How to Find Perfect Location Catering for Your TV or Film Shoot

There are many ingredients required for a successful TV or film project; great locations, an experienced crew, talented performers and – of course – location catering that knows the industry, and keeps everyone well fed.

Film and TV crews work extremely long hours, often in gruelling weather conditions, so having some nutritious and tasty food to look forward to is a great way to keep morale high, and energy levels up.

Which Location Catering is Right For Your Shoot?

Experienced location caterers know that every TV or film shoot brings its own unique conditions. Whether it’s the location, the weather, or the sheer number of mouths to feed, every project is like a complex jigsaw puzzle which needs to be remade from the start, each time.

If you’re trying to book location catering for a shoot, the most important thing to find out is whether or not the caterers you select are up to the task. Here are 5 key questions that will sort out the professionals with exactly the experience you need.

Question 1: Are You TV and Film Catering Specialists?

It’s important to ask this straight away because caterers sometimes include Film and TV on their website, without having any actual experience of it. Location shoots need professional catering staff, customised vehicles, and specialist equipment. They require a team that can re-arrange their schedule at a moment’s notice, and still radiate cheerfulness when serving. These are skills that are learnt only through experience.

Question 2: Do You Have Testimonials?

The way to know, for sure, what kind of food and service you can expect from location caterers, is to look at their testimonials and credits. These should be available on their website, or on a 3rd party aggregator. If you can’t find anything, ask them to provide a range of testimonials for you, so you can check out who they’ve worked with, what the service team is like, and how good the food tastes.

Question 3: Can You Adapt to a Range of Dietary Requirements?

Tasty, nutritious food is no longer enough for a film or TV shoot; the menus should also take into account vegetarians, vegans, and a full range of food allergies. The response you want to hear to this question is that dietary requests are sent out in advance of the shoot, so that allergen trained employees can create a menu that accommodates them fully.

Question 4: Do You Provide Full Service?

This is really a question about the location fleet a catering provider has available. Location catering vehicles include mobile kitchens, refrigerated vans, craft trailers, and refrigerated trailers. These will be carefully maintained in order to ensure perfect working conditions for your shoot, whatever the location.

Question 5: What’s The Lead Time For Booking?

It’s worth checking out availability at the start of your conversation with location catering companies, so you know whether it’s worth continuing. A discussion you may want to save until you know whether or not you want to work with them, is the lead time required for bookings. Location caterers with a fleet of vehicles will be able to manage a faster turnaround than smaller providers.

Amanda Price - Digital Content Executive and Researcher for Imagefix | After joining the Imagefix team, she brought to the business an expertise in social media, copywriting and blogging.