by using locally available produce. For example, everyone loves caprése skewers, but when local tomatoes aren’t available your caterer might offer a fall/winter version with apples instead!

A food mile is the distance food travels from producer to consumer. To reduce your foods miles source foods from local producers. Many bakeries love to use seasonal fruit in their cake fillings. Big Delicious Planet grows herbs and vegetables in their own garden right outside their kitchen - you can't get much closer than that!

when what you need isn't in season or you want items that aren’t grown locally.

More food means more waste. Although you’ll want to offer a good selection to satisfy your guests, sticking with plated meals is guaranteed to create the least amount of waste. Compared to buffets, stations, or family style service, plated meals control portion size.

If you think most of your guests will pass on that snack, just put that money into your main meal, or choose packaged favors that guests can take with them, like ones from Katherine Anne Confections that are hand-made, local, organic and use tree-free paper!

Making food in-house reduces food miles and packaging. Does your caterer make their breads and crackers in-house to ensure freshness and quality? This will certainly reduce packaging!

Packaging affects every business, but food businesses definitely use a lot of materials to store and transport food. Make sure your caterer is using reusable containers to bring the food into a venue, then washing them and bringing them back rather than using aluminum hotel pans or other things that get tossed at the end of the night.

Consider having a predominantly vegetarian menu, like all-veggie appetizers which your vegetarians guests will appreciate. Vegetarian diets use less energy, water, and land space as compared to meat-based diets.

But if you simply can’t imagine a menu without meat or if you’ll have a lot of protesting relatives, consider smaller animals like chicken, duck, or pork. Feed conversion ratios (FCR) measure the amount of feed such as grain needed to create the equal amount of meat and are approximately 7:1 for beef, 5:1 for pork, and 2.5:1 for poultry. And of course, chicken doesn’t have to be boring!

Hire a service like Urban Canopy to reduce your event's overall impact by composting the food scraps. Food for Thought Catering composts all food and compostable product waste in their kitchen and at many events.