Film catering vs. craft services: what productions need

Scheduled catering and continuous craft service both feed a production, but they are not interchangeable. Catering centres on a complete meal that must be ready for a defined release or eating window. Craft service operates across a longer part of the workday so approved food and beverages remain available between those scheduled meals.

REEL CANADA describes craft service as the department providing food, snacks, and drinks throughout the workday, while catering supplies complete meals at selected times. The City of Toronto separately describes a Craft Service Department with responsibility for safe availability, staffing, stations, craft trucks, satellite points, and background holding. A useful production brief therefore records two lanes even when one company supplies both.

Craft service is an operating department, not merely a box of snacks delivered beside lunch. A smaller shoot may use one maintained table; a larger plan may use a craft truck, a main station, satellite points, background holding, or production-office coverage. The confirmed scope can include water, coffee, tea, cold beverages, fruit, packaged items, and other approved food, but no generic list proves what a particular production or provider includes.

Define the station hours and service standard in writing. State who opens, monitors, replenishes, cleans, moves, and closes each point; what happens during a company move; which items need temperature control; and who is allowed to request additions. A delivery count alone does not describe continuous coverage.

Do not convert an industry shorthand into one timing promise for every person on every shoot. Performers, technicians, craft-service workers, drivers, background, minors, and other groups may be governed by different agreements, side letters, exceptions, or production arrangements. Production labour relations or business affairs must identify the current requirements and translate them into approved service windows.

For example, Article A1401 of the current 2025–2027 ACTRA Independent Production Agreement contains performer meal-period provisions and exceptions. IATSE Local 411 currently lists a separate 2025–2027 Craftservice Providers/Honeywagon Operators Collective Agreement. These sources show why the catering brief must name the covered group and agreement owner rather than claim that one remembered rule governs the entire set.

Start with the approved eating or release window and work backward through serving-line readiness, final label checks, hot or cold holding, setup, location entry, unloading, travel, dispatch, and food production. A meal that arrives early but cannot be held, accessed, or distributed properly is not a complete timing plan.

Match the format to the working conditions. Individual meals can support protected labels, staggered pickup, travel, and limited serving space, but need sorting and packaging-waste plans. A buffet can serve one stable group efficiently, but needs tables, line capacity, utensils, holding, release time, and cleanup. Staffed service adds calls, breaks, access, operating authority, and strike hours.

Scheduled meals and shared craft stations create different handoff risks. For a complete meal, collect the requirement, verify the selected menu with the selected partner, label the package with the recipient's name and dietary tags where applicable, keep it separate, and hand it to the correct person. For craft service, verify the approved items, labels, storage, utensils, shared surfaces, replenishment method, and who can answer a question before someone selects an item.

A dietary tag is a communication control, not proof of an allergen-free environment. Ingredient, supplier, substitution, kitchen, preparation, transport, station, and cross-contact limits can change. Keep allergies and cross-contact concerns distinct from preferences, and never infer suitability from a dish name, package colour, or a generic 'free-from' station label.

A main unit plan does not automatically cover second or splinter unit, background holding, base camp, production office, remote set, client area, or a company move. For each point, record its count, covered groups, meal windows, craft hours, address and approved pin, access, receiver, station owner, replenishment route, equipment, and fallback.

LunchLink can coordinate multiple units and locations using approved partners in served cities. Each location or drop carries its own confirmed delivery and operating scope. A requested move or timing change is accepted only after the selected partner, route, count, menu, capacity, station, and service window are reconfirmed by email or text.

Ask the quote to separate scheduled meals, craft coverage, and shared operating costs. For catering, compare each meal's menu, count, format, delivery, setup, service, equipment, labels, and strike. For craft service, compare station hours, locations, stock, replenishment, staff, truck or equipment, sanitation, moves, and close. Then reconcile shared delivery, access, rentals, staffing, cleanup, waste, tax, change, and cancellation terms.

LunchLink's owner-approved production facts provide a planning frame: production requests start at 10 people and can scale to 1,000+ through approved partners; food and menus generally range from CAD $12–$75 per person; standard delivery is $40 per location or drop; production service can be planned from 5 a.m. to 3 a.m.; and there is no overnight surcharge, deposit, or credit check. These are not an all-in guarantee. The accepted written quote governs every selected item and responsibility.