Catering Internship
My internship this semester at Hy-Vee gave me more experience than I exited in the world of catering. I was able to work with some fantastic employees, gain great friendships, and can make significant catering events. Seeing what all goes in catering has given me a new respect for the business and an insight into all the work that goes on in the catering world.
The Hy-Vee Way
The Hy-Vee catering department works a little differently than your typical catering service. Hy-Vee catering managers take orders from customers and provide them with information on the order’s food, prices, details, and other things. They will take catering orders in all different ways, from over the phone, emails to also sit-down orders in person with the customers. The catering order sheet has all the items needed for the event divided out by department with prices. All food items are included on the order sheet, including items needed for the event (Utensils, Napkins, Table Clothes, etc.). They file everything together in order by the dates till the day of the event comes. The departments that are held in charge of the event will gather all items from the departments for the catering. The catering department is more of the middleman at Hy-Vee. However, it will be involved in the catering events themselves when needed.
Catering in the office
It was honestly great fun being able to take someone’s image of what they are looking for and provide them with a great catering event. We have a giant catalog with plenty of items that can be made possible for an event. In the catering department, I needed to know what items we offered and how to make it work at an event. After getting all the items figured out for my customer, I would then list all the items and prices to provide the customer with a pre-order confirmation. After receiving a response on the pre-order, I would make any adjustments that the customer wanted and send them back a final catering order. They would then send a confirmation, and I would then assign the departments their orders for the event. I would file away the primary copy until the event day comes and take the other copies to the departments involved, so they had the event. Once the event was over, I could ring up the order and take payment from the customer and finally end with sending them the receipt. My manager Genie made this all possible who provided a tremendously organized system that made the catering department run efficiently and flawlessly.
Catering Project
My project gave me a fantastic opportunity to do good for the communities and make Hy-Vee money in hard times. COVID put a significant strain on the catering department while it was losing thousands of dollars in sales due to all available events being canceled and our football season caterings. Management had to figure out a way to help balance out these sales. They came up with a great event to host that resulted in over 14000 thousand dollars in sales to combat the COVID loss. The grand event they came up with was a charity-based Hy-Chi event to be hosted in surrounding towns. We went to small towns that did not have a Hy-Vee in the area and hosted Hy-Chi night from 5-7, selling 9 dollar meals. One dollar from each mal purchased was donated to that night’s charity. Overall the events, we made more than 2000 dollars to donate to different charities.
What I did
I got given the task of being in charge of the Hy-Chi night events. It was an exciting new experience, and I loved the ability to be part of such a great event. To start these events, we contacted organizations from different towns that would like Hy-Chi night to serve food for their charity. Once we got an organization for our Hy-Chi night, we would then work out a location and date with them. It was also a perk with partnering with surrounding town organizations to advertise the event for us. Once we had everything set up, we would get ready for the event. We would estimate how many people were to show up so we could let our Asian department manager know for ordering.
On the day of the event, I had a checklist made that made sure we had all the items we needed to bring to the event. We had to provide the tables, tents, tableware, and everything to ensure we could provide an efficient buffet line. I had a team of 3 other people helping me with these events. I assigned them to different tasks to make sure the event ran smoothly. I had us all assigned to set up the tables and tents right when we got there. Then each person was given a job to take care of. I assigned one person to set up all of the Catermates and get the flames going under them to be ready for the food. I assigned another one to unload off the van’s food and get it over to the tent area. I assigned myself to organize the food by type so it would be easy to access when we were running low, and then I would put the food items into the Catermate. The last person was assigned to set up all the sauce baskets, fortune cookies, tableware, and posting the sign on a busy street near our location. After the setup was done, I gave everyone a specific role during the event. I had one person on the kinds of rice, one person for the entrees, and another on appetizers and bagging. My job was to collect payments and provide the customer with information on what he had to sell. Once I got far enough down the line and had some time, I would go back to the table and exchange out anything running low. We would keep this system going till seven, and it was time to close up everything. Once we packed up and got to the store wee just unloaded everything, and I sent home my team while I finished up with rining in all the sales we made that night.
It was an enriching event that I got to hold a few times during my internship. I plan to keep doing this event while I am at Hy-Vee. It gave me some moments of having to make calls on things that were going wrong. For example, we forgot to bring a bag of plates and run out of plates to serve on. After seeing this, I called to store right away and got someone to come out and stock us. It is a very fast-paced event and, I loved doing it. It made me feel excellent knowing I was doing an event for a good cause.
Conclusion
I learned a lot while being at the Ames #2 Hy-Vee. I have a new respect for the catering world and love the environment that it provides. I was able to learn how to deal with customers and the pricing system in catering. I learned new lingo and work ethics that work in the catering world. My biggest accomplishment was being able to be in charge of such a great event on behalf of Hy-Vee. It was indeed a work experience that I can take with me in my future career.