Elemental Catering at BizJam

Oh Happy Day! Elemental Catering was selected to be the caterer for BizJam - happening Saturday, June 9th. That's great for us, because we get to help a great organization, Biznik, with a great event.

Basically, BizJam is a day-long event for "bootstrapping entrepreneurs" to get ideas from each other, brainstorm how to get their businesses booming, and just energize themselves with the myriad of opportunities out there for everyone to be fabulously successful. There are a score of speakers and many workshops to help fine-tune your business, from choosing a name to effective networking strategies to polishing your business plan.

While we have provided for conferences in the past, Bizjam is our first chance to present our Strategic Catering model to a large section of businesses all at one time. For BizJam we couldn't really customize the attendees' lunches - there are just too many of them, and we weren't able to ask them before hand whether they had a preference for fruit salad or chicken sandwiches, or if they were allergic to tomatoes or wouldn't eat yellow food. So we instead concentrated on providing two energizing lunch options that will allow the attendees some good long-burning fuel to keep them going with a clear head.

We, along with the organizers, Dan & Lara, decided that we'd keep it basic: a Dijon chicken sandwich or a roasted veggie sandwich, with just one side dish - a Southwest bean salad. The side salad option was easy to figure out - it needed to be a low-carb, high-protein option that wouldn't be noisy (like chips) or potentially allergen-ridden (asian-noodle salad). Corn and beans together really pack a protein punch, so even those people who choose the veggie sandwich will definitely get all their lunchtime nutritional needs met.

We're quite sure the sandwiches will be hits. The Dijon chicken was a no-brainer to choose, since it's one of our signature dishes. The chicken takes on the marinade and gets SO juicy. Then we put some red onion and spiced, oven-dried tomatoes. It's delectable. The roasted veggie was harder to decide upon. While a great vegetarian option, it's not vegan (there's provolone cheese on it), but we decided that anyone who was vegan could take off the cheese. It's a little more labor-intensive - each sandwich has sauteed mushrooms, three kinds of grilled, marinated veggies, and fresh basil. Sorry vegans. We promise you that when you outnumber meat-eaters and vegetarians we'll make everyone put cheese onto their sandwiches instead of making you take it off.

Offering sodas for energy and refreshment to your conference attendees may seem like a good idea, but it's just not from a organizer standpoint. All the sugar and caffeine gives people a quick fix and a burst of wakefulness, but that high is very short lived and ends with a sugar crash that can leave people sleepy and scatterbrained. While people will naturally have the option of grabbing themselves a soda from the vending machines, we serve our lunches with a choice of either good-ol' fashioned (bottled) water or seven different flavors of Juice Squeeze by Crystal Geyser. It's a lightly carbonated 70% juice beverage with no added sugars, and all their flavors are quite delicious. They do the job of perking you up just fine, but with the extra benefit of giving you a longer burning energy than refined sugars can give you.

Though it was challenge to pare down our considerable offerings to two sandwiches and a side, we think that it will be worth it - and hopefully the BizJam attendees will want to try our custom-created menus to enhance business events.