 500 or more employees in 2019. Zerocater currently feeds thousands of employees of companies including Slack, PagerDuty, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Salesforce, JUUL, Datadog, and Cisco Meraki. As of November 2017, ZeroCater operates in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
Phila Hach — pronounced "File-ah Hah" was an American chef, restaurant owner, innkeeper, and caterer who authored 17 cookbooks, including recipe collections for the 1982 World's Fair, Opryland USA and Cracker Barrel restaurants. She has been called the "grand dame of southern cooking" and counted as good friends Duncan Hines and Julia Child. Hach catered functions for the United Nations, U.S. mayors and governors, military personnel and celebrities, and was one of the pastry chefs at the wedding of Princess Diana.
On February 3, 1975, 197 people fell ill aboard a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 en route from Anchorage, Alaska, to Copenhagen, Denmark, after consuming an in-flight meal contaminated with Staphylococci. One hundred and forty-four people needed hospitalization, making it the largest food poisoning incident aboard a commercial airliner.
LSG Group, registered as LSG Lufthansa Service Holding AG, is an aviation services company that manages multiple brands, including LSG Sky Chefs and Retail inMotion. The company's world headquarters is located in Neu-Isenburg, near Frankfurt, Germany. Its North American headquarters is located in Irving, Texas, United States. In February 2018, LSG Sky Chefs co-founded the Airline Catering Association, which is based in Brussels, Belgium.
