Fun Food Hire in South East

belistore serves up delicious treats which include muffins, pastries, brownies and all washed down with Illy coffee, Yorkshire tea or hot chocolate! Based in Milton Keynes they have won awards for their event catering and also know all about what makes for a great quote on Add to Event and what to look out for in a reliable supplier.

What do you need to know from an organiser in order to provide a comprehensive quote?

To provide an initial quote to a proposed client, we need the date, rough timings, style of food and number of guests. We offer a large selection of sweet & savoury food and drinks from the catering unit - many produced at the event. None confirmed dates/style of food, 'quotes please' unfortunately don't generate a response. Be open and honest on your requirements and budget.

What advice would you give to a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?

Understand the throughput of the catering unit and staff required for your event. Is there the capacity to feed all the guests at the required time? What is a caterer's bottleneck for higher volume events? Ask what a provider's background is, do they have experience in supporting events with guest numbers? Ask what things a provider has in place to deal with the busy periods.

Please tell us a little bit about how and why you started the business.

Following on from 14 years working in 4 star, 2 red rosette hotels and 15 years in New Product Development with launches in all retail such as Waitrose, M&S and Fortnum & Mason, I observed the amazing savoury explosion brought to the world of event catering and street food. The sweet arena has fallen behind and food produced at events the options were all based primarily on flour and water. The nation's favourite sweet ingredient, chocolate, only gets a supporting role as a dip or sauce. This is where belistore comes in with its initial offering of double chocolate muffins, baked at each event, the aroma of chocolate wafting in the air has stopped many a person in their tracks. Over the past 5 years, the offerings have expanded giving clients a wider choice of standard event options, to bespoke sweet and savoury options.

Please tell us about a booking you've had through Add to Event, how did it go? Would you recommend us to others?

One booking with Add to EVent will always remain with me and was far from the usual event location. We were asked to provide our dry, sweet cured bacon, vine tomato and rocket in a warm bagel for breakfast, warm savoury croissants for lunch and the standard illy coffee/Yorkshire tea. Everything sounded normal till getting to the event location, being greeted with security hut and barrier.......... Mobile phone cameras were covered before entry was allowed. The event was being held at a vehicle proving grounds, on entering many global branded vehicles being covered in camo wrapping - the camera cover is now understood. Back to the event - the guests for the sprint event were blown away by the food and drink on offer. Many business cards were given out, including to the proving grounds, with plenty of discussions for next years events and further past that.