Portable catering is the way to go for flexibility and convenience for your delegates.
Buzzibarista is a barista-standard coffee shop with a difference. Owned by Simon and Pamela Lea this portable catering company runs out of their electric Volkswagen ID Buzz. Taking their EV everywhere from venues UK-wide to the middle of vast open fields, catering for all kinds of events from conferences to team away days – their mobile business model displays how portable catering can secure a high-quality, flexible, and considerate service for your delegates no matter the location.
Portable catering comes in many forms: it could be a gin bar on wheels, or the current event industry trend, food trucks. These mobile and compact catering providers can have numerous positive impacts on your event, one of which is supplementing your venue’s in site catering with an overflow, Simon comments: “We’ve been hired to events where they have a café on-site. For example, one over in Wales called The Park in the Past they already have an indoor cafe but they hire us so we can be facilitating the other end of their park. So, from a catering perspective, their delegates are very well looked after, and they’re offered a little bit more convenience.”
Complaints of high foot traffic to use facilities can shape your delegates perception of your event. Taking into account the reasons people will be using catering facilities, having dedicated services for each function can drastically improve your delegates’ experience. Moreover, if your venue is spread across a large area and only has one refreshment station, with portable catering you can position facilities where your delegates will need them.
Being in the right place at the right time is a major advantage, as Simon describes an event location which posed some challenges: “It was literally in the middle of nowhere, we had to go down a dirt track and across fields.” Pamela adds: “They were trying to show off this new tech because drainage is always a real problem in farms, but we were there to serve coffee to the farmers, drivers, and the people that were interested in buying.” It’s Buzzibarista’s portable, self-sufficient, and electric elements which mean it is able to pitch up anywhere and serve coffee between four to six hours on a single charge, Simon comments: “We can deliver a really nice cup of coffee no matter where we are.”
Sustainability is on everyone’s lips right now. Using an EV is a great way to reduce your catering’s carbon footprint, though it’s important to be aware that mobile catering isn’t intrinsically more sustainable than in-house. Although, most mobile catering companies are independently led meaning sustainable changes can be implemented faster than large industries. Pamela says: “All our sourcing is as sustainable as it possibly can be, the cups aren’t just compostable, they’re domestically compostable and the beans are B Corp certified. We had some extra milk the other day because we didn’t use quite as much as we’d thought so we just went to do another catering event and we used it all up.”