There are so many caterers to choose from in the Philadelphia area, how do you decide?! Birchtree’s sales manager Spencer Brennen breaks it down on why Birchtree is the best choice when it comes to the food at your wedding. (We’re also excellent at service, coordination, and overall experience, but we’ll save that for another post.)
Good ingredients don’t just mean high quality, but also where and who they come from and how they are prepared, before ultimately making their way to a guest.
Spencer Brennen, Birchtree Sales Manager
The Wedding Meal Should Be The Highlight!
Every time I talk to a potential client about food I hear the same thing: “we love good food.” I always respond the same way, “what a shocking coincidence, that’s the only kind of food we do.”
There is a certain mental image that conjures when you think of standard wedding catered food, and unfortunately that is because there has been a lot of terrible wedding food. People come to expect a dry piece of chicken, salmon or some abominable mushroom stack as a vegetarian option, and they approach wedding food as something to “get through” so they can get back to the fun. It breaks my heart.
Good food is the heart of all celebrations and we happen to think that if you are paying a lot of money for something, the last thing it should be is something to get through. The meal should be a highlight of any wedding. The big three that people remember for any event is venue, food, music.
Consequently, our entire mission around being in the catering industry is in service of providing excellent food, and the big secret to good food is good ingredients. It’s so simple, but contains all our values.
"The big three that people remember for any event is venue, food, music."
Local and Sustainable Sourcing Matters
Good ingredients don’t just mean high quality, but also where and who they come from and how they are prepared, before ultimately making their way to a guest.
Our sourcing doesn’t just focus on local and seasonal products, but small businesses. It doesn’t serve us to buy mass produced food, only to dress it up before serving it, nor do we believe that we can source high-end products that don’t align with our ethics.
To quote Samin Nosrat, the author of Salt Fat Acid Heat, “Recipes lead us to believe that cooking is a linear process, while most good food results from a circular one; recipes don’t make food taste good, people do.” Our entire business and process culminates in the end result of great food and happy people.
Vegetarian-Forward Catering
On a final note, Birchtree has also moved into a vegetarian-forward model. We want our vegetarian dishes to be just as highly regarded as our meat options.
For too long, vegetarians have been the stepchild of catering, resulting in some truly ghastly concoctions. We love our local farm partners and their product is phenomenal, but as a whole the global meat market is not sustainable so we strive to make menus that don’t rely on meat to be the stand-out.
Don’t believe me? Just try our BBQ hasselback carrots. You can thank me when you’ve regained consciousness.
Your Guests Will Remember This Meal
Any event deserves good food, but a wedding most of all. We want the meal to feel like a highlight, not an afterthought or something to quickly get through, or worst of all, not expected to be good. We put on memorable and delicious events every week and know that for our clients, this one meal is such an important part of their lives, and we recognize that responsibility.
Honestly we have the best job, we get to make things delicious and joyful for a living.
