See the 6 Steps to Start Food Canteen Business in Nigeria. There are many opportunities available when dealing with food. One of such opportunities exists if you are good at cooking.

If you have good cooking skills and you can make some nice tasty meals, then you could start a business that will be rewarding and profitable.

You can start a food canteen business where you will be preparing and serving food to people to eat and you will get paid for the services you render.

Have you been in a situation where on several occasions you cook a meal to eat and people who pay you a visit at home end up tasting and eating the food find the meal quite delicious and commend you on how good and tasty the meal is.

Have you helped people prepare for events and occasions by cooking the meals for such occasions and at the end of the day people have liked what you cooked?

If you have found yourself in the above situations, then the business of opening a food canteen could be a good venture you can invest in.

What Food Canteen Business Entails

The business involves you cooking various and different types of meals or basically cooking one type of meal and serving to your customers to eat.

The business involves you getting a space where you make comfortable for people to sit so that they can be relaxed when eating.

This is a business that can be started on a small scale as you can invest with small amount of money in the beginning and gradually grow it into a bigger business after some months or years.

The food canteen business could be similar but is quite different from a restaurant. With a restaurant you have an array and wide range of dishes served both local and international also the environment is quite different as it set up to more comfortable and relaxed.

The business is also different from a fast food business as apart from the variety of food available snacks and pastries are also served.

Another factor to consider is that both a restaurant and fast food businesses are more expensive to set up and will need a lot of money to start.

So if you are good at cooking and you want to use your cooking skills and qualities to make some money then you can start a food canteen business.

Read More: Top 10 foods rich in Vitamin C and their quantities

Reasons why food canteen business is good

There is High Demands for Food Everywhere

People will always need to eat to at least for survival reasons as well as hunger. So to fulfill these needs they go all out to look for a place to get a meal.

There are a lot of people who may be good at cooking but are so busy due to work and other activities they are involved in that they hardly have enough time to cook food for themselves and are therefore willing to patronize a food canteen.

Also for some people find it quite convenient eating out as they probably can not cook or find cooking a stressful activity to cope with despite having the time to do it.

Variety of Food to Choose From

When starting the business your primary focus should be on cooking local dishes which are a lot to choose from.

When starting the business you can decide to concentrate on “solids” meals. In Nigeria we have such “solids” meals like eba, fufu, amala, pounded yam are lots more that can prepared by you for your customers.

Also there are other meals like rice, beans, yam and others that you can also cook depending on the line of your business.

Read Also: How Profitable is Restaurant Business

Steps to Start food canteen business in Nigeria

Step 1: Learn How to Cook

As stated earlier this will be a good business for you to do if you can actually cook. So if you are not really a good cook but you are still interested in the business, you can go and brush up on your cooking skills and make them much better.

You can do this by going to a catering school and get the necessary training. Also you can approach a person who knows how to cook very well and probably who also is doing the business to personally teach you.

This will help you a lot as it will help you in growing and excelling in the business.

Step 2: Get a Good Business Plan

The next thing is to get a good business plan that will cover our production process, funding and marketing strategies.

Before starting the business ensure you do a feasibility study to plug and identify any loop holes you may have missed when having the idea.

It can help you know places where you can buy the foodstuff you will have to buy at a cheaper rate as well as the utensils materials that you will need for cooking and serving.

Related: Cost of Starting a Restaurant in Nigeria

Step 3: Choose a Nice Location

This is also an important aspect of the business as it can be the difference between the business being successful or being a failure.

When choosing and looking for a shop or space where to site the business ensure it is a place where a lot of activities are taking place having a lot people in the area.

Although it is also possible to locate your business in a residential or quiet area but you should ensure there is no or little competition available in the area.

Step 4: Register Your Business

Many people skip this process but I will advise you to do it. Make sure you register your business with the Corporate Affairs commission and get the proper license from other local regulatory bodies.

Make sure you register the business and ensure you meet and adhere to all the requirements of the authorities.

Step 5: Employ Workers

This is a business you may not be able to handle on your own when starting and especially when you expand due to your customers increasing.

Make sure you employ people who know how to cook to assist you and people who are good at serving food to people.

Ensure they are neat and presentable and have good customer relations skills.

Step 6: Promote Your Business

After starting your food canteen business in Nigeria, the most important thing is promotion. Although you will definitely have a more customers if you food is good, it’s also very important to invest in promoting your business.

Business promotion helps brands to grow faster.

The good thing is that there are so many ways to advertise your business here in Nigeria. Most of them are fairly cheap and brings good return on investment.