What is your Catering Plan?
Well-fed attendees are happy attendees!
As you continue your plans for your event, you’ll need to pull together your catering plan. We’ve got a template to get you started, but before you dive-in, make sure you have the following pieces of information:
Current Catering Menus
There’s nothing worse than building your catering plan off of last year’s menus! With rising food costs at the grocery store, it’s inevitable that this will affect your venue’s food and beverage costs. When possible, include a contract clause that confirms when the venue will provide menus and pricing. Ideally, they are provided in a timeframe that works with your budgeting cycle. This will allow you to plan ahead and understand the cost of each meal being provided to your attendees.
Your Contracted Food & Beverage Minimum
Many venues provide complimentary space and services in exchange for a minimum spend with their in-house catering team. Knowing your food and beverage minimum prior to building out your catering plan will help you understand what is “must have” and what is “nice to have”. Remember - your food and beverage minimum should not equal your food and beverage budget, as tax and service charges are not included in this amount. Read on for more on this!
Taxes and Service Charges
Each city and venue includes various tax and services charges on your final catering invoice.
Food and beverage items, including alcohol are subject to both tax and service charges.
Labor charges for bartenders or chefs at action stations are often subject to tax, but not service charges.
Tax is set by the city or state in which your event is being held and can be anywhere between 6-10%. Service charges can be anywhere between 20-30% and cover a variety of administrative costs incurred by the venue, and may or may not constitute a tip to your wait staff at the event. Check with your catering sales manager for clarity, as this changes from venue to venue. While non-profits are often tax-exempt, neither tax nor service charges are considered part of your minimum spend, so be sure to include that as an additional expense in your budget.
Once you’ve collected these pieces of information, you can build out your ideal catering plan. The catering plan template that we’ve included will allow you to calculate your F&B minimum applicable charges and your all inclusive pricing.
