How to Choose an Office Catering Company in London

Choosing an office catering company in London is a decision most offices make once, badly, and then live with. The pitch meetings all sound the same — great food, reliable delivery, happy clients — so the difference has to be found in the questions, not the answers.

This is the 12-point checklist facilities and office managers actually need: the food-safety documents to demand, the delivery promises to pin down, the pricing lines that hide, and the operational details that separate a caterer who photographs well from one who delivers at 11:58 every Thursday. Each point comes with the question to ask, in writing.

Food and safety: points 1–3

1. Hygiene ratings — for every kitchen, not the brand

Ask for the FSA hygiene rating of each kitchen that will actually prepare your food. Brands with multiple sites can have a 5 in Soho and a 2 in the kitchen that serves your postcode. The bar to hold: rating 4 or 5, no exceptions. (Ordit vets every one of its 300+ restaurant and caterer partners to FSA 4 or 5 before they join the platform.)

Ask: "Which specific kitchens will serve our office, and what is each one's current FSA rating?"

2. Allergen process — a system, not a promise

Fourteen allergens, legally required labelling, and one bad day from a serious incident. What good looks like: HACCP-based food safety management, allergen risk assessments, ingredient labelling on every item, and — for delivered meals — individual labelling by person, so the nut-free order cannot be picked up by the wrong hands.

Ask: "Walk me through what happens between an employee declaring a nut allergy and the labelled meal arriving."

3. Audit documentation

Temperature-control logs, cleaning schedules, pest-control records, staff training records, supplier approval. A professional operation produces these without friction; a hesitant answer is the answer. Where a vendor cannot show a UKAS-accredited audit, the right move is to require one — Ordit's standard practice with its partners.

Ask: "Send your food safety documentation pack before the tasting, not after."

Delivery and reliability: points 4–6

4. Who actually delivers

The single most underrated question in London catering. Many providers cook well and then hand your lunch to a third-party courier network at the kerb — which is where the 12:30 boardroom lunch becomes a 13:15 apology. An own delivery fleet means the provider controls the last mile and owns the failure if it happens. Ordit runs its own riders on e-bikes and electric cargo bikes — which also cuts delivery emissions by 89% versus diesel vans, a line your ESG report will happily take.

Ask: "Do your own staff deliver, or a courier network? What happens when a delivery is late?"

5. Lead times — and the same-day question

Traditional caterers want 24–72 hours' notice. That is fine for the quarterly town hall and useless for the client meeting confirmed at 9am. Check the real lead times by format: same-day group orders (Ordit's cutoff is 10am for 12:00–12:30 delivery), next-day catering, and the notice needed for large events or pop-ups.

Ask: "It's 9am and I need lunch for 12 people at noon. What can you actually do?"

6. Coverage for your locations — all of them

London catering coverage is postcode-specific, and multi-site firms get caught when the provider who serves the City cannot reach the Shoreditch office. Confirm coverage for every site now, not per event. Ordit covers the 13 highest-density office postcodes — E1, E14, EC1–EC4, W1, WC1, WC2, N1, NW1, SE1, SW1 — with the same service in each.

Ask: "Here are our addresses. Confirm coverage and delivery terms for each."

Food and formats: points 7–8

7. Range that survives week 12

Any caterer impresses for a fortnight. The test is month three, when the same menu rotation has gone round four times and the team has opinions. A platform model — many restaurants, one account — solves this structurally: this Thursday Farmer J, next week Sticks'n'Sushi, the offsite catered by Eden Caterers, doughnuts from Crosstown for the launch. Single-kitchen caterers solve it with seasonal menus, which is slower and narrower.

Ask: "Show me twelve consecutive weeks of menus — or the restaurant list."

8. The formats you will actually use

Match the provider to your real occasions: individually boxed lunches (the dietary-safe default for meetings), sharing platters, hot buffets, drop-off catering, and live formats — Ordit's Office Pop-ups put a chef station (burrito bar, curry pop-up) in the office for events of 50+. If the provider only does platters, every occasion becomes a platter occasion.

Ask: "For our monthly 100-person all-hands, what format do you recommend, and at what cost per head?"

Commercials and operations: points 9–12

9. Transparent pricing — every line

The quote that matters has four lines: food cost per head, delivery fee, service fee or commission, and any extras (staffing, equipment, weekend rates). Pin down all four. London's pattern is that most providers publish none of them; Ordit publishes all of them — £15 + VAT per catering delivery, 5% + VAT service fee on monthly spend, and a pricing page that says so. Use the budget planning framework to turn the quote into an annual number finance can approve.

Ask: "Give me the all-in cost for specific real event, itemised."

10. Minimums, contracts, and the exit

Three commercial traps, in ascending order of pain: order minimums (£200+ is common — it forces over-ordering for small meetings), spend commitments, and fixed-term contracts. None are necessary in 2026. Ordit charges no setup fees, requires no contracts, and sets no minimums — and a no-orders month costs £0, which is the cleanest possible exit clause.

Ask: "What does it cost to leave — or to simply not order for a month?"

11. Invoicing and expense integration

For a one-off event this barely matters. For a programme, it is the difference between a benefit and a part-time job: one consolidated monthly invoice (30-day terms), spend reporting by team, department, and event, and expense codes captured at the point of order — flowing to SAP Concur, Coupa, or Workday rather than into a spreadsheet. Finance teams have strong views here; involve them before the shortlist, not after.

Ask: "Show me a real invoice and a real spend report, anonymised."

12. Support and scale-up

Who answers when the 12:00 delivery has not arrived at 12:10? The standard to hold: live chat with minutes-not-hours response (Ordit's averages 2 minutes), support hours that cover your real working day (Mon–Fri 9:00–21:30, weekends covered), and a named account manager once spend justifies it. Then check the ceiling: a provider running ~300 orders a night for a single investment bank will not blink at your Christmas party; a two-van caterer might.

Ask: "What is the biggest recurring order you run today, and who do I call at 12:10?"

Scoring the shortlist

Take three providers through all twelve points, score each 1–5, and weight the categories for your situation — programmes should weight points 9–12 heavily; event-led offices weight 4–8. The exercise takes a morning and replaces the tasting-led decision (everyone's food is good at the tasting) with an operations-led one.

For market context before you shortlist — formats, London cost benchmarks, and how platforms compare with traditional caterers — start with the complete guide to office catering in London. And if Ordit makes the shortlist, the head-to-head pages cover the obvious comparisons: vs Feedr, vs Deliveroo for Work, and vs Just Eat for Business.