In Vancouver, a good meal is not hard to find.

Restaurants abound in every conceivable cuisine, with the total number of establishments fluctuating around the 6,000 mark throughout the Lower Mainland. But not all venues are created equal, and when a business or a family is looking for an elegant meal that’s not served in a restaurant, catering is often the answer.



As a result, the catering business is booming, says Sue Singer, founder of the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. “We opened our doors eight years ago and we have just undergone a renovation that more than doubles the size of our operation,” she says.

The Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts was the first fully accredited private cooking school in Canada to incorporate a restaurant and bakeshop. Today, their operations encompass a 13,000-sq.-ft. area that includes teaching kitchens, restaurant, bakeshop and a separate catering kitchen.

Photos by Karen Dyer, Business Edge
Valorie McKay of Divas of Decadence Catering, above, has seen her business heat up in little more than a year, while Derek Good of Low Carb Express, below, puts a contemporary spin on his home-delivery service.

The institute draws aspiring chefs from all over the world. “Our students have come from Italy, France, Brazil, Mexico and every state in the U.S.,” Singer says. “They come here to learn a variety of skills. Our goal is to teach them how to produce classical art on a plate.”

But a conventional life as a chef in a restaurant is not the only career path for students attending this school. “Catering fits into the entrepreneurial spirit that appeals to some of our students,” Singer says, adding that in addition to in-school experience the school provides offsite catering as well.

The institute now has three graduates on staff, one of whom has taken on the position of catering co-ordinator.

“We used to just cater events on the weekends, but now we do it six days a week,” says Singer.

While there is no regulatory system in place to prevent unqualified cooks from coming up with a catchy name and offering a catering service, businesses with staying power have to follow a few rules.

“With restaurants and hotels – conventional food businesses – it’s a pretty straightforward job to check out their kitchens,” says Richard Taki, a manager for health protection with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. “Caterers are a little different. They are still regulated under the provincial health act and they’re also subject to the city bylaws, which tend to be even stricter than the provincial guidelines.”

Any catering facility with a permanent kitchen is subject to these rules, Taki says. In order to get a business licence or take out a permit to serve food, caterers are required to pass an inspection, participate in an eight-hour Food Safe certification course and provide the health authority with a food-safety plan.

The food-safety plan means that caterers must outline their plans for the food – including any foods that must be prepared ahead of time – from delivery of the original ingredients through to the final cleanup after the meal is complete.

Taki notes that in-home caterers provide a bit of a tougher problem for food inspectors. “When the food is being prepared in a private home, we can’t possibly be aware of each case,” he says. Instead, food inspectors act on a complaint. Taki adds that in his 15 years in the industry, he cannot recall a complaint directed at a home caterer.

“The margin of error is also smaller in a home setting,” he adds. With the advent of regulations requiring the food-safety plan, “everyone follows a set procedure,” Taki says.

Catering is not exactly a new idea. Ray Baroni has been catering to Lower Mainland appetites for more than 20 years.

Baroni says that his company, Encore Catering, will take on jobs of all sizes. “I catered a dinner for two last year when my son was getting married and it was a tough job,” he laughs.

Though he regularly takes on small jobs, Baroni is more at home providing food for large groups. This year, he is food services director for the B.C. Summer Games.

“That’s 4,400 meals, three times a day for four days,” he says. Baroni regularly employs 50 staff members, most of whom work out of his restaurant in Abbotsford. “I bring in temporary staff when the job calls for it.”

A typical day in this caterer’s life? “Well, tomorrow we are setting up one event for 800, another for 150, a smaller event for only 50 people and we’re also running an event for 120 on a golf course”.

Over the past 20 years, Baroni has seen some real change in B.C.’s catering industry. “Companies today are more willing than in the past to show themselves off,” he says. “While a lot more people are looking to do home events, most of our catering these days comes out of the corporate side.”

He is quick to point out the intense nature of the catering business. In addition to phone calls, he receives around 20 e-mails every day inquiring about events to feed from 12 to 300 people. “As a company, we have to try to meet or exceed everybody’s expectations. There is a lot of pressure to get the timing right, and people take these events seriously. We want to provide four- or five-star service, regardless of the venue.”

New catering companies are also sprouting up all over the Lower Mainland.

“There seems to be room for a lot of caterers these days,” says caterer Valorie McKay. “People are very willing to pay for quality food.”

McKay and business partner Karen Dodd formed Divas of Decadence in 2003. McKay attributes the Divas’ success to the combination of her own restaurant experience and Dodd’s business acumen. “Everybody brought their own talents to the table and it’s worked really well,” she says.

Like Sue Singer, McKay says a large part of the appeal of catering can be found in the enjoyment of the artistic side of cooking.

“I’m always thinking about the colours and shapes of food on the plate,” McKay says. “I have a graphic arts background and I love the design side of this job.”

McKay notes that as in any small business, tensions arise when business priorities clash with creativity. “You always walk a tightrope balancing how much to spend with the production of a good-looking and good-quality product,” she notes.

Diva temperaments have not gotten in the way of success, as Dodd and McKay have just opened Divas at the Beach, a permanent kitchen location at the Sunset Marina on the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

Derek Good has managed to put a contemporary spin on catering with his home-delivery service. After losing more than 100 pounds on a low-carbohydrate diet a few years back, Good decided to put his money where his mouth was.

“I started with just one customer,” says the 22-year old entrepreneur. “I think I made up 30 low-carb meals that month. This month I’ll produce 5,000 meals.”

His repertoire has expanded, too, as Low Carb Express now provides vegetarian and diabetic-friendly meals.

For $40 a day, Low Carb Express will deliver three pre-packaged meals, three bottles of water and two snacks to your door, anywhere in the Lower Mainland. “People I talked to were interested in the low-carb option, but were sick of eating the same foods every day,” he says. “So I came up with 200 or so meal items and started selling them.”

Good refers to his business as a “higher-end Meals on Wheels service.”

Good’s only investor is his mother Georgie, and lately her return on investment is also looking pretty healthy. Good has just picked up a 3,000-sq.-ft. warehouse in North Vancouver to turn into a kitchen and shipping facility.

“For the past year and a half, business has been so busy that I’ve had to go with a contracted catering service, but opening up my own kitchen will save a lot of money.”

From his humble beginnings in his mother’s kitchen, Good now has one part-time and five full-time employees on his payroll, plus an executive chef who comes to Low Carb Express from a Hyatt Regency in New Zealand.

It’s not an easy gig, but Good loves it. “For quite a while I was getting up before six every morning to do deliveries,” he says. Now business has improved to the point where he can hire two drivers who start their delivery day at 4:30 a.m.

According to Ray Baroni, even after 20 years the intensity of the catering experience is worth it.

“In catering, you’re only as good as your last event,” he says. “You’re always striving to be bigger and better.”

Web watch: www.picularts.bc.ca/home.html www.lowcarbexpress.ca/foodservices.html