Let's talk about (ho-hum) 'quantities.'...

I made vegie trays, fruit trays, and cheese trays for 29 men, and now I'm swamped in leftover vegies and fruits (esp. the vegies), but not the cheese. How do you calculate how much you need? I'm totally stumped on this one... Is there a rule of thumb?

[W.DeBord]

Grasshopper I did read other posts from you regarding this event you catered. You obviously worked very hard and tried very hard to please your group.

Catering isn't an exact science. You always run the risk of being short on something and having left-overs of something else. One person might bite into an items and tell everyone "oh, you must all try this!" on an item you thought wouldn't even be a hit. Before you know it they want more and you don't have any more.

Sometimes you have to look at the total sum of the food provided. If YOU ate one of each item you prepared would you be stuffed out of your mind or would you still be hungry? Sometimes it's a good idea to actually put what you've planned onto a plate. Beginners usually make too much food and that ruins their profit.

Caterers re-use their left overs in creative ways just like chefs in resturants. Most would probably put your veg.s' in a stock for the next event. How you handle your left-overs and how much you have, will often make or break your company in time.

Caterers play with their quanities based on the type of function and the type of people they're feeding. Usually they saturate them with their cheaper h.d's as an insurance blanket. So you can go lighter on your more expensive items like meats.


Pass plate meals are the best way to serve, because you can have next to 0 waste.

No one can give you an exact answer. There are books that can help you with general guidelines. If your going to do this regularly you should invest in one.

Thank you for the very helpful info, W. That helps me a great deal and is so logical. I never thought about making a vegetable stock (I didn't serve any meats). I did give some away to people I know who are needy. How do you handle who pays for what's left? My DH said it's unfair to charge the group I catered for, I say I am not convinced of that. 4 men didn't show (I definitely still charge for no-shows), and I begged people to take food, including the people who put this on). I came back later to the church to clean up and all the food was still there so I took it (they had zero storage at the church)... Do I eat (not speaking literally) the cost of the leftovers or do they? I'm curious how other people handle this. By the way, I'm taking responsibility for food that didn't need preparing...

The amount I spent came to about $14.95/head for continental breakfast, full lunch, vegie, fruit & cheese trays, plus other snacks, and bottled water, juices, etc. I didn't think that was bad at all.

[W.DeBord]

What you charge people is extremely important! You must know how many people you'll feed before you begin buying the food. A reasonable time would be about four days before the event (although for larger groups that would change)when you should talk to the client and get "your final count" that's the number of people they expect.
NEVER let them decrease the number after you have your "final count" because once you start purchasing food you can't take any back (it's money out of your pocket). They can add to the count because you can buy more food, but never, ever, subtract after you've purchased food.


Left overs. There are two factors here. If all of the people attended (from their final count)and you gave them what they purchased...you fed that number, your contract is forfilled and you own the extras. If they fell short of their count, out of politeness we always left that number of serving for them. Say 10 people didn't show we left 10 servings (up to a reasonable limit).

If they bought the food out-right, like 10 deli trays, then they own the left-overs.

If they only booked you for 10 people and 20 showed up and you fed all 20. You should change your bill at that moment and bill for 20, plus warn them of the horrible position they put you in and that can't happen again! It's always wise to have a waitress take a head count. MANY people will take advantage of you and invite more than their paying you for.

Your food cost is only as good as your profit. If it cost you $15.00 per person including overhead and expenses then you should have charged around $30.00 per person. Follow?

[foodnfoto]

Here are a few guidelines that have worked for me in the past in planning for finger-food type catering functions:
Take the number of people you expect to attend the event (let's say 50), divide that by 10. Use that number (5) to determine the number of different dishes you will serve (5). Then plan for 1 1/2 pieces of each of those hors d'oeurves per person for each 2 hours of the event. That would come to about 75 crudite, 75 stuffed mushrooms, 75 stuffed pea pods, 75 meatballs, 75 cheese cubes with crackers. Note: these are just sample items.

Then, finesse your numbers depending on who is coming to your event. If it's mostly men, reduce the crudite and increase the meatballs and the cheese cubes accordingly. If it's mostly women, get rid of the meatballs, reduce the cheese; then add some pretty smoked salmon wraps and increase the fruit and crudite. If it's a combination of men and women (women have a healthier dietary influence on their partners at social functions) stay with the distribution as above.

Over 100 in attendance, start reducing the number of different dishes you serve, and start working in some stations; like pasta, tempura, crepes or blini. You do not want to overwhelm your guests with variety, that can be confusing to them. Also, if the word gets around that a particular item is good, you want as many people to try as desire to instead of being forced to turn their attention to something else because you are out of that item.

Plated meals are something all together different, but these totals work well for continental b-fasts, receptions, finger food luncheons (increase portions to 1.75 pieces per person) or functions with passed hors d'oeurves.

Hope this helps.