What this life looks like
You feed events, celebrations, and communities at scale. Caterers plan, prepare, and serve food for events of all sizes — from small family celebrations to large corporate functions and weddings. It is a trade that combines culinary skill with operational management — coordinating food production, staffing, logistics, and service to deliver quality food experiences for large groups in venues that may lack professional kitchen facilities.
What she actually does
You consult with clients about menus, portion sizes, and event requirements, cost and price catering packages, source ingredients and manage supplier relationships, plan and execute large-scale food production, manage a team of cooks and servers, transport and set up food service at event venues, serve food professionally during events, ensure food safety compliance throughout, manage budgets and invoicing, and build the client relationships that generate repeat bookings and referrals.
Where you can work
| Sector | Places in Africa |
|---|---|
| Your Own Business | Independent catering businesses serving events and corporate clients — the most common catering business model in Africa |
| Events Companies | Event management companies employing in-house caterers or regularly commissioning independent caterers |
| Corporate Catering | Office catering contracts — consistent, predictable income stream for established caterers |
| Institutional Catering | Schools, hospitals, and other institutions requiring regular food service — stable, volume-based contracts |
Why it matters in Africa
Africa's vibrant celebrations culture — weddings, naming ceremonies, funerals, church events, political rallies, school graduations, and corporate functions — generates enormous catering demand. African catering is dominated by small and medium businesses serving community and family events, and the combination of culinary skill and business acumen required to build a successful catering business is a pathway many African women have taken to economic independence.
Your pathway in
- Build cooking skills across a range of dishes appropriate to your target market: wedding and events catering typically covers a wider range than restaurant cooking
- Develop large-scale cooking techniques: cooking for 100 people requires different timing, equipment, and workflow than cooking for 10 — understanding production cooking at scale is a distinct skill from household cooking
- Build business skills: costing menus, pricing for profit, writing contracts, and managing payment terms are as important as culinary quality for a sustainable catering business
- Invest in appropriate equipment progressively: chafing dishes, large pots, serving equipment, and transport solutions are the operational infrastructure of catering
- Build a referral network: the best source of catering business is satisfied clients and the wedding and events industry professionals — planners, venue managers, photographers — who trust you to recommend
Skills you will need
- Large-scale menu planning and production
- Food safety at volume
- Event logistics and transport
- Staff management during events
- Menu costing and pricing
- Client consultation and contract management
A woman in this field
Adejoké Bakare
Nigeria
Adejoké "Joké" Bakare is a Nigerian-born culinary trailblazer and the founder and head chef of Chishuru, a highly acclaimed West African restaurant located in Fitzrovia, London. In February 2024, she made history by becoming the first Black female chef in the UK—and only the second in the world—to earn a Michelin star. Born and raised in Kaduna, Nigeria, Bakare grew up in a multicultural household with a Yoruba father and an Igbo mother, heavily exposing her to the diverse regional flavors of Nigeria. A self-taught chef, her love for food began early, inspired by her paternal grandmother who made Yoruba street food. While studying biological sciences at Ahmadu Bello University, she even ran a fish-and-chips cart.
Take your first step
- Volunteer to cook for a large community event — a church function, a family celebration, or a community gathering — and take responsibility for the logistics as well as the cooking. The experience of managing food production for large groups reveals the operational challenges that professional caterers manage routinely
- Research your local food safety requirements: most African countries require food handling certificates and kitchen inspection for commercial food businesses — understanding what is needed before you start operating protects both your clients and your business
- Cost a simple catering menu: list the ingredients needed to serve jollof rice, chicken, and plantain to 50 people, price them at current market rates, add your labour cost and overhead, and calculate a profitable per-person price. This exercise teaches the fundamental economics of catering
- Study food temperature safety: understanding the danger zone (4°C--60°C), how to hot-hold food safely, and how to transport food without risk of contamination is safety-critical knowledge for anyone serving food to the public
Careers close to this one
- Bakery Owner/Baker
- Street Food Entrepreneur
- Event Planner
- Event Decorator
- Chef