Free catering food calculator for parties, weddings and events

Catering calculator: how the numbers work

Each line is the guest count times a portion. Adults and vendor meals count as one, children as half. Then the calculator multiplies by 1.1 for a buffet, because people serve themselves bigger portions and the last guests in line still need a choice. A plated dinner is cooked to the count, so it gets no extra unless you add some.

How much food per person for catering

About 1 to 1.25 lb of food per adult across the meal, and half a pound per child. Most of it is the protein and the sides; bread, dessert and appetizers come on top.

How much protein per person: cooked vs raw

6 to 8 oz of cooked protein per adult, split across the mains if there's more than one. Two mains at 4 oz each come to the same 8 oz. Boneless meat loses about 30 percent of its weight in cooking, so the calculator divides by 0.7 to give what to buy raw. Bone-in cuts lose more: Specialty Food Source puts it at 30 to 40 percent less edible meat per pound, so buy extra for chicken thighs, ribs or a bone-in roast.

Side dishes, salad, bread and dessert per person

Plan 4 oz of each side (3 oz each when there are three or more), 3 oz of green salad and 1.5 rolls a guest. Dessert is one serving a guest for cake alone and 1.5 with a sweets table.

How many appetizers (hors d'oeuvres) per person

Before a meal, plan about 4 pieces a guest for half an hour of cocktails, 6 for an hour and 8 for two hours. When the appetizers are the meal, plan 8 pieces a guest for two hours, 10 for three and 12 for four. Serve 3 kinds for fewer than 20 guests and 5 or 6 for more. The calculator above does it for your exact count and splits the pieces by kind.

How much food for 50, 100, 150 and 200 guests

A buffet with an hour of appetizers first, two mains at 8 oz of cooked protein in total, two sides, salad, rolls and cake, all with the buffet's 10 percent. Change any of it in the calculator.

A worked example: 150 guest wedding buffet

150 guests, an hour of cocktails, two mains, two sides, salad and rolls. Cooked protein is 150 × 8 oz = 75 lb, plus 10 percent for the buffet is 82.5 lb, and divided by 0.7 that's about 118 lb raw to buy. Each side is 150 × 4 oz with 10 percent on top, 42 lb. Rolls come to 248 rolls and the cocktail hour to 900 pieces.

Catering portions per person for common dishes

For drop-off and office catering, caterers count most dishes by the piece. These are ezCater's per-person figures. For 30 people that's 30 sandwiches (36 on a platter), 60 tacos, 90 pieces of fried chicken, or 7.5 to 10 lb of an entree sold by the pound.

Party food calculator and wedding food calculator

Party food calculator: birthdays, showers, graduations, corporate

For a drop-in party with no sit-down meal, pick heavy appetizers and set the hours: 8 pieces a guest for two hours, 10 for three, 12 for four. For a lunch or dinner party, use plated or buffet and skip the appetizers if guests sit down straight away.

Wedding food calculator: cocktail hour, dinner and late night

A wedding runs the full sequence of an hour of appetizers after the ceremony, a plated or buffet dinner, then cake. Count your vendors (photographer, DJ or band, planner) as full meals, and give children's meals their own line for the kitchen. The wedding timeline template shows when each course goes out.

Add drinks with the wedding alcohol calculator

Drinks have their own page. The free wedding alcohol calculator opens with your guest count and hours already filled in from the link under the calculator above, and works out beer, wine, spirits, the toast, mixers, ice and soft drinks.

Catering pricing calculator: cost per person and quote price

Too much depends on your town, your menu and your caterer to give one number, so the calculator uses your prices. Open the prices panel, put in what you pay per pound and per piece, and it adds up the food and shows the cost per guest. For a quote, caterers usually price so that food is 25 to 35 percent of what the client pays. Put your target in and the calculator gives the price per guest that hits it. Staffing, rentals, service charge and tax come on top. How wedding venues price explains the per-person and minimum-spend models you'll meet. To put a price in front of the client, the free event proposal template sets out your prices and the deposit to hold the date. When they agree, the free catering contract template puts the menu, the count and the payment schedule in writing, and the free catering invoice template bills the deposit and balance.

Save your food plan as a BEO

With a free MyVenueHQ account, Save it as a BEO turns the list into the menu of a banquet event order: one row per dish with its amount, the vegetarian and gluten-free counts as their own rows, and the guest count at the top. The kitchen works from it, and when the number moves you change it in one place. The free BEO template shows what the rest of a BEO covers, and the guest count change checklist lists who else needs the new number.

For venues and caterers

Quantities belong on the event, next to the count and the room setup. In MyVenueHQ the menu sits on the banquet event order, the buffet or stations sit on the floor plan, and the seating chart puts each guest at a table. It's free for one venue and up to 10 events a month on the free plan.

Add this catering food calculator to your website

Venues, planners and wedding blogs can put it on their own site for free. Paste this where you want it; it works in WordPress, Squarespace, Wix and plain HTML. Nothing is tracked about your visitors beyond page views.