Skip to content
ORCHESTR

Industries · Catering companies

Guest count changed.The kitchenalready knows.

We build catering systems that carry every job from the first enquiry to the final invoice — quotes, menu costing, event orders, production sheets, vans and crews on one record, so a change made in sales reaches the kitchen without a phone call.

Build your catering system
Events · This week
Sample
Events this week
14
Guests this week
1,420
Final numbers due
3
Upcoming events
This week
  • EV-1185Client 0412 · wedding dinnerNumbers changed
    Thu 20:00 · Al Barsha · 450 guests (was 420)Production
  • EV-1182Harbor Trading · corporate lunchOn track
    Thu 12:00 · DIFC · 180 guests · buffetProduction
  • EV-1179Northwind Retail · breakfast boxesOn track
    Thu 07:30 · Business Bay · 60 boxesProduction
  • Enquiries & quotes
  • Menu costing
  • Event orders
  • Kitchen production
  • Purchasing
  • Delivery & crews
  • Deposits & invoicing

01Where caterers lose margin

The food is ready. The paperwork isn't.

Most catering companies don't struggle in the kitchen. They struggle in the gap between what sales agreed, what the kitchen prepared and what finance invoiced.

01

Final numbers change and the kitchen hears last

What happens

A client messages the sales manager that the wedding has grown by thirty guests. The production sheet was printed yesterday from the old figure, and nobody updates the purchase order.

What it costs

Short portions on the night, a last-minute supplier run, or food made for guests who never arrive — and an invoice that still shows the original count.

With one system

Guest numbers live on the event order. Change them once and the production quantities, purchasing list, staffing and invoice all recalculate, with the change flagged to the chef.

02

Every quote is rebuilt from the last one

What happens

Sales copies an old spreadsheet, swaps the menu items and adjusts the price per head by feel. Ingredient costs in the sheet are months out of date.

What it costs

Quotes take a day instead of an hour, and nobody knows the real food cost or margin of a job until after it has been served.

With one system

Quotes are built from costed menus and live supplier prices, so the margin is visible before the quote leaves — and approval is required when it falls below your target.

03

The event order exists in five versions

What happens

Timings, dietary requirements, equipment and venue access notes sit in a Word document, an email thread and a WhatsApp group — each slightly different.

What it costs

The service team arrives without the halal certificate the venue asked for, the nut-free meals aren't labelled, or the setup starts an hour late.

With one system

One event order per job, versioned and shared by role: the kitchen sees dishes and dietary counts, logistics sees load-out and access, the service team sees timings.

04

Purchasing is guessed from the week's diary

What happens

The head chef reads through the week's events and orders lamb, rice and produce from memory and experience.

What it costs

Over-ordering that ends as wastage, under-ordering that ends as an expensive emergency purchase, and no record of which events consumed what.

With one system

Purchasing lists come from confirmed events and recipe quantities, grouped by supplier and delivery day, ready for the chef to adjust and approve.

05

Vans, crews and equipment are booked in a group chat

What happens

Drivers, service staff and chafing dishes are allocated by message. Collections after an event depend on someone remembering.

What it costs

Two events promised the same chilled van, waiters who weren't confirmed, and equipment left at a client's office for a week.

With one system

A dispatch and crew schedule built from the event orders, with vehicles, staff and equipment allocated per job and collections scheduled automatically.

06

Deposits and final invoices are chased by memory

What happens

Deposit status sits in a finance spreadsheet; extras added on the day are written on the back of the delivery note.

What it costs

Events served before the deposit landed, extras that never get billed, and month-end spent reconciling notes.

With one system

Deposits, balances and on-the-day extras are tracked on the event itself, and the final invoice is drafted from what was actually delivered.

02Catering platform preview

What your catering system could look like.

Switch between the views sales, the kitchen, logistics and the owner would open every day. Every screen is designed around your menus and your operation in discovery.

Events · This week
Sample
Events this week
14
4 on Thursday
Guests this week
1,420
Across all events
Upcoming events
This week
  • EV-1185Client 0412 · wedding dinnerNumbers changed
    Thu 20:00 · Al Barsha · 450 guests (was 420)Production
  • EV-1182Harbor Trading · corporate lunchOn track
    Thu 12:00 · DIFC · 180 guests · buffetProduction
  • EV-1179Northwind Retail · breakfast boxesOn track
    Thu 07:30 · Business Bay · 60 boxesProduction
  • EV-1190Atlas Group · conference breaksAwaiting client
    Thu–Fri · JLT · 300 guests · numbers due WedFinal numbers
  • EV-1176Dune Properties · staff partyInvoiced
    Served Sat · 140 guests · INV-5530Invoiced

Illustrative interface with sample data — your system is designed around your menus, kitchen and service model.

