MenuCost for catering businesses
Every catering job has a cost. Know it before you name a price.
Cost every event item by item and portion by portion, then quote a price that delivers the margin your business needs.
- 7-day free trial
- Instant setup
- Unlimited recipes
Example quote built from costed recipes. True cost SAR 23.56 per guest.
In catering, margins disappear one job at a time
Every event is a new headcount, a new menu and a quote you commit to before the work is done. Most caterers price from a per-head rate built up over years, without a cost model to confirm it still works.
Per-head rates go out of date
A rate that worked 18 months ago may not cover today's ingredient prices, staff costs or packaging. Without a job-by-job cost, you can't tell when it stopped working.
Staff cost is the hardest to estimate
4 hours of prep for 60 guests becomes 7 hours for 120. A live cooking station needs one more person than a buffet. The labour cost changes with every event.
Packaging and serveware vary by event
Boxed lunches, buffet trays, plated dinners and canapé platters all carry different packaging and disposables. One average figure for every event is rarely right.
Repeat clients change order sizes
A monthly breakfast for 50 grows to 80. Food cost scales in a straight line, labour and logistics may not. Without recalculating, the bigger order can earn a lower margin.
Example
The same per-head rate. A shrinking margin.
A caterer quotes corporate lunches at SAR 62 per guest, a rate set when costs were lower. Ingredient and staff costs have risen since. The rate has not.
When the rate was set
The rate worked.
Today, costed in MenuCost
Same SAR 62 rate, higher costs.
That's SAR 6.24 less profit per guest. On a 120-guest lunch, SAR 749 is gone from one event, and nobody noticed.
Illustrative example.
From recipe library to event quote, in minutes
Every item you serve is already costed in your recipe library: ingredients, labour, packaging and overhead. Building a quote means picking items and entering quantities. The cost follows.
Build every quote from real cost, not last year's per-head rate
Pick items from your recipe library, each carrying its full cost per serving. Enter quantities, add delivery and setup fees, discounts and VAT, and see the event's cost and expected profit before you confirm a price. Change the headcount and everything recalculates. Send a clean PDF quote.
One library behind every event menu
Every protein, grain, produce item and garnish with its supplier price. When lamb, rice or vegetable prices change, update once and every future quote built from those recipes reflects it.
Ingredient ManagementDisposables and serveware, per item
Meal boxes, buffet trays, plates, cutlery packs, cold bags. A boxed meal, a shared platter and a canapé tray each carry their own packaging cost, so the quote matches the event format.
Packaging Cost TrackingPrep, service and setup time in every event
Set rates for head chef, catering cook, service staff and kitchen assistant, and prep time per item. Scale to a large event and the labour cost scales with it, not from a guess.
Labour Cost ManagementKitchen rent, equipment and vehicles, recovered
Enter kitchen rent, equipment depreciation, vehicle costs, insurance and cold storage once. Every item produced, whichever event it goes to, carries its share.
Overhead Cost AllocationKnow which items to build events around
Every catering item ranked by margin. Some are efficient at scale. Others are labour-heavy or carry costly packaging that erodes margin at large headcounts.
Menu Cost ReportsAllergen declarations for every event, on demand
Corporate, government and school clients often ask for allergens per item. MenuCost tracks all 14 per ingredient and builds every recipe's profile automatically.
Allergen ManagementRunning a catering business, with and without MenuCost
Without MenuCost
- Events quoted from an old per-head rate
- Staff cost estimated as a flat figure
- Packaging averaged across all events
- Headcount changes accepted without recalculating
- Quotes scattered across files and messages
- Ingredient rises absorbed until something looks wrong
- Allergen questions answered from memory
With MenuCost
- Every quote built from today's recipe costs
- Labour from prep time per item and role
- Packaging attached per item, matching the format
- Change the headcount, the quote recalculates
- Every quote and its status in one place
- Update one ingredient, every recipe follows
- 14 allergens per recipe, ready on demand
What catering business owners say
"We had been quoting corporate events at SAR 90 per head for two years. MenuCost showed us our true cost was SAR 68 per head, which sounds fine until you factor in that our rent and kitchen costs had risen 30% since we set that rate."
"When a client asks to change from 60 to 90 guests, I used to re-estimate on the spot and hope the margin held. Now I update the quantity in MenuCost and have the revised quote in under a minute."
"We do a lot of government and corporate work that requires allergen declarations per dish. MenuCost generates those profiles from our ingredients automatically. What used to take an hour now takes two minutes."
Do we need a recipe for every item we might ever serve?
Only for the items you actually serve. Many caterers work from a core menu they recombine for different events. Build those recipes once, with their full cost, and mix and match them into any quote. A corporate breakfast might use 6 of them, a wedding dinner 12.
We serve the same items to different clients at different prices. How does that work?
Each quote has its own prices. The recipe cost is the same whoever the client is; what changes is the price you agree. A premium corporate client and a school contract on a tight budget start from the same cost, and MenuCost shows you the profit at each price, so you know what you're accepting.
We have a weekly contract with the same client. Do we rebuild the quote each time?
No. Duplicate the quote and update the date and any items that changed. When ingredient prices move, a refreshed quote shows whether the contract price still covers your costs, so you catch a profitable contract turning marginal before it becomes a loss.
Clients make last-minute changes. How do we handle those?
Quotes stay editable until you confirm them. If a client adds 15 guests the day before, update the quantities and the totals recalculate. If you swap lamb for chicken, replace the item and the cost comes from the replacement recipe.
We deliver to venues. Can we include delivery and setup in the quote?
Yes. Every quote has delivery and setup fee fields, plus a discount, and VAT is calculated on the total. If delivery costs vary a lot by distance, you can also include vehicle costs in your overhead so they are spread across all events.
MenuCost is built for every F&B operation
Quote every catering job with the cost already calculated
Price with confidence and protect your margins, event after event.
- 7-day free trial
- Instant setup
- Unlimited recipes