Next week has eleven events and three different menus
On Thursday afternoon, your head chef sits down with the printed function sheets for next week. Monday is two conferences with day delegate lunches and breaks. Tuesday has a dinner for 140 with a chosen menu. Wednesday is a buffet. Numbers are the organisers' latest, but several are not final. Chef adds it up on paper, adjusts from experience and places orders with the main suppliers.
On Monday, the dinner goes to 175 and a lunch drops by thirty. Chef adjusts again, by phone, with whichever supplier can deliver in time.
Covers live in the diary, recipes live in chef's head
Your booking system knows the events and numbers. Your recipes, portion sizes and supplier lists live in the kitchen: a folder, a spreadsheet, or experience. Nothing joins the two, so every order is a manual calculation from changing information.
- Conference breaks and lunches repeat across events but are calculated each time.
- Chosen menus for dinners are confirmed late.
- Number changes are not passed to the kitchen as a revised order need.
- Dietary counts affect ingredients but arrive separately.
- Stock already in the kitchen is not considered in the calculation.
Waste on one side, emergency orders on the other
Ordering on guesswork means over-ordering to be safe, which leads to waste, or under-ordering, which leads to expensive emergency orders and menu substitutions. The head chef spends time on arithmetic instead of cooking and training. Food cost per event is hard to see because nobody can say what was ordered for which event.
How we build a kitchen purchasing forecast
- We record your standard items with chef: break items, lunch menus, dinner dishes, with portions and ingredients per cover, and which supplier each ingredient comes from.
- Each day's events are read from your booking system with covers, menu choices and dietary counts.
- Ingredient quantities are calculated per day and per supplier, adjusted for any stock chef records as on hand.
- Chef reviews and edits the order before it is sent, and it can go to suppliers by email or through their ordering portal where one exists.
- When covers or menus change after an order, the difference is calculated and shown to chef as a top-up or a reduction.
- Each event's ingredient cost is recorded, so food cost per event and per package is visible.
| Input | Comes from |
|---|---|
| Events and covers | Your booking system |
| Menu choices | The event booking or menu selection |
| Dietary counts | The delegate or guest records |
| Portions and ingredients | Recipe table agreed with chef |
| Stock on hand | Chef's quick count |
The forecast suggests. Chef decides. Experience still matters, especially for events where numbers usually drop or rise.
A kitchen week with fewer surprises
Chef starts the ordering session with a draft order already calculated, adjusts it and sends it. When numbers change, the kitchen is told what to add or cancel rather than having to recalculate. Over time, the recorded food cost per event shows which packages are priced right.
Sous chefs can prepare the order when chef is away, because the logic is on screen rather than in one person's head.
Signs your kitchen needs this
- Orders are calculated by hand from printed function sheets.
- Emergency orders are common after number changes.
- Food waste after events is regular and hard to explain.
- Nobody can say the food cost of a particular event or package.
- Ordering stops when the head chef is away.