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Costing
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Costing

Recommendation

1 & 1/2 pounds of food per adult.

For feast

1. Determie number of people each recipe serves.

Is the recipe for 4, 6, or 8 people?

2. Divide total number to serve by number of people a recipe serves - this gives you how many recipes to make.

For example: A feast for 100 people, divided by the number of people the recipe serves (for our example here - 8). This gives us 12 whole recipes with four people left over (or a half recipe).

You need to make a decision at this point. Do you want to make another whole recipe, go with the half recipe, or trust that there will be four people who will not eat that particular dish and so, there will be enough for everyone.

If you are not worried about money go for the 13 recipes. If you don't want to deal with leftovers, go with the 12 & 1/2 recipes. If money is tight, go with the 12 recipes. There is going to be more than one person who will not partake of the dish, or people who won't want the full serving.

3. Multiply the ingredients listed in the recipe by the number of recipes to make.

Take the recipe and its list of ingredients, for our example: Carrots Digne - 2 cups carrots, 2 tablespoons honey, 2 tablespoons currants, 1 tablespoon butter, serves 8. We decided money was tight, so we went with the 12 recipes. And since this is a vegetable dish - we know there will be people out there who hate carrots, or just dislike veggies in general. So, we're not worried about having enough to go around.

Carrots 2 cups * 12 recipes = 24 cups.

Honey 2 tbls * 12 recipes = 24 tablespoons.

Currants 2 tbls * 12 recipes = 24 tablespoons

Butter 1 tbls * 12 recipes = 12 tablespoons

Do this for every single recipe you will be serving.

4. Add up all the ingredients for all the recipes being served.

For example: We have three recipes using currants - the Carrots Digne, the chicken, and the apple and currant dumplings. You need to add the total number of currants being used from all three recipes together:

Carrots Digne - uses 24 tablespoons

Chicken - uses 28 tablespoons

Apple Dumpling - uses 50 tablespoons

Total Currents needed is 102 tablespoons.

5. Break the amount required down into purchase units.

Our currants come in 8 ounce and 16 ounce packages. Through experimentation, we know we get 2 tablespoons an ounce. So, we're going to need 51 ounces of currants. We can buy three 16-ounce packages and one 8-ounce package, or we can try to go with just the three 16 ounce packages. We know that will give us only 48 tablespoons. But, currants are small, and when dispersed through the Carrots Digne, no one will notice that we are three tablespoons short.

6. Figure out cost for each item.

Go to the grocery store and price your items. For example: our 16-ounce box of currants - costs 4.59. When you are done pricing the purchase units of every item on your list, sit down with a calculator to figure out the cost. Multiple the purchase price by the number of units required for each ingredient. So, for our currants, we multiple the cost of 4.59 by the 3 purchase units we determined we needed in step 5. This gives us a cost of: $13.77 for just this one item.

7. Figure out the total cost for feast.

Add up all the individual cost totals for every ingredient. This gives you the total cost of the feast. If you are over budget, you have four options:

- You can cut down on portion sizes

- Substitute less expensive ingredients

- Substitute less expensive recipes

- Eliminate recipes

If you are under budget, you also have four options:

- You can stay under budget

- Go back and fill in the half recipes, skipped portions, package size differences.

- Substitute more expensive recipes/ingredients

- Add more recipes

For individual cost

Take the total cost for feast and divide by the number of people being served. In our example: Let's say our feast cost added up to $437.35. We're serving 100 people. So, take 437.35 and divide by 100. This gives us an individual cost of $4.37. So, now you can price the cost of a feast ticket. $4.50, $5, etc. The cost for a feast ticket is determined by the autocrat(s) after you have given them the total cost of the feast, and the individual cost per person.

Figuring Feast Ticket Prices

Now, we're doing a feast for 100 people, four of whom get free tickets (king, queen, prince, princess). The cost of our meal is 437.35. If we set the price at $5.00 per person for feast ticket, we have to sell 88 tickets to cover the cost of feast. Let's see, that's 88 people for break even, 4 freebies for a total of 92. If we sell out, we will have 8 tickets at $5 each for a profit of $40.00.

If we set the price at $6.00 per person for a feast ticket, we have to sell (437.26 divided by 6) 73 tickets to break even. 73 + 4 freebies = 77 tickets. That means if we sell out - we will have a profit of (100 - 77) = 23 tickets * 6 for a profit of $138.00. While this amount will not seem like much to some people, it is actually pretty darn reasonable, considering the fact we are not paying any wages.

A personal opinion here - $5.50 to $6 dollars would be a reasonable cost here. Not only will this cover your expenses for the food, but it will also cover your portion of the site fee overhead. You don't want to be know as the group that gouges its attendees. For soon, you will not have very many attendees at your events because "cost too much".

Hints

Keep a notebook with all your figures in it. Make sure the notebook has a pocket or other method of securing your receipts. At the end of the day, take out a large sheet of paper, write in ink across the top the name of the event, the date, place, and group sponsoring it. Include the words: "Feast receipts". Now, take a stapler, or scotch tape and attach all the receipts to the paper. Total the receipts somewhere on that paper. This is the amount spent for feast, and for whoever paid for the feast ingredients should be reimbursed. Get thee to a photocopy place and make several copies. Hand in the originals to the treasurer of your group so they can write the checks, and complete their event accounting forms. Keep a copy for yourself, and keep an extra copy on hand in case the original gets lost.