catering prices

I have only been doing it for a little over a year and have done several different functions. Personally I do not like doing the set up the serving and the clean up. I sell all my meat, salads by the pound, buns by the each and sauce by the quart or gallon, I will have it hot and ready for them to pick up, they take care of the serving and getting everything back to me. On 2 occassion I did set it up for them but they still had to server and return. I figure how much product they need and charge them for that and if I set it up I charge them 50 cents a person for setup and if I serve it I add a 1.50 per person for my labor. I have the best luck with just selling it ready to, hot or cold in foil pans, once they pay and are on the way my job is done. There is good money in catering but it is a lot of work, hope this helps.

zoeske,
next august is a long way off so getting a handle on your pork price is going to be tricky.
about all i can offer is go to the chicago board of trade and look up the futures contracts for hogs, soybeans and corn for whatever month you can find closest to next august. see if you can develope a trend line for pricing on those items. then take current price and add the percent of increase.
is it work heck yes but it is more fun then losing big bucks by using a current price and eatting the difference.
only other way i would do it is to take the current rate of inflation for this year and factor that into the bid price as quite frankly an escalulation clause to most parties is unacceptable.
by the way i have noticed that people respond to your questions but i guess i have missed your thank you postings so i appologize for missing those
jack

When we did our first catering job a while back, we figured the highest cost per item would be the meat. We have a local slaughter house, so I can get my whole pigs for 1.01 pp and my ribs for 1.39 pp. The rib slabs cost me about 5.00. You can get about 4 servings per slab (about 3 bones each if you are serving pork too. For 100 people, I would figure meat - 75.00 for pork, 25 slabs of ribs. Cost of meat 200.00. The sides are hardly anythig, and with the plates, etc.. you could figure on spending about 275-300 bucks. Now, call around to a couple places as if you were having a party, and see what they charge. Be sure you are comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. This particular party mentioned in my example...I would probably charge at least 8.00 per person, yielding a net profit of 500.00

Alan

Hey Jack
Sorry for being so rude. Thank you to everyone who has responded your help and advice is much appreciated.
Zoske

I didn't think we'd learn commodity trading here.

One has to factor in the huge harvest time basis spread in the corn/soy complex, feeder pig prices are holding up with the big grain yields[cheap feed], trouble at the ports due to Katrina, and the seasonal infertility we had this last month breeding the sows, due to the shortening of the daylight hours, which could cause a weak esterus. The litters from the sows bred at that time hit the market early August. The summer heat will slow growth. I found that hogs usually start dropping at the end of August.

OR- you could do like we did and look at the website of several BBQ catering places, and set your prices off of theirs. Keep them high, you carry alot of risk, and get a down payment.

Good luck! Roger

zoeske,
i do want to apolgolize. that reference should have never been even made no matter how bad my day was. i am glad you are here and i hope that you will overlook my foolishness.
jack

First I wish I could get slab ribs for 5.00 each.....
I charge 10.00 per person 2 meats ckn and pork and 3 sides and tea, or water. set up clean up and leave and dont really have a problem getting it even against the larger resteurants (sp)

Hey Jack
Don't worry about it. It is not a problem. We all have bad days and say things we regret. You are usually the first to respond to my posts and you have great advice and I appreciate it.
Zoske

zoske,
thanks for your understanding. i really appreciate it.
as far as the commodity trading goes, my girl greyhound corvette loves paul kangus's voice on nightly business news and for some strange reason when they get to the soybean futures if they are up she takes off running in the house (those i guess are her futures) if pork bellies are down (that and live cattle are what i watch) she barks a lot. and that no kidding is how i taught myself the futures market
jack