Catering Costs and Per-Head Margins
Catering is priced per head and costed per event, which makes the percentage benchmarks used by restaurants close to useless. Food cost per head is knowable in advance because the guest count is fixed, and that’s the format’s real advantage: almost no waste risk and almost no demand uncertainty. Labour is the volatile part, since staffing, travel and setup often cost more than the food.
Figures verified July 2026
| Metric | Published figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Food cost — general restaurant range (% of sales)1 | 28–35% | WhippleWood CPAs2026 |
1 Shown for orientation. Catering is normally costed per head, not as a sales percentage.
What these numbers are — and are not
Restaurant cost benchmarks don’t apply here in any meaningful way, and no organisation publishes catering-specific ones. The right approach is a per-event model: food per head, staffing hours including travel and setup, equipment and transport, then contribution per event. Percentage-of-sales figures are shown above only as orientation.
Where the money actually goes
Fixed guest counts remove the guesswork
You know how many people are coming before you buy anything. No restaurant has that. It means waste should be minimal and food cost per head should be predictable to within a few percent, so if yours isn’t, the problem is specification rather than purchasing.
Labour is the number that moves
A single event carries prep, travel, setup, service and breakdown, and only one of those overlaps with cooking. Travel time and setup hours frequently exceed service hours, and they’re the things most often left out when someone quotes a job.
Equipment and transport hide in the overhead
Hot boxes, chafers, vans, hire items, breakages. None of it appears in food cost, and none of it appears in labour, so it quietly lives in overhead where it doesn’t get attached to the events that caused it.
Seasonality is severe
Wedding and Christmas seasons can carry the year while long stretches produce very little. Annual figures look reasonable; monthly ones look alarming. Judge the business across a full cycle or you’ll draw the wrong conclusion twice a year.
Wait times, throughput and your cost percentages
Catering throughput is compressed into a very short window: everyone eats at once, and the service has a hard finish. Staffing to that peak is expensive, so anything that spreads arrival at the serving point without spreading the meal itself reduces the number of hands you need on the day.
If you run this concept, the operational side of that problem is what queue management software for service at scale is built to solve.
Run your own numbers
Frequently asked questions
How do I price catering per head?
Start from food cost per head, add staffing hours including travel and setup, then equipment and transport, then your margin. Pricing off a food cost percentage alone is how caterers end up losing money on jobs that looked fine on paper.
What food cost percentage should a caterer aim for?
Percentage of sales is the wrong frame for catering. Because guest numbers are known in advance, you should be costing per head and per event; a percentage is at best a sense check afterwards.
Why do catering jobs lose money?
Almost always underestimated labour. Travel, setup and breakdown get left out of the quote, or a client adds guests and complexity after the price was agreed. Both are fixable at the contract stage.
How much staff do I need for a catered event?
It depends on service style far more than headcount: plated service needs considerably more hands than a buffet at the same guest count. Cost both properly before you offer the client a choice between them.
Benchmarks for other food businesses
- Full-Service Restaurant Costs: Food, Labour and MarginTable service, tipped floor staff, and the highest labour ratio of any format. Median 36.5% of sales.
- Quick-Service Restaurant Costs and MarginsCounter service, faster throughput, and a labour line several points below table service.
- Coffee Shop Costs: COGS, Labour and MarginBeverage COGS, a small average ticket, and a rush compressed into about two hours.
- Bar and Pub Costs: Pour Cost, Labour and MarginPour cost leads, food follows, and the wet-to-dry split decides everything.
- Pizzeria Costs and Profit MarginsCheap ingredients, expensive delivery, and a menu built on four or five commodities.
- Food Truck Costs and Profit MarginsNo rent, but commissary fees, pitch fees, fuel and a revenue line that swings wildly.
- Bakery Costs: Ingredients, Labour and WasteCheap ingredients, expensive labour, and a product that’s worthless by Tuesday.
- Takeaway and Ghost Kitchen Costs After Delivery FeesLow rent, no front of house, and a commission line that dominates everything.
Sources
- WhippleWood CPAs — Restaurant Financial Benchmarks 20262026 · Trade press — cited convention, not measured data