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A "bite" is a sandwich quarter, a sausage roll, a slice of quiche, a chicken skewer. Aim for 5-6 different savoury items rather than 10: bigger platters of fewer things look generous and cost less. A third of bites vegetarian covers most rooms; label allergens and keep the chilled things chilled (2 hours max out, per FSA).
What The Buffet Calculator Works Out
- Savoury bites: guests x bites per head, where a bite is a sandwich quarter, a sausage roll, a slice of quiche or a skewer. Eight per head when the buffet is the meal, five alongside other catering, twelve for all-day grazing, so twenty guests want 160 bites.
- Sweet items: two per head by default. One showpiece cake earns the compliments while mini bakes do the volume.
- Shopping shape: sandwiches remain the load-bearing wall: a round and a half per head, quartered, covers most of the target, with sausage rolls, mini quiches and hot items doing the rest. Spend the bites on five or six items in generous platters, not fifteen in nervous ones; the shopping list halves in the process.
- Children and sweet items (advanced): children count as half portions, and the sweet allowance is editable (a dessert table wants three or four each).
- Vegetarian share (advanced): a third of everything vegetarian covers modern rooms without a separate menu, and it vanishes first regardless. Label allergens under Natasha's Law era expectations and rescue a gluten-free plate from the crumb zone.
- Different items and per item (advanced): how many of each thing to make when the total is spread across your chosen number of items. The table below the results suggests a split: about half sandwiches, 15% pastries, 10% quiche, 15% hot items, 10% crisps and dips.
- Platter waves (advanced): the FSA's two-hour rule for chilled food out of refrigeration, applied to the hours the food is out. For a three-hour do, keep half out and half fridged, swapped at the interval; hot food holds above 63C or gets served in one wave.
- Estimated food cost (advanced): bites and sweet items at your unit costs (about 60p and 50p self-catered) against a caterer at roughly GBP 15 a head, a margin that buys either the champagne or the afternoon off.
- Drinks (advanced): the standing half a bottle of wine for drinkers, three soft drinks for everyone else, and the tea urn that does more work at British gatherings than any planner admits.