How Much Food Per Employee Should You Order?

The last thing a great team lunch needs is a table of empty platters at 12.20pm, or piles of untouched food at 3pm. Working out how much food per employee to order is less about finding one perfect number and more about matching the menu to the moment: the time of day, the format, who is attending and what else is happening around the food.

For London offices, a useful starting point is simple. Order a full meal for every confirmed guest when food is replacing lunch. For lighter meetings, breakfast spreads or afternoon celebrations, plan a smaller portion per person but allow enough choice that nobody is left with the last plain biscuit. Good catering should feel generous, not wasteful - and it should taste like someone thought about the people eating it.

How Much Food Per Employee for Office Lunch?

If lunch is the main event, plan on one complete serving per person, plus a small contingency. For a 20-person team, catering for 22 is usually sensible. It gives you breathing room for unexpected visitors, hungry commuters and the colleague who joins after a morning meeting runs over.

A complete lunch means more than a single sandwich triangle. It could be one boxed meal per person, a bowl-based dish with a side, or a buffet with a clear main, substantial accompaniments and something fresh. If you are ordering sharing food, aim for enough of the main dishes that every guest can build a satisfying plate, rather than treating salads and sides as an afterthought.

The menu matters. A rich pasta bake or curry with rice is naturally filling, so one main portion per guest plus sides will often do the job. A lighter Mediterranean spread, sushi selection or grazing-style lunch needs a little more volume and variety to feel equally substantial. Variety is not just a nice extra here. It helps teams with different appetites, dietary requirements and food preferences eat well without creating a second catering order.

For buffet lunches, a practical guide is one main portion per guest, two to three side portions between each person, and one dessert or sweet bite per person if dessert is part of the brief. Add 10 per cent where the group is large, lunch is late, or guests are travelling in from elsewhere. For a smaller meeting, rounding up by two to four portions is often more useful than applying a strict percentage.

When to order more than one serving

There are a few occasions when the standard one-portion rule will leave you short. Order more food per person if lunch follows a morning workshop, a training day, a long client meeting or an all-hands session. People have had fewer opportunities to snack, and food becomes part of the energy plan as well as a perk.

You should also increase quantities for Friday lunches, celebratory occasions and menus built around popular sharing dishes. A table of hand-rolled wraps, flavour-packed bao buns or proper independent pizzas tends to invite a second helping. That is a good problem to have, provided the food arrives in the right quantity.

Breakfast, Snacks and Afternoon Food

Breakfast is usually lighter than lunch, but timing changes everything. For an 8.30am meeting where attendees are arriving straight from the train, provide a meaningful breakfast portion for each person. Think one pastry or breakfast pot per guest, alongside fruit, yoghurt, and hot drinks if these are not already available in the office.

For a mid-morning spread at 10.30am, reduce the quantity slightly. One item per person plus shared fruit is often enough, especially when lunch follows. If breakfast is replacing a meal or forms part of a longer strategy day, build in savoury options. A room full of pastries may look generous at first, but it does not carry everyone through until 1pm.

Afternoon catering works best when it is intentional. For tea, coffee and cake, allow one sweet item per person and add a savoury option if the meeting crosses 3pm or runs into the evening. For a 4pm celebration, plan roughly two small canapés, bites or slices per person, plus cake where relevant. If the occasion is standing-only and drinks are involved, increase this to four to six substantial bites per guest. Canapés are not dinner unless you order them as dinner.

Meetings, Events and the Question of Timing

The same headcount can need very different quantities depending on the schedule. A 30-person lunch at 12pm might need 33 full meals. A 30-person event starting at 5.30pm needs enough food to replace dinner if guests are expected to stay, particularly if alcohol is served.

For evening events, estimate six to eight canapés per person for a drinks reception with a later dinner. If there is no dinner afterwards, raise that to 10 to 14 substantial canapés per guest, or choose a fuller buffet, bowl-food or street-food-style format. People remember when an event feeds them properly. They also remember having to stop for chips on the way home.

Client-facing events need a little extra care. You do not want guests choosing between the only two remaining dishes, nor do you need an oversized spread that feels out of step with the occasion. A balanced menu with a modest contingency is usually the right call. Confirm dietary needs in advance, then include appealing options beyond the minimum requirement. The vegan guest should be offered a great dish, not a reluctant substitute.

Calculate Portions Around Your Actual Attendance

The number on the invite is not always the number in the room. Before ordering, use confirmed attendance where possible and check the diary for hybrid working patterns, annual leave and visitors. For recurring office lunches, track what happens over several weeks. You may find that 60 people registered but only 48 are regularly in the office on Tuesdays, while Thursdays bring a fuller crowd.

Avoid cutting quantities too sharply based on assumptions. A hybrid office can still have high attendance when there is free lunch, an important meeting or a team day. If food is part of the reason people come together, it is worth planning for that effect.

For regular workplace meals, recording a few details makes future ordering far easier: how many people attended, which dishes ran out first, what was left, and whether dietary options were enjoyed. This is useful intelligence, not admin for admin's sake. It lets you refine quantities without falling into generic corporate catering habits.

Dietary Requirements Change the Mix, Not the Total

Dietary requirements should not be treated as a separate, smaller meal plan. They affect the composition of the order, but the people with those requirements still need a complete, satisfying portion.

If three guests need vegan meals, order three proper vegan mains rather than one vegan platter to share. If gluten-free guests are attending, make sure there is enough safely separated food for each of them, along with clear labelling. The same applies to halal, dairy-free, nut-free and other requirements. Confirm the detail early, especially where allergies are involved.

A mixed menu can also reduce waste. When everyone has access to food they genuinely want to eat, there is less chance of one tray being untouched while another disappears in minutes. Choose Makers and dishes with real character, not generic menus designed to please nobody in particular.

A Simple Ordering Formula That Works

For most workplace orders, start with your confirmed headcount, add the dietary meals required, then build in a sensible buffer based on the format. A sit-down or boxed lunch might need two extra meals for every 20 guests. A sharing buffet may need around 10 per cent extra across mains and popular sides. A late-afternoon snack order should be smaller, unless it is standing in for dinner.

There are four questions to ask before you check out:

• Is this food a meal, a snack or a social extra?
• Will people be active, travelling, drinking or sitting through a long session?
• Does the menu contain filling mains as well as lighter dishes?
• Are all dietary requirements covered with full portions?

If the answers are clear, the quantity usually becomes clear too. The remaining decision is where to spend the budget: more variety, bigger portions, dessert, or a buffer for last-minute guests.

Make Great Food Feel Effortless

The best office catering does not look like a calculation, even though someone has done the calculation well. It arrives on time, gives every person something they are pleased to eat, and leaves the organiser free to host the meeting rather than count sandwich halves.

For recurring team lunches, events or flexible office orders, &Dine can help shape the menu and quantities around your team, not a central-kitchen template. Start with the people in the room, the purpose of the gathering and the point in the day. Order generously where it counts, choose food worth gathering for, and let the conversation carry on long after the plates are cleared.