How do you start a catering business in India? Pick one kind of catering, price your menu per plate and get your licence from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). Then set up the kitchen, find suppliers and staff, take advance bookings and win your first clients.
The licence rules are different for caterers. An event caterer needs an FSSAI licence, not basic registration, while a home tiffin service may be able to register.
This guide takes you through the seven steps in order. After them come the catering trends worth trying, and a short section for anyone starting a catering business from home.
Key Takeaways
- Choose one kind of catering to start with.
- Price every menu per plate, from its food cost.
- Get the right FSSAI licence or registration.
- Set up a kitchen that can cook large batches safely.
- Line up suppliers and staff before the first event.
- Put each booking in a written quote, with an advance.
- Win clients through tastings, Google, ads and past customers.
How to Start a Catering Business in India in 7 Steps
These seven steps take you from an idea to your first paid event. Do them roughly in this order, because the early steps shape the later ones.
1. Pick the kind of catering to start with
Catering is several businesses under one name. Pick one to start with, because each needs a different menu, team and setup.
| Kind of catering | Who it serves | What it needs most |
|---|---|---|
| Event catering | Weddings, parties, religious functions | Large batches, serving staff, transport |
| Corporate catering | Office lunches, meetings, events | Fixed menus, delivery on time, GST invoices |
| Home or tiffin catering | Families and working people, daily | A small menu, a delivery routine |
| Institutional catering | Canteens in offices, schools, factories | A long contract, steady volumes |
You also choose between onsite and offsite catering. Onsite, you cook at the venue. Offsite, you cook in your own kitchen and carry the food there. Our guide to types of caterers covers each in more detail.
2. Plan your menu and price it per plate
Caterers quote per plate, so work out the price of each menu from what one plate costs you to make. Then decide what share of the price the food may take, known as your food cost ratio.
An example. Say a caterer in Vastrapur, Ahmedabad works out that one plate of a wedding menu costs ₹182 in ingredients. They decide food should be about a third of the price, so the price is three times the food cost: ₹182 × 3 = ₹546. They quote around ₹550 a plate. For 200 guests, the ingredients alone come to ₹36,400.
Keep the first menu short: a few starters, mains and desserts you can make well for the largest booking you plan to take. Our guide to running a profitable buffet shows how to work out the cost per guest.
3. Get the right FSSAI licence or registration
An event caterer needs an FSSAI licence before the first paid event. Small food businesses can take basic registration for ₹100 a year, but the food safety rules leave caterers out of that group.
The FoSCoS eligibility sheet lists “Caterer” as its own kind of business. It puts caterers on a State licence at ₹2,000 a year, and caterers above a turnover limit on a Central licence.
On 1 April 2026, FSSAI changed its turnover limits for food businesses, under an order of 13 March 2026. The order does not mention caterers or say where a caterer’s Central licence starts, so confirm your category on FoSCoS when you apply.
You will also need GST registration once your sales cross the limit for services in your state. The GST rate on catering depends on where and how you serve, so confirm yours with your accountant before you send your first quote.
Your state and city may ask for a shops registration or a trade licence too. If you plan to serve alcohol at events, check with your state excise department first.
4. Set up your catering kitchen
Your kitchen has to cook large batches safely and keep food safe until it is served. Plan it around the size of event you take most often.
- Use commercial LPG. The 14.2 kg domestic cylinder is supplied for home use. Clause 3 of the LPG (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order, 2000 bars using it for any other purpose, so take a commercial connection.
- Keep food hot or cold in transit, in insulated containers, so it reaches the venue the way it left your kitchen.
- Hire what you use rarely. Extra chafing dishes and burners for an occasional large wedding can be hired rather than bought.
Your city’s fire rules apply to the kitchen too. Our fire NOC guide covers what the fire department asks for.
5. Line up suppliers and staff
A catering order lands all at once: 300 plates of one menu on one day. Fix your suppliers and your team before you take that order, not after.
Agree rates with two suppliers for each main ingredient, so one late delivery does not stop an event. Petpooja’s Purchase Manager shows what each supplier charges for an ingredient. You can then pick the cheapest. It works on the Android POS and on the desktop versions (Local and Electron), not on Lite.
For staff, keep a small core team of cooks, and a list of serving staff you can call for larger events.
6. Put each booking in a written quote
A catering booking is a promise made weeks ahead, so put it in writing. The quote shows the menu, the guest count and the price per plate. It also lists what is included, such as staff, crockery and transport. Then come the advance and the date the balance is due.
Say how long the client can change the guest count, and how much of the advance you keep if they cancel. In the example below, the advance is 30%, and the balance and final guest count are due seven days before the event. The cancellation line says the advance is kept as agreed.
