Deepavali and year-end catering: planning production before the rush

Festive catering planning works best backwards. Start from each peak date, Deepavali on Sunday 8 November, Christmas on Friday 25 December and New Year’s Eve, and work back week by week to what has to be decided, bought, trialled and produced by when. For Deepavali that calendar is already short. For the year-end peak there is still time to do it properly.

Year-end demand in F&B rarely arrives as one peak. Open houses, corporate dinners, office parties and festive takeaway orders stack on top of normal trade, and a central kitchen feeding an outlet network feels all of it at once.

Deepavali 2026 has its own wrinkle. Monday 9 November is a replacement holiday in states with a Saturday–Sunday weekend, and Deepavali is not a public holiday in Sarawak. Outlets in different states will trade differently on the same day, so a network plan that treats the holiday as uniform will be wrong somewhere.

What is a festive production calendar?

A festive production calendar is a week-by-week plan that works back from a peak date to set when each decision is made: menu, suppliers, packaging, staffing, trials, capacity, cut-offs and production. Its job is to move decisions early, so the final fortnight is spent producing rather than deciding.

It sits on top of central kitchen production planning, not in place of it. The normal menu still needs to be made, and the festive plan has to fit around it.

How far ahead should festive catering planning start?

About eight weeks out for the decisions that everything else depends on. Counting back from Christmas, the eight-week line falls at the end of this month. For Deepavali, today is roughly the three-week line.

Weeks before the peak	What to settle	Why then
8	Festive menu and sets locked; recipes costed at current prices; outlet forecast drafted	Everything downstream depends on the menu
6–7	Supplier commitments for festive ingredients and volumes; packaging, labels and tins ordered	Festive ingredients and printed packaging carry the longest lead times
5–6	Rosters and leave agreed; temporary staff arranged; catering deposit terms set	Staff plan their own festive leave early
4	Full-scale trial batches; yields and timings measured; SOPs updated	A recipe that works at 20 portions may behave differently at 500
3	Capacity check against forecast and orders; extra chiller or freezer space arranged	Leaves time to trim the menu if the numbers don’t fit
2	Customer pre-order cut-off; deposits collected; long-life production starts	Turns demand into a fixed plan
1	Outlet ordering cut-off; schedule frozen; pick lists and dispatch plan issued	Short-life items made against confirmed numbers
Peak week	Short-life production; dispatch by shelf life; daily orders-versus-production check	Changes become exceptions, not habits

The forecast row matters more than it looks. Last year’s festive sales by outlet, adjusted for outlets opened or closed since, is a better starting point than a network total, and demand forecasting that starts with the data you already have covers how to build it. Cost the festive sets at today’s prices too, because ingredient costs that move every week can quietly erase a set menu’s margin between quote and delivery.

How much can your kitchen actually make?

Capacity is set by the bottleneck station, not the kitchen as a whole. Take a hypothetical central kitchen supplying 12 outlets and corporate catering in the week before Christmas.

1. Demand. Outlet forecasts plus confirmed catering orders come to 3,600 festive meal boxes, each needing one roast portion.
2. Bottleneck. Everything passes through two combi ovens, each roasting 60 portions per cycle.
3. Gross capacity. Four cycles per eight-hour shift gives 480 portions per shift. Two shifts a day for six days gives 5,760.
4. Net capacity. The normal menu still needs about a third of oven time, which leaves roughly 3,840 festive portions.
5. Margin. Against 3,600 boxes, that is 240 portions of slack. One failed batch or one late protein delivery uses most of it.

Then apply shelf life. If the roast holds for two days, it can’t be spread across six production days; the real window is the last two or three. On those days the numbers no longer fit.

The options are ordinary but need deciding early: add a shift, move part of the work to an earlier stage that can be chilled or frozen, simplify one component, or cap catering orders. Each is easy three weeks out and painful three days out.

Shelf life decides the production sequence

Once capacity is known, shelf life sets the order of work.

