A catering inventory checklist turns each event's menu and guest count into everything that has to be on the van: the food in the right quantities, the serving gear, the disposables, and the paperwork. Work out food from portions per guest plus a small buffer, gear from the number of dishes and lines, and disposables from multiples of the guest count. Then check every line out as you load, and count every line back after the event, so the missing serving spoon and the two dented hotel pans are found on Sunday, not at the next event. In the example below, a 120-guest lunch buffet needs 132 portions of each dish, three chafing dishes with a spare, nine hotel pans, 180 plates and 360 napkins. Below is what goes on the checklist, the example worked through, the count back, and a free template.
The short version
- Start from the menu and the final guest count.
- Food: portion per guest × guests, plus a buffer of about 10%.
- Gear: one chafing dish per hot dish per buffet line, plus backup pans and a spare.
- Disposables: multiples of the guest count, decided once and kept.
- Check each line out as you load; count each line back after.
- Record what was left over, so next time's portions are better.
- TaroStack scales each recipe to the event and turns the menu into what to make and what to buy. More below.
What goes on the checklist
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Food | Each dish, its portion per guest and the total, with garnishes and sauces |
| Hot and cold holding | Chafing dishes, water pans, fuel, ice, insulated carriers |
| Serving | Hotel pans, bowls, platters, spoons, tongs, ladles, labels for each dish |
| Tables and linen | Tablecloths, skirting, risers, signs |
| Disposables | Plates, cutlery, napkins, cups, foil, film, gloves, trash bags |
| Safety and cleaning | Thermometers, sanitizer and test strips, a hand-wash setup if the venue has none, first aid |
| Paperwork | The event order, an allergen list per dish, a temperature log, the invoice |
A 120-guest lunch buffet, worked through
Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, caters a 120-guest lunch, one buffet line, with a 10% buffer, so 132 portions of each dish:
| Dish | Portion per guest | Portions | Total, cooked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kalua pork | 4 oz | 132 | 33 lb |
| Shoyu chicken | 4 oz | 132 | 33 lb |
| Rice | 5 oz | 132 | 41.3 lb |
| Macaroni salad | 4 oz | 132 | 33 lb |
| Green salad | 1.5 oz | 132 | 12.4 lb |
| Taro rolls | 1.5 rolls | 132 | 198 rolls |
| Butter mochi | 1 piece | 132 | 3 half-sheet pans of 48 |
The totals are cooked weights; the recipe turns each into what to buy, so 33 lb of cooked kalua pork is about 55 lb of raw pork shoulder at a 60% yield. How to scale a recipe to a new quantity is in scaling recipes for production.
| Gear and disposables | Rule used | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| Chafing dishes | One per hot dish, plus a spare | 4 |
| Full-size hotel pans | One in each chafer, two backups per hot dish | 9 |
| Chafing fuel, 2-hour cans | Two per chafer for the service, plus spares | 8 |
| Serving spoons and tongs | Two per dish, plus spares | 16 |
| Plates | 1.5 per guest | 180 |
| Dessert plates | One per portion | 132 |
| Forks | 1.5 per guest | 180 |
| Napkins | 3 per guest | 360 |
| Cups | 2.5 per guest | 300 |
These are the rules this example uses, not fixed standards; adjust them from what your own events use, and write down what you changed and why. For a regular menu made ahead, the same arithmetic becomes a weekly plan, as in production schedule example.
Check out, count back
Every line on the checklist gets a number out as it's loaded and a number back after the event. The difference is what was used, lost or broken:
| Item | Out | Back | Missing | Replacement cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chafing dishes | 4 | 4 | 0 | |
| Full-size hotel pans | 9 | 9 | 0 | (2 dented) |
| Serving spoons | 10 | 9 | 1 | $6 |
| Tongs | 6 | 6 | 0 | |
| Chafing fuel | 8 | 2 | 6 used |
Record the food that came back too: if 20 portions of rice came back from 132, the next buffet for 120 needs less rice, and leftover food that can't be reused is waste, worth logging with its reason. Waste by dish over a season is in waste log template.
Get the template
Download the catering inventory checklist. The Menu sheet works out portions and totals from the guest count, portion and buffer; the Gear sheet works out quantities from your rules, with columns for out and back, and turns anything missing red with its replacement cost; and the Before you leave sheet is a tick list for the safety kit and paperwork. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
A checklist per event works until the events overlap. Two weddings on one Saturday share the hotel pans, the chicken for both was ordered off a guest count that changed on Thursday, and the recipe on the checklist isn't the one the kitchen cooks any more. The checklist says what should go; it doesn't know what's in the walk-in, what's already promised to the other event, or what has to be ordered by Wednesday to arrive in time.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack turns each event into what to make, what to buy, and what to load, from the menu and the guest count.
The menu, scaled. Each dish is a recipe, with sub-recipes for sauces and marinades and units converted for you: buy pork by the case, cook by the pound. An event is a sales order for its date, with the dishes and portions on it, and planning works out what to make for it and when, and what to buy and by when, counting what's already in the walk-in and what the other events need. Change the guest count and the plan changes with it.
What to load. The order prints as one picking list, and a delivery note goes with the food. Food made for the event is recorded as a batch, taking ingredients off stock from the lots used, so a question about a dish after the event leads straight to its ingredients and their suppliers.
And the stock stays right. Disposables and chafing fuel are items with reorder points, so the reorder list shows napkins and fuel in days of cover before you run out. Counting works on a phone with no signal, in a venue's back room or the walk-in, and food that comes back unused is recorded with its reason, so the losses report shows what each kind of waste costs. Reusable gear, like chafing dishes and hotel pans, can be items too, so a count after the event shows what didn't come back.
| The job | Checklist per event | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Food quantities | Worked out by hand per event | Recipes scaled from the sales order |
| What to buy, by when | The chef's memory | Planning, across every event |
| What's in the walk-in | Go and look | Stock by lot, with dates |
| Disposables running low | Found on the day | The reorder list, in days of cover |
Counts, lots, the reorder list and sales orders are on every plan, from $49 a month; recipes, batches and planning are on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.