New food based business, inspiration!

[21TonyK]

Anyone seen anything amazing lately? I've always been self employed and having now been "employed" for a year I'm getting the itch to do something again, albeit on a small scale to subsidise my megre salary

Have capital and some equipment of my own plus cheap access to a full production kitchen.

Thinking about simple outside catering, hog roasts etc but TBH that's a bit boring! I'd be available every weekend and all summer to capitalise on events, wedding etc but not looking for 5am starts and a lot of travel. Plenty of food markets etc within 50 miles of me every weekend.

Just looking for something interesting to fill the time and make a bit of money for a new track car!

[Hoofy]

21TonyK said:

Thinking about simple outside catering, hog roasts etc but TBH that's a bit boring! I'd be available every weekend and all summer to capitalise on events, wedding etc but not looking for 5am starts and a lot of travel. Plenty of food markets etc within 50 miles of me every weekend.

There maybe something you can do with children's parties as they're generally weekend afternoons. Can you create fun food? Could you even get the children involved?

[21TonyK]

Hoofy said:

There maybe something you can do with children's parties as they're generally weekend afternoons. Can you create fun food? Could you even get the children involved?

No money in it and I work with kids all damn day, last thing i'd want to do is be around the little sods on my day off!

But thanks for the thought anyway!

[dudleybloke]

Try and get a UK franchise of this new dining experience.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3084326/Ni...

The soup has got a lot of body.

[Hoofy]

21TonyK said:

Hoofy said:

There maybe something you can do with children's parties as they're generally weekend afternoons. Can you create fun food? Could you even get the children involved?

No money in it and I work with kids all damn day, last thing i'd want to do is be around the little sods on my day off!

But thanks for the thought anyway!

No money? Depends what you do. Local climbing centre charges about £100 for an hour with maybe 6 kids, the wall is going to be there anyway and used by others so the cost is really just insurance and £10 for the instructor.

Dunno what food costs are but if you cooked something that kids liked for a couple of hours, you could probably charge £100-200 for a party of 15 kids. Partner up with a DJ for a kids' disco? Or some other entertainer. Food's not my industry, though.

[mattdaniels]

How about one of those "in home" restaurant quality dining experiences for dinner parties and the like?

[MentalSarcasm]

21TonyK said:

Plenty of food markets etc within 50 miles of me every weekend.

Have you looked to see if there's anything particular missing from there? There's a local market near me held once a month that has quite a few food businesses; one does sweets, three do cakes and biscuits, one sells Caribbean food, one does samosas with a variety of fillings, one does pancakes, one does selections of olives from around the Med, one does sausage rolls and pies to be heated at home (although in this case I believe they're from a farm so they're using their own livestock), and there's also a local cafe that does pies, cakes and cheese straws.

Probably the one thing I have yet to see is someone selling jams (although I think the olive person does chutnies), which is a bit annoying especially around Christmas as I'd like to get some good quality homemade jams as gifts for people. Supermarkets tend to stick to just strawberry/raspberry/blackcurrant jams, whereas nowadays there's a huge variety of recipes online.

That said making jam is probably quite boring for a professional, but you could do thinks like takeaway salads or cold pastries? Maybe have a wander around a few of these markets and see if there's anything in particular that's missing.

[joshcowin]

Would you have the time/equipment to make large amounts of a single product?

Peanut butter
Healthy bars
Gronola

People are more switched on about food now so possibly healthier food is the way to go?

I would be attracted to a market stool/ website selling healthier products as opposed to cakes,pies and pastries!

[crxdave]

joshcowin said:

Would you have the time/equipment to make large amounts of a single product?

Peanut butter
Healthy bars
Gronola

People are more switched on about food now so possibly healthier food is the way to go?

I would be attracted to a market stool/ website selling healthier products as opposed to cakes,pies and pastries!

Specialist interest...

On a serious note, healthy food would seem like the logical way to go. Possibly less competition, and your customers are likely to spend a bit more..?