How To Calculate Food Cost For Catering. So, for an event of 100 guests, you’ll need 80 platters to feed the guests at “full meal” capacity. Standard catering industry sites suggest that food costs should represent around 30 percent of the price, with 22 percent to 34 percent being the suggested range.
($3,000 x 100) ÷ $8,000 = 37.5. To calculate the food cost percentage of an individual portion or menu item, you simply add up the cost of the ingredient(s) and divide that result by the menu price. A few articles have suggested that caterers’ base is a total of one pound to one and one quarter pound of food per person at a buffet (that’s for everything…main course, sides, salad, etc).
Standard catering industry sites suggest that food costs should represent around 30 percent of the price, with 22 percent to 34 percent being the suggested range.
Standard catering industry sites suggest that food costs should represent around 30 percent of the price, with 22 percent to 34 percent being the suggested range. Food cost is used by restaurant operators to determine how much money they make back on the sale of a dish compared to how much it costs to make that dish. Feeding america suggests that 1.2 pounds (19.2 ounces oz) of food equals a meal. It excludes all indirect expenses like marketing, administration, and finance costs.