CATERING QUOTE Event: wedding (menu attached) Guests: 200 Menu, per plate ₹550 Total (200 plates) ₹1,10,000 Included: staff, crockery, transport GST: as applicable Advance on booking (30%) ₹33,000 Balance due 7 days before Final guest count due 7 days before If cancelled: advance kept as agreed An example quote for a wedding of 200 guests. The figures are illustrations, not standard rates.Then record the booking as an advance order in your POS on the day the client pays.
Advance orders work on every POS version. The Lite and Android POS show the amount paid and the balance pending on the screen and the printed bill. The Advance Order Summary report lists every advance order, with each customer and the charges. The Lite and Android POS have a limited set of reports, so check that yours shows it.
7. Win and keep catering clients
A tasting is a direct way to win a first booking, because people are more likely to book food they have tasted. A tasting for a few wedding planners or office managers costs one batch, and it can lead to a booking.
Then make it easy to find you:
- Google Business Profile. A caterer that serves clients only at the client’s venue is a service-area business. Google’s rules say it should hide its address and list the areas it serves. If clients also visit your kitchen, you may show the address.
- Ads. Ads on Meta and Snapchat reach people who have never tasted your food (see the note below).
- WhatsApp to past clients. Message only people who gave you their number and agreed to hear from you, as WhatsApp’s business policy requires.
For WhatsApp, use Marketing Manager. This tool sends campaigns for you. It has ready-made templates for festivals and events. Add your menu, the price per plate and the last booking date for a festival to the template.
Marketing Manager groups your customers by their visits and spending. That lets you pick which past clients get a campaign. Send it only to those who agreed to hear from you. The dashboard shows each campaign’s WhatsApp read rate, so you can see how many people read it before you send the next one.
What I could recommend from my end. To find clients, use Petpooja and its Marketing Manager. Its ads on Meta and Snapchat, and its influencer marketing, reach people who have never tasted your food. Marketing Manager also keeps your ads, reviews, referrals and campaigns in one place, working from the customer list your POS already holds. So once clients have agreed to hear from you, the same dashboard helps bring them back for the next event.
What Makes a Catering Business Successful Today?
A successful catering business today does two things. It is reliable on the day, with food on time and a quote it keeps. And it gives guests something to talk about after the event, which helps bring the next booking.
For corporate, tiffin and institutional catering, reliability is most of the job: the same food, on time, every day. For event catering, the second part matters more. Wedding caterers interviewed by WeddingSutra describe couples moving away from overwhelming buffets towards curated menus, comfort food and counters that put on a show.
What gets a concept talked about and shared? The same feature describes croffle stations as bringing together “theatre, customisation, and visual appeal”. Live counters have all three. Other concepts win guests over on taste or memory instead.
These are concepts from that feature an event caterer can try:
- Live dessert stations, such as affogatos or croffles, made in front of guests.
- A late-night menu for the after-party: mini vada pavs, pav bhaji or masala fries.
- Regional dishes from home, a taste of the couple’s own family food, served in a new way.
- Old favourites with a new look, like baraf ka gola, which the feature says is making a comeback at weddings.
A second WeddingSutra round-up adds a chaat grazing table, where guests build their own chaat at do-it-yourself stations, and a gelato bar.
Pick one concept that suits your kitchen and cost it per plate (step 2). Then photograph it the first time you serve it, so you have pictures to show the next client.
Starting a Catering Business From Home
You can start a catering business from home, and some caterers begin with tiffins or small orders this way. Which FSSAI category you fall into depends on what you sell.
- Tiffins and packed meals. The FoSCoS eligibility sheet (step 3) lists “Home Based Canteens / Dabba Wallas” for businesses that distribute packed meals. That category can take basic registration, for a turnover of up to ₹1.5 crore under FSSAI’s March 2026 order.
- Event catering from home. Cooking for weddings and parties is event catering, so the “Caterer” rules in step 3 apply, even from a home kitchen.
A home food business needs a commercial LPG connection too (step 4). A tiffin kitchen must meet FSSAI’s hygiene rules for small food businesses. A licensed caterer’s kitchen must meet the terms of its licence. Ask your local municipal office if you need its permission to run a food business from home. And keep business cooking separate from family cooking, with its own stock and its own record of orders.
Conclusion
Starting a catering business in India comes down to doing a few things in order. Start narrow, with one kind of catering and a short menu priced per plate. Get the right FSSAI licence or registration before your first paid order.
After that, the business runs on promises kept: food that arrives safe, staff who turn up, and a written quote for every booking. Track each advance in the restaurant POS you bill on.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if a client cancels after paying the advance?
That depends on what your quote says, which is why step 6 puts cancellation terms in it. Decide how much of the advance you keep, and whether that changes with how close the event is, before you send the quote.
Can I start with tiffins and move into events later?
Yes. But your FSSAI category changes when you start catering events. Apply for a caterer’s licence before you take your first event booking, not after.
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Khyati Tiwari is a content writer at Petpooja. Besides that, she is always busy finding the right song for her mood. For any queries reach her at khyati.tiwari@petpooja.com