• Long-life items first. Deepavali snacks such as murukku, cookies, sauces and spice pastes can be made as far ahead as their tested shelf life allows, freeing the final days.
• Freeze what freezes well. Par-cooked components that hold quality frozen move pressure out of peak week. Test them in the trial batch, not on the day.
• Short-life items last. Fresh-cut, dressed and dairy-based items are made the day before or the day of dispatch, against confirmed numbers only.
• Group runs to cut changeovers. Batching similar products together reduces cleaning time between runs, especially where allergens are involved.
• Label every batch. Production date and use-by on every container, so dispatch sends the first-expiring stock first.

Order cut-offs the kitchen can keep

Festive orders arrive from two directions: customers ordering sets and catering, and outlets ordering stock from the central kitchen. Each needs its own cut-off, in the right order.

Customer pre-orders close first. A deposit turns a tentative booking into a number the kitchen can plan against. Publish the cut-off and name the person who can approve exceptions.

Outlet ordering closes next. Outlets add their walk-in forecast on top of the pre-orders they’ve taken. For Deepavali, outlets in states taking the Monday replacement holiday will trade differently from those that aren’t, and from outlets in Sarawak, so each should order for its own calendar. Par levels set for an ordinary week won’t hold, so revisit outlet par levels for the festive period rather than padding orders.

Then the schedule freezes. Late orders still come. Decide in advance how they’re handled: from long-life stock only, into a later dispatch, or not at all.

Where RMS fits

Codemax RMS (Resource Management System) brings outlet demand and festive orders into one production plan. It plans production against rolling outlet demand, and recipes and multi-level BOMs turn a festive set into the ingredients it needs. Recommended purchase-order quantities come from par levels and POS data, and a change in ingredient cost re-costs the affected dishes, so the set menu’s margin stays visible.

On the production floor, demand- and supply-based job scheduling sequences work across stations, and pick lists and batch tickets are generated for each run. Outlets order from the central kitchen on mobile, so cut-offs are applied in one place rather than chased across chat groups. FIFO and expiry checks at stock-out keep the first-expiring batch moving first. To see how it would plan your festive peak, talk to our team.

A ten-minute check before the rush

• Is the festive menu locked, and has every set been costed at this week’s prices?
• Which station is the bottleneck, and what is its capacity once the normal menu has taken its share?
• Which items can be made a week ahead, and which only the day before?
• What is the customer pre-order cut-off, and who approves an exception?
• Does each outlet know its own holiday pattern for Deepavali?
• Who is on leave in peak week, and who covers?

If two or more answers are “not yet”, that’s this week’s work. Deepavali leaves little room, but the year-end peak still has time on its side.

Frequently asked questions

When is Deepavali 2026 in Malaysia?

Deepavali 2026 falls on Sunday 8 November. In states with a Saturday–Sunday weekend, Monday 9 November is a replacement holiday, and Deepavali is not a public holiday in Sarawak. For F&B operators, that means the holiday and its trading pattern differ by state, so outlet demand and rosters are best planned outlet by outlet.

How far ahead should a central kitchen plan festive production?

A central kitchen should settle the festive menu around eight weeks before the peak, with supplier commitments, packaging and rosters agreed in the weeks that follow. Trial batches and a capacity check belong three to four weeks out. The final two weeks are for building long-life stock and producing to confirmed orders, not for new decisions.

How do you calculate central kitchen capacity for festive orders?

Central kitchen capacity for festive orders is set by the bottleneck station, such as ovens, fryers or packing. Multiply units per cycle by cycles per shift, shifts per day and production days, subtract the time the normal menu still needs, then compare the result with forecast outlet demand and confirmed orders. Short shelf life shrinks the usable production window.

When should festive pre-orders close?

Festive pre-orders should close early enough for the kitchen to turn confirmed orders into a production plan, buy the ingredients and schedule the batches. Work back from the dispatch date by the production lead time and the purchasing lead time for festive ingredients, then add a buffer. Once published, the cut-off holds best when exceptions need a named approver.

What should be produced first for festive catering?

Festive catering production should run from the longest shelf life to the shortest. Dry snacks, sauces, spice pastes and components that freeze well can be made first, as far ahead as their tested shelf life allows. Fresh-cut, dressed and dairy-based items come last, the day before or the day of dispatch, against confirmed numbers.