Illustrative demo · sample data

Can you picture your next busy week on it?

Build your catering system

03Solutions

The parts of a catering system — chosen for your kitchen.

  • Every enquiry answered and followed up

    Enquiry & sales pipeline

    Website forms, WhatsApp, email and phone enquiries land in one pipeline with the event date, guest count and budget captured up front — then move through quote, tasting and confirmation.

    • Source and event-type tracking
    • Owner and reply timers
    • Tasting bookings
    • Lost-reason reporting

Not every catering company needs every module. We scope the ones your operation actually uses, and add the rest when you need them.

04AI inside the system

AI that keeps sales, kitchen and logistics in step.

AI in your catering system works on your own menus, recipes, event orders and quotes. It drafts, recalculates and flags — your team decides.

AI drafts and recalculates; people approve. Prices, menus sent to clients, purchase orders and staff messages are confirmed by your team. Allergen and dietary flags support the chef's check — they never replace it, and final food-safety decisions stay with the kitchen.

  1. 01

    Enquiry triage & draft replies

    Sales sends
    Sort this morning's enquiries and draft first replies.

    Groups new enquiries by event type, date and size, highlights the ones closest to their event date and drafts replies from your menu packs — sales reviews and sends each one.

  2. 02

    Change recalculation

    Chef approves POs
    The client added 30 guests to Thursday's wedding.

    Recalculates portions from recipe yields, updates the production sheet, shows the purchasing shortfall and drafts a revised purchase order and quote amendment — nothing is sent until approved.

  3. 03

    Dietary cross-check

    Supports the chef
    Do Thursday's dietary requests match what we're preparing?

    Compares each event order's dietary counts with the labelled meals on the production sheet and flags gaps — for example six nut-free meals still unlabelled — for the kitchen to resolve.

  4. 04

    Menu proposal drafting

    Draft a canapé menu for a 150-guest launch at about AED 140 per head.

    Builds a proposal from your costed canapé library within the budget, shows the expected food cost and leaves the wording and final selection to sales.

  5. 05

    Reporting in plain language

    Which event types made the best margin last quarter?

    Answers from your own quotes, production and invoices with the figures behind them, so the owner can ask questions without building a report.

05A day with ORCHESTR

Thursday with four events, two ways.

  1. 05:30Production sheet is currentThe kitchen screen shows today's quantities, including the 30 extra wedding guests added last night.
  2. 07:00Load lists readyEach van has its load list and drop sequence; the breakfast boxes leave on time.
  3. 09:45Revised order already approvedThe revised purchase order was approved at 06:10 and the extra lamb arrives with the morning delivery.
  4. 12:00Extras logged on the eventThe supervisor adds the extra service on their phone; it appears on the draft invoice.
  5. 15:30Crew confirmed in the systemTwo unconfirmed staff are flagged early and replaced from the available list.
  6. 22:30Margin by event, tonightThe owner sees today's events with revenue, food cost and margin, and tomorrow's final numbers still outstanding.

An illustrative day — every system is designed around how your team actually works.

06Integrations

Connects to the tools your kitchen and office already use.

Integrations depend on what each provider exposes — we confirm every connection in scoping before committing to it. Names are examples of categories we work with, not partnerships.

Messaging
WhatsApp Business APIEmailSMS gatewaysWebsite forms
Payments
Card payment gatewaysPayment linksBank transfer reconciliation (via export)
Accounting
Zoho BooksQuickBooksXero
Kitchen & suppliers
Existing recipe or inventory software (via API or export)Supplier price listsPurchase order email
Documents & calendars
Google WorkspaceMicrosoft 365E-signature tools (where available)
Delivery
Google Maps routingDriver apps (where available)

07How we build your system

Built around your catering company — not a template.

  1. 01

    Understand your business

    We learn how the business actually runs — people, tools, hand-offs and where time is lost — before proposing anything.
  2. 02

    Map your workflows

    Every workflow is mapped end to end: who does what, when, with which information, and what should happen automatically.
  3. 03

    Design your system

    Screens, records, permissions and integrations are designed around those workflows, and the scope is agreed in writing.
  4. 04

    Build and integrate

    We build in stages and connect the tools you keep, so your team sees working software early and gives feedback as we go.
  5. 05

    Test and launch

    We test with real scenarios, migrate the agreed data, set up roles and access, and onboard the team.
  6. 06

    Support and improve

    After launch we support the system under an agreed arrangement and extend it as the business changes.

