How much food for sixty, four of them vegetarian?
Sixty guests, four vegetarians, one gluten allergy: the quantities, the price and what you need to know, before you commit.
The quote, the quantities and the day-before checklist come out of one conversation.
For your own business, or as a service you charge other businesses like yours for.
Nobody runs this lab yet. Take it, give it your hours and your prices, and it is yours.
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Traiteur Vasseur
online
Sixty guests, a seated dinner: 14 kg of meat, 9 kg of sides, 60 desserts plus four. The four vegetarian plates are made separately, the gluten allergy means a dedicated board and I bill 30 minutes for it. 38 euros a head, 2,280 total, service and return of dishes included. Deposit of a third confirms the date.
5:08 pm
| Item | Per person | For 60 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canapes with drinks | 6 pieces | 360 pieces | 8 if the dinner is late |
| Meat, cooked weight | 180 g | 11 kg | 14 kg raw, allow for the loss |
| Sides | 150 g | 9 kg | Two kinds, not three |
| Cheese | 70 g | 4.2 kg | Out of the fridge an hour before |
+ 2 more rows
The meat line is the one that costs. 180 g on the plate is 230 g bought, and a quote written on the cooked weight loses about 60 euros on this event alone.
| Guests | Dish served | Contains | How it is handled |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 vegetarian | Stuffed vegetables, lentil cream | Milk | Cooked separately, plated first |
| 1 gluten allergy | Same menu, no bread, sauce without flour | Nothing | Dedicated board, own utensils, 30 min billed |
| 55 others | Set menu as quoted | Milk, eggs, mustard, sulphites | Standard service |
| All | Dessert | Milk, eggs, nuts | Nut free plate for the gluten guest too |
The gluten line is not a dish, it is a working method: a dedicated board, its own utensils and thirty minutes. Quoting it as a dish is how a caterer loses money on one guest.
Friday, for sixty covers on Saturday at 7pm
Ordered and to be collected
| WhatWhat | WhereWhere | WhenWhen |
|---|---|---|
| 14 kg meat, raw | Boucherie Petit | Saturday 9am |
| 5 kg bread | Bakery on the square | Saturday 5pm |
| Cheese, 4.2 kg | Collected Friday | Out of the fridge at 6pm Saturday |
Prepared today
Stuffed vegetables for the four vegetarian plates, cooked separately and labelled. Gluten free board cleaned, wrapped and set aside with its own utensils, so nobody grabs it for the bread on Saturday morning.
Checked today, not tomorrow
| PointPoint | Why it is todayWhy it is today |
|---|---|
| Venue access and delivery door height | A van that does not fit is a Saturday problem |
| Power at the serving point | Two hot cabinets, one circuit is not enough |
| Number of covers, reconfirmed | Sixty was confirmed 11 days ago |
| Dish return, day and time | Sunday 10am, agreed in writing |
What is not ready and who owns it
The final table plan. The client says Saturday morning. Ask again tonight: sixty plates go out in the order the tables were told, and a plan arriving at 6pm changes the service, not the food.
A catering quote is decided before the kitchen: on buffet quantities, on what one gluten allergy changes across sixty guests, on the delivery area and the lead times. It is a calculation caterers redo on every enquiry, usually in the evening, and that catering proposal software treats as one more invoice line. The references already exist: portions per person, your menus, what worked at previous events. This lab would start from the brief as the client writes it, for a wedding as for a corporate event, and hand back quantities, a price and the points still to check.
Put there once, read by every magik.
Put there once by you, read by every magik, corrected when reality moves. Full on day one, unlike the collections below.
Worth more in month six than in week one.
The collections belong to the lab, not to any single magik. Every magik reads them and every run adds to them, which is why this lab is worth more in month six than in week one.
| Event | Guests | Dish | Quantity |
|---|---|---|---|
| June wedding | 80 | Canapes | 12 per head |
| Company day | 35 | Hot buffet | 320 g per head |
| Birthday | 60 | Dessert to share | 1 for 8 |
Invented for this page. Your Quantities that worked collection starts empty and fills as you work.
It wears your name, not ours.
The same lab, under your name, your colours and your logo. Your customers never see ours.
AskMOJOOn the Pro plan, and not needed to take a lab. A fully bespoke theme exists as an upgrade, hand built rather than self-serve.
Gmail
Google SheetsAnd whatever you already use: any tool available through an API or an MCP server, connected with your own account.
A tool built for exactly your job, and only that, will go deeper at that one job. This is for the jobs nothing covers, or the ones spread across three tools today.
Yours, not a general rule. A seated dinner, a standing cocktail and a buffet do not need the same thing, and two caterers with the same brief count differently. The lab applies the portions per person you wrote down, which is the only version you will actually stand behind on the day.
Your prices, and the lab will not suggest an average because an average catering price is the fastest way to lose money on an event. It works out quantities from your portions and puts your own rates against them, so you see the figure before you commit to it.
The quantities, from your own portions per person and your menus, not from a general rule. Diets and allergies are handled separately, because they change the number of items and not only their nature. You approve before any of it becomes a quote.
No, which is why the quantities that worked are kept event by event. A caterer who does both builds two sets of references, and the lab proposes the one from the right kind of event rather than an average of the two.
The diets and allergens of each event stay written in one place, and they come back in the day before checklist, at the moment they matter. The lab never invents what is in a dish: what it knows comes from your menus, and anything missing is flagged as still to check.
No. It prepares it: the quantities, the menu, the prices from your rates, the points still to confirm. You read it and you send it. An event quote is a commitment on a date that cannot be moved, and that is not the sort of thing to let leave unread.
That is the normal case, so the magik asks for what is missing in the order that matters: the date, the head count, the format, the diets, the venue and its kitchen. What is still unknown is listed as unknown rather than assumed, because an assumption here turns into missing food.
A tool built for exactly caterers and event cooks, and only that, will go deeper at that one job. This lab is for the jobs no tool covers, or the ones spread across three tools today, and it runs under your name.
Every audience is still open.
Nobody has taken a square on this idea yet. You declare your audience when you take the lab (“roofers in Brittany”, “plumbers around Paris”), and two people can start from the same idea on two different audiences without getting in each other’s way.
And it wears your name, not ours.
The bundle describes a lab that does not exist yet : the jobs it would do, and an example of each output.
Open Knowledge Format : plain markdown, re-importable into any agent. No account, no lock-in.
You find out which dish is quietly losing you money, from your supplier invoices, without stock software.
Google SheetsThe allergy question, the table for nine, the closing time on a bank holiday: answered while you are in service.
The bookings and the recurring questions land in the lab instead of on a notepad by the till.
WhatsAppGmailWhatsApphome screen appHow much rib of beef for twelve, and is it ready Saturday. Answered without leaving the block.
Orders arrive written down, with the quantities already worked out and the pre-orders in one place.
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