In order to operate a successful catering business, you have to know how to price your catering job accordingly.  In order to do that, you have If you intend to run a successful catering business, it is important to know how to price catering jobs correctly.  In order to calculate a catering job, you must calculate all catering costs and make sure that you are pricing them competitively.  Different catering jobs have different pricing considerations, but there are basics on how you can calculate for a catering job that applies to almost all catering businesses.

Before starting on a catering job, you need to calculate first the total overhead costs.  These will include equipment, utilities, transportation, and rental spaces.  You need to include them into your calculation of a catering job.

The next thing that you need to include in your calculations will be the associated costs.  List all the possible food costs, utilities, staff wages, disposable goods, and others.  The more you do the calculations the better you will get at approximating the costs for your next catering job.

This is perhaps one of the most important considerations that you must make in calculating for your catering job: head count.  You must set a minimum and maximum number of people you are willing to cater for.  Also before accepting a catering job ask your client how many possible people they are expecting for the event so you can make the necessary adjustments and calculate accordingly.

Another important consideration for calculating a catering job is the type of food that you will be serving.  Calculate the cost of ingredients and the cost of the chef’s preparation.  Some ingredients may be cheap but require a lot of preparation; you need to keep this in mind.  Additionally, you need to consider the number of course that you will be serving.  Elaborate courses are obviously more costly compared to 3-4 courses.  Ask your client if you are required to prepare for a formal dinner or a simple picnic gathering.  Through this you’ll be able to determine how many courses are needed.

Remember to include in your calculations the number of waiters and servers required for a certain catering job.  It is also important to take note that offering buffet style service requires less servers compared to the regular catering service.

Compare your pricing to that of your competitors charge for their catering job.  Make sure that you are not overly cheap leaving no room for profit for your business, but also try to avoid over pricing.  If you want to charge extra, give your catering business a specialty to set your business apart from the competition.  Specialties can include extra decor services, flower arrangements if necessary, etc, etc.

Calculating for a catering job is never an easy task, but it gets easier the more you do it.  Make all the necessary pricing considerations and make a list of your standard pricing.  This is important so you won’t have to figure out the pricing for each client that approaches you for your services.