08Why it matters

What changes for a catering company.

We don't quote savings we haven't measured. In discovery we baseline how your team works today, so improvements can be tracked against your own numbers.

  • Changes reach everyone at once

    A new guest count updates production, purchasing, staffing and the invoice from one edit.
  • Quotes with known margins

    Every quote shows its food cost before it leaves, so pricing decisions are deliberate.
  • One event order, not five

    The kitchen, drivers and service team work from the same version of every job.
  • Purchasing based on real events

    Orders follow confirmed numbers and recipes rather than memory, and wastage is recorded against the job.
  • Nothing served and not billed

    Deposits, extras and final invoices are tied to the event that was delivered.
  • Owners see profit per job

    Margin by event type and client, live, instead of a month-end surprise.

09Possible use cases

How different caterers could use it.

Examples of what we could build — not completed client projects.

Corporate drop-off caterer

High volume, small margins

Daily office lunches and breakfast boxes with a client portal for final numbers, cut-off rules and consolidated monthly invoices per account.

Client portalProductionInvoicing
Wedding & event caterer

Big nights, many moving parts

Tastings, versioned event orders, plated and buffet service, crews and equipment for large private events across Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Event ordersCrewsQuotes
Central kitchen with contracts

Recurring meals, every day

Contracted daily meals for schools, offices or sites, with production planned from standing orders and purchasing run weekly.

ProductionPurchasingContracts
Seasonal & Ramadan operation

Peak weeks without chaos

Iftar and suhoor packages, daily large-volume orders and temporary staff during Ramadan, with capacity limits so sales never oversell the kitchen.

CapacityDispatchDashboard

FAQs

Catering questions, answered.

Hospitality & events

01We already use recipe or inventory software. Do we have to replace it?

No. If your recipe costing or stock tool works, we connect to it through its API or exports and build the enquiry, event order and dispatch workflows around it. Where it's holding you back, we'll say so in discovery and show what replacing it would involve.

02Can food costs update when supplier prices change?

Yes. Recipes are linked to ingredient prices, so when a supplier price list is updated, the cost of every menu and open quote is recalculated — and you can see which quotes have fallen below your margin target.

03How are allergens and dietary requirements handled?

Dietary and allergen counts are captured on each event order and carried into production and labelling lists. The system highlights mismatches, but the chef remains responsible for every allergen check; we scope your food-safety process with you rather than assume it.

04Can corporate clients change their own numbers?

If you want them to. A client portal lets accounts confirm final numbers, choose from approved menus and download invoices, with cut-off times you set — late changes go to your team for approval.

05Will enquiries from WhatsApp and our website come in automatically?

Yes — website forms and email directly, and WhatsApp through the WhatsApp Business API once your business account is approved by Meta. Phone enquiries can be logged in the same pipeline in a few seconds.

06Can we bring in our past clients, menus and quotes?

Usually. We import clients and menus from spreadsheets or your current tools, clean duplicates and agree in advance how much quote history is worth moving.

07Does it cope with Ramadan and wedding season?

It's designed for peaks: daily capacity limits per kitchen, temporary staff on the crew schedule and production planned across several events at once. We size the platform around your busiest week, not your average one.

08Where does AI fit in?

Drafting replies and menu proposals, recalculating quantities when numbers change, cross-checking dietary counts and answering reporting questions. Anything that sends a message, changes a price or places an order waits for a person to approve it.

09How is a catering system priced?

We quote after a discovery session, based on the modules, integrations, number of kitchens and how much migration is involved. Hosting and support are agreed separately, in writing, before any build starts.

Start here

Let's mapyour kitchen.

Tell us how your catering company runs today. We'll come back with how one system could connect sales, the kitchen, logistics and finance.

  1. 01We get back to you to arrange a call.
  2. 02A focused conversation about how your catering company runs today.
  3. 03If there's a fit, a written scope and quote — no obligation.
Industry · Catering CompaniesFree consultation · no obligation
What's the main challenge right now?
Best way to reach you
Budget range Optional

We only use these details to respond to your enquiry — no newsletters, no sharing. See our privacy policy.