FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT IF I HAVE LESS GUESTS THAN ORIGINALLY BOOKED?  Well it depends how many fewer.  10-20 guests less and in our experience it's not worthwhile the admin time to recalculate any saving.  To do so would mean duplicating admin work, which on a change of assignment would be chargeable.  It has to be a charged service since we do sometimes get clients trying to cut costs, but they are not upfront about this and instead ask us to reprice assignments repeatedly.  In the case of fewer guests we would have to produce not one but two shopping lists.  The new shopping list of what we now need, and a now redundant list of what would have been bought (a duplication of the same work), compare the two and see if any ingredients can be reduced, bearing in mind we buy in bulk, so full cases/packs/sacks/catering sized tins and so on, often we would still buy a full sack of potatoes, and if it so happened that one less case of chips was needed, the admin fee involved (£25-£50 depending how involved the assignment is) outweighs the £9.99 saved if that makes sense, since you may save £9.99 but pay us £25, so it would add £15.01 overall.  (2022)

DO YOU CHARGE PER HEAD?  We provide a price to cater for up to the number of covers you have indicated.  The price is made up of a number of factors, the location, the date, the timing, the number of covers.  It includes overheads, equipment, staffing and (dirty word) profit.  When you take the price and divide it by the covers you get an indicative cost per head.  However, as an example, half your covers and your price will not half.  Why?  Well put simply, if you were to pay us half, we would only be able to send half a foodtruck, with half a chef, to drive halfway of the distance to your venue to serve half the food... It doesn't work.  Ingredient costs are relatively low per head, unless you are having something expensive such as fillet steak or champagne of course.  And whilst we may be able to reduce waiting staff if they are included in your bespoke menu, our other costs are fairly static, not taking into account inflation of course.  So we work to a price for the number of covers you have booked us for. (2022)

HOW MUCH ARE EXTRA GUESTS?  Well sometimes we have provided a price for additional guests.  But generally the additional price will depend on how many taking into account admin costs of recalculating.  If it's just a few additional guests then to keep things simple, and admin to a minimum, we're likely to pro-rata the cost.  However if you are significantly changing numbers, then we would calculate the additional cost based on additional ingredients, staffing and overheads (2022)

E&OE