Catering Potential Food Cost Calculation

Hotels and Restaurants determine and evaluate costs for all Catering menus and menu items on a regular basis.

To ensure that banquet menus are costed and priced correctly to maintain the desired food cost.
To analyze the “mix” of banquet sales and its effect on food costs.

GENERAL PROCEDURE for Potential Catering Food Cost Control

1. A total banquet menu cost potential must be completed prior to the implementation of any new menu.

2. The banquet menu potential should be completed every period utilizing menu counts of all items sold to re-calculate the sales mix. This will include counts and costs for all standard printed menus as well as for all non- standard custom menus.

3. All costs must be updated quarterly or with the implementation of any new or revised menu.

Determining Potential Catering Costs

4. Determine the food cost for each item on the menu by costing current use records.

5. Obtain the menu count/abstract for the most recent accounting period.

These abstracts should be maintained daily by the Catering Secretary with information from the. B.E.O.’s and banquet checks.

6. Multiply the number of each item sold times the cost to determine the total cost of product for the quantity of each item sold.

7. Multiply the number of each item sold times the selling price to determine the total sales value for the quantity of each menu item sold.

8. Gather all “costed” non-standard or custom banquet menus (B.E.O.’s) for the accounting period.

9. Multiply the previously determined cost for each of the menu items times the number of people actually served.

10. Multiply the selling price of the menu times the guarantee or number of people served, whichever is greater.

11. Add all of the cost totals calculated in steps 3 and 6 above to obtain the potential total cost of sales for all menu items sold during the period.

12. Add all of the sales value totals calculated in steps 4 and 7 above to obtain the potential total sales for all menu items sold during the period.

13. Divide the potential cost from step 8 by the potential sales from step 9 to obtain the potential food cost percentage for the banquet menu.

14. This Catering potential cost should be combined with the Food Department potential cost to determine the consolidated potential food cost for the total hotel.