A catered plate keeps a good margin on food: an event plate of brisket, sausage and two sides costs $8.20 in food, plates and cutlery, and is invoiced at $24.00, a 65.8% margin. Meat is most of that cost. Caterers that bill staff by the hour add a line that keeps far less: a server billed at $35.00 an hour costs $22.00 in wages and payroll taxes, a 37.1% margin. Office drop-offs keep the most a box, and sides by the pan keep more than the meat. Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price. In the example below, a month of five lines brings $30,200 of sales and about $18,880 of gross profit, before the kitchen, the van and the owner's pay.
The short version
- Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price; markup = (price − cost) ÷ cost.
- An event plate: $8.20, invoiced at $24.00, 65.8%.
- Meat is most of a plate's cost.
- Sides by the pan keep more than the meat.
- Staff billed by the hour keep the least.
- TaroStack costs each plate from what each batch used. More below.
A plate, costed
Post Oak Smoke Catering, the made-up barbecue caterer in Waco, Texas, I use in these examples, invoices its events, so there's no card fee on most lines:
| An event plate | Cost |
|---|---|
| Brisket, sausage and two sides | $7.20 |
| Plates, cutlery and napkins | $1.00 |
| Cost | $8.20 |
The caterer's year is in bbq catering business plan, and the brisket's price in how to price brisket.
Margins by channel
| Product | Sold where | Price | Cost | Gross profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event plate | Weddings and parties, invoiced | $24.00 | $8.20 | $15.80 | 65.8% |
| Office drop-off box | Offices, invoiced | $16.00 | $5.88 | $10.12 | 63.2% |
| Brisket by the pound | Pickup orders | $28.00 | $11.00 | $17.00 | 60.7% |
| Sides, half pan for 20 | Events, invoiced | $60.00 | $16.00 | $44.00 | 73.3% |
| Server, per hour | Events, invoiced | $35.00 | $22.00 | $13.00 | 37.1% |
The half pan of sides keeps 73.3%; the server hour keeps 37.1%, billed to cover wages and payroll taxes with a little left.
A month's numbers
A month for Post Oak Smoke Catering:
| Product | Units | Sales | Gross profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Event plate, weddings and parties | 600 | $14,400 | $9,480 |
| Office drop-off box, offices | 400 | $6,400 | $4,048 |
| Brisket by the pound, pickup orders | 150 | $4,200 | $2,550 |
| Sides, half pan for 20, events | 40 | $2,400 | $1,760 |
| Server, per hour, events | 80 | $2,800 | $1,040 |
| Month | $30,200 | $18,878 |
The event plates bring most of the gross profit, and the office boxes fill weekdays between weekend events. Staff hours add sales but little gross profit; they're billed so the events can be served, not to make money. The kitchen, the van, the smokers and the owner's pay come out of the month's gross profit. Pricing a whole event is in how to price catering.
Get the calculator
Download the catering margin calculator. One sheet: one line for each product and channel, with its price, materials, packaging, labor and fee rate; the cost, gross profit, margin, markup and the price your target margin needs fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The calculator holds one cost per plate. Brisket prices move by the week, a wedding eats less than its count, and the pans that come back full change what each plate really cost.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each plate from what each batch used, so margins sit on real cost.
True cost from the batch. Each batch takes brisket, sides and supplies at the price of the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows in the next batch's cost.
Labor on the batch. The minutes a batch took are recorded on it, so the hours behind each product are on record.
Margins by product. Margins are reported per product on that actual cost, and a price-creep report per supplier shows whose prices moved.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a plate cost | One price from last season | Cost from the batch's deliveries |
| The hours behind a batch | Remembered | Labor minutes on the batch |
| An ingredient creeping up | Noticed late | A price-creep report |
| Margins by product | Re-worked by hand | Margins on real cost |
Recipes, batches, costing and margin reports are on every plan, from $49 a month. 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.