Business Idea Vegetarian Cooking Classes & Catering
If cooking is your passion, then finding a business idea that taps into a cooking and/or food niche is a great idea for starting a small business.
And one of these niche market is vegetarians. And even within the vegetarian niche, there are lots of sub-niches such as lacto, vegan, macrobiotics, and more.
Offering classes on how to cook great vegetarian dishes, and/or offering vegetarian catering services and private chef services and consultations could become a full time business for you.
If you are not already familiar with this type of diet it might take some research on your part, but there are more and more people converting to some form of vegetarian diets now.
And if you are not vegetarian yourself, you probably would not want to consider this business idea, as you really need to walk your walk and talk your talk when it comes to eating this way and living this lifestyle.
But if you are a vegetarian, or interested in adopting this lifestyle, you could build a food business around it too.
You can easily find and/or create some fantastic recipes that can work as a foundation for many different recipes with variations for your catering services and cooking classes.
Help people become more aware of all the options available to them that they are not familiar with, such as different meat substitutes, sauces, and such, from Japanese, Indian, Afghani, African, Caribbean, Latin, Thai dishes, and more.
Several different cultures around the earth have exclusive vegetarian diets, so introduce them to all of the different uses of beans, fruits, vegetables, nuts, spices, and more used in their dishes.
And now that there is more emphasis about the abuse of animals to feed such large populations as depicted in some high profile movies such as Fast Food Nation, many of the younger generation have decided to adopt eating habits that are different from their parents.
People are also greatly affected by the habits of their favorite entertainment idols that are practicing these different eating choices too.
This has become quite a movement within the younger population of turning to vegetarian diets. They are making the decision mostly as a way of controlling their weight, but for ethical reasons too.
But unfortunately, a lot of them are not eating very healthy, even though they have become vegetarian.
It takes some time and commitment to learn new ways to cook, and to become familiar with new types of foods and dishes to prepare, and a lot of people just grab un-nutritious alternatives even though they qualify as “vegetarian” because they are meatless.
When meats are not the foundation of most meals it takes a real change of thought and conviction that humans can survive without the consumption of meats and sometimes even dairy products.
But it’s hard to know what healthy alternatives are available that will still provide energy and meet nutritional needs.
With your cooking classes you can provide education and help people to see that there are many other natural protein choices with beans, nuts, and whole grains.
And one of the benefits of taking cooking classes is that a person can actually get experience preparing the food, and also tasting different foods that they haven’t been exposed to before.
This can expand their food horizons and thinking about food preparation, and help them to create more healthy choices for themselves, which is certainly what they hoped and intended when they became a vegetarian in the first place.
And when you also offer vegetarian catering options, you give people who are committed vegetarians an option for food service for big events in their lives, or even small parties and other types of gatherings, that meet their food desires and ethical beliefs.
Now in order to provide catering services you will need to be familiar with local health codes, and have necessary cooking supplies and an up to code kitchen or place to work from.
But to conduct cooking classes you could check with your local community centers or schools and see if you can offer these cooking classes to adults and young adults in your community.
These places already have up to code kitchens where you can offer the classes, and most of them are looking for teachers to offer interesting class choices through their venues.
You could offer to teach a series of classes such as a 6-part class for about $100 per student.
And you could offer a variety of different class times, and or themes such as sauces, soups, desserts, etc.
You could also offer one on one consultations, kitchen cupboard makeovers and chef services.
To start marketing this business idea, besides approaching community education venues, you could advertise your classes in local newspapers and at your local grocery or health food stores.
You could also partner with a local restaurant that might be willing to allow you to use their kitchens for a fee on off-nights or other times they are not in use.
If your home and kitchen are large enough, and it’s not in violation of local codes and requirements, you might even be able to offer smaller classes from your home, if you are comfortable inviting strangers into your home.
You could also offer to teach small classes of friends at one of their homes.
These would be much less formal, but enjoyable just the same.
You should make sure that you have a professional looking business card with your teaching specialties shown on it.
It might even be a good idea to have a picture of you on it too.
Leave them with all types of people you may encounter that express an interest in cooking classes, especially vegetarian meals.
An interest that is growing quickly with many famous people now is the 'raw food diet', a little different spin of food preparation for a popular way of eating.
Safe preparation of only raw food dishes, as opposed to 'cooking', is most typically vegetarian types of foods, but not always.
People are willing to pay even more for these types of classes, if you are interested in teaching these classes, you might look into this area to teach too.
There are lots of other ways you could promote your services too, and my article
How to Promote Your Business
will give you more ideas on this.
This is one of those small business ideas that has very little start up costs, unless you are going to invest in a full blown catering business or totally remodel your kitchen.
And there are numerous resources available to help you find all the recipes, preparation, and education tips you need.
You can also find these by doing an online search, and also by going to your local library and bookstore and taking a look at all the vegetarian health books and cookbooks available there.
