How to Niche Down: Why Specialising Can Double Your Bookings

You're a mobile caterer who does weddings, festivals, corporate events, and private parties. You're busy, but you're also exhausted trying to be everything to everyone. Here's why specialising in one area—like vegan wedding catering or street food festivals—can actually increase your bookings and your profit margins.

The Generalist Trap

When you're starting out, saying yes to everything makes sense. You need the cash flow, the experience, and the portfolio shots. But here's what happens after a year or two: you've got a van full of equipment for every possible scenario, a website that tries to appeal to everyone (and therefore appeals to no one), and you're spending more time switching between different service styles than actually perfecting any of them.

One week you're doing a 200-person corporate lunch with dietary requirement spreadsheets. The next, you're at a muddy festival serving burgers until 3am. Then it's a intimate wedding where the couple want a seven-course tasting menu. Each of these requires different kit, different prep, different staffing, and a completely different mental approach.

You're not building a business—you're running three businesses badly.

Why Specialists Win

1. Premium Pricing Becomes Justified

When you're "just another caterer," you're competing on price. When you're "the vegan wedding specialist who's catered 150 plant-based weddings in the Cotswolds," you're competing on expertise. That expertise commands premium rates—typically 20-40% higher than generalist pricing.

Think about it from the customer's perspective. A couple planning a vegan wedding has probably already dealt with venues that "can do vegan if you give us notice" and caterers who treat plant-based food as an afterthought. When they find someone who actually specialises in what they want, they'll happily pay more for the peace of mind.

2. Word-of-Mouth Actually Works

Generic recommendations fade into noise. "They were a good caterer" doesn't stick in anyone's mind. But "Oh, you're having a festival-themed wedding? You HAVE to book Pizza Pilgrims—they do this incredible wood-fired setup and they've done loads of outdoor weddings"—that's memorable. That gets passed around Facebook groups and wedding forums.

Specialists get recommended by name, in specific contexts, to exactly the right customers. Generalists get forgotten.

3. Your Operations Get Leaner

When you're doing one thing really well, everything gets more efficient:

• Your shopping list is predictable—you can negotiate better rates with suppliers
• Your equipment is standardised—less maintenance, fewer breakdowns, easier to hire backup kit
• Your prep process becomes muscle memory—faster turnaround, fewer mistakes
• Your staffing needs are consistent—you can train a reliable team once
• Your quotes take 10 minutes instead of an hour—you've done this exact job fifty times

Niches That Actually Work

Not all niches are created equal. The best ones sit at the intersection of three things: something you're genuinely good at, something people will pay premium rates for, and something with enough demand to sustain a business.

Here are some niches that UK mobile vendors are crushing right now:

• Vegan/plant-based weddings: Growing market, passionate customers, willing to pay for expertise
• Corporate breakfast and lunch: Predictable hours, repeat business, usually Monday-Friday (leaving weekends free)
• Festival and outdoor events: High volume, builds a following, often leads to private bookings
• Luxury intimate weddings: 20-50 guests, tasting menu style, very high per-head rates
• Office catering subscriptions: Weekly delivery to the same companies, minimal travel, steady income
• Specific cuisine focus: "The paella people" or "the proper Neapolitan pizza van"—become the go-to for one thing

How to Choose Your Niche

Look at your last 20 bookings. Which ones made you the most money? Which ones did you actually enjoy? Which ones led to referrals? The overlap in those answers is probably where you should focus.

Then ask yourself these questions:

• Can I realistically become one of the top 5 vendors in this niche within my area?
• Is there enough demand to fill my calendar? (Check how many events of this type happen locally)
• Will customers in this niche pay premium rates?
• Do I have or can I build the right equipment and skills?
• Does this niche fit my lifestyle? (Weekend weddings vs weekday corporate, for example)

Making the Transition

You don't have to flip a switch overnight. Here's a sensible transition plan:

Month 1-2: Update your website and social media to emphasise your chosen niche. You can still take other work, but your marketing focuses on one thing. Create portfolio content specifically for your niche.

Month 3-4: Start saying no to enquiries that don't fit (or quote them higher rates that account for the hassle). Use that freed-up time to network within your niche—join relevant Facebook groups, attend industry events, reach out to venues that cater to your target market.

Month 5-6: Raise your prices for niche work by 15-20%. Your specialism now justifies it. Reinvest in equipment or training that's specific to your niche.

Month 7+: You should be getting enough niche enquiries to be selective. Keep refining, keep building your reputation, keep raising prices as demand grows.

The Fear of Turning Work Away

The biggest objection to niching down is always the same: "But what if I turn away good work?"

Here's the reality: you're already turning away work. Every time you're too tired to respond quickly to an enquiry, every time you give a rushed quote because you're prepping for three different events, every time a potential customer looks at your website and can't figure out if you're right for them—you're losing bookings.

Niching down doesn't mean less work. It means the right work, at better rates, with less stress. Most vendors who specialise report working fewer events but earning more money. That's the goal, isn't it?

Start This Week

Pull up your booking records from the last year. Calculate the profit margin on each event type. Notice which ones made you smile when you got the enquiry versus which ones made you sigh. That's your data talking.

The vendors who'll thrive in the next five years aren't the ones who do everything. They're the ones who do one thing brilliantly, charge accordingly, and build a reputation that precedes them. You can be one of them—you just have to decide what your "one thing" is.