- ShopRite catering services can provide balloons, decorations, flowers and, of course, food
- Appetizers, salads, sandwiches, sushi, seafood, entrees, side dishes, cakes and desserts are available.
- Cakes are available for many different occasions or customize your own
Spring brings an abundance of occasions to celebrate, with holidays like Mother’s Day and Memorial Day, religious milestones like first Communion and confirmation, and youthful rites of passage like senior prom and graduation circled on many calendars.
While everyone enjoys a great party, planning them can sap energy and enthusiasm from even the most capable hosts. To ease the stress, turn to ShopRite Kitchen Catering, which endeavors to make party planning as simple as possible by providing customers with an extensive catering brochure and other necessities including flowers, balloons and decorations.
“We want you to feel like you are a guest at your own party,” said Lisa Pace-Standridge, ShopRite’s catering marketing specialist. “By taking advantage of the wide range of catering services we have to offer, from our chef-made meals to our convenient platters and party trays, you’ll be able to host a fun gathering that everyone, including you, will enjoy.”
The backbone of ShopRite’s catering service is its diverse menu, available to customers through ShopRite’s website and app, or via in-store kiosks. Experts from each department are also available at store locations to answer questions directly. The menu spans the spectrum of departments and includes appetizers, salads, sandwich platters, sushi and seafood, entrees, sides, cakes and other desserts for occasions ranging from small birthday parties to large corporate events. Once the catering order is placed, a management team is alerted and springs into action to gather items from necessary departments.
“It’s a robust process, and we rely on a lot of people to make sure this experience is a good one for each shopper,” said Andrew Kent, executive vice president and perishable supervisor at Glass Gardens, Inc., a third-generation, family-owned company that operates 11 ShopRite locations in New Jersey and New York. “We structure our catering menu with appetizers, entrees and dessert options, and want to have a solution to every catering need.”
Among the most popular choices during spring, Kent said, are the platters, with cut fruits, cut vegetables, shrimp, chicken tenders and sandwiches at the top of the list. For kids’ parties, specifically birthdays and graduations, greater emphasis is placed on dessert items. “As my daughter says, ‘It’s not a special event unless there’s a cake,’” Kent joked.
With nearly 50 years of experience as a Fresh Bake merchandiser for ShopRite, Jack Kopidlowski knows plenty about making cakes for such occasions, and finds graduation parties to be among the most creative to cater.
“We offer a large variety of round, sheet and pull-apart cakes,” said Kopidlowski. “We can incorporate school colors into the borders of the cake, and we’ll do a photo cake with a photo of a group of friends, school mascot or school exterior.”
He adds that cookies covered with school-colored sprinkles, and strawberries dipped in school colors, are also available. For the adults, Kopidlowski recommends cannoli and tiramisu.
Sports themes are also popular for the younger generation, and ShopRite’s team of cake decorators designs and colorizes cakes to look like sports fields, complete with 3-D sports figures.
“When parents bring their children to pick up a cake, or we have it delivered, you see their excitement,” said Kent. “Seeing how happy it makes them is very rewarding for our baked goods team.”
Baby gender reveal parties, which have become all the rage in recent years, are particularly joyous occasions that allow ShopRite staffers to showcase their creativity.
“We have a lot of fun working with that topic,” said Pace-Standridge. “Sometimes it’s the parents who come in, and sometimes it’s the moms with their childhood friends. Gender reveals are so popular and it’s such a special time for the family.”
Cakes are commonly dyed blue or pink to reveal the baby’s gender, though sometimes it’s the filling that tells the story — strawberry filling for the girls, blueberry filling for the boys. Balloons can also be filled with blue or pink confetti and then popped.
“If there’s both blue and pink confetti,” Pace-Standridge joked, “that’s an even bigger surprise.”
Kent emphasized the value offered by ShopRite cakes, noting that detailed special occasion cakes are available to customers at affordable rates.
Celebrations, however, are rarely limited to the dining menu. Integral to ShopRite’s catering service is its floral department, which sees a heavier workload during spring, with Mother’s Day — the single biggest floral day of the year — followed shortly thereafter by prom season, when floral experts create corsages, wristlets and boutonnieres for the special occasion. Custom centerpieces and bridal bouquets are also available for weddings.
ShopRite asks for a minimum of 24 hours’ notice for any major catering event. For more information, visit ShopRite.com.
This story was prepared for ShopRite.
