Every catering conversation starts with the same question: how much per person. It is a fair question and a poor first question, because the number on its own tells you almost nothing. Two quotes for lunch for forty people can differ by half, and both can be completely honest. This is what actually sits inside that number, and how to read an offer so that you are comparing the same thing.
What You Are Actually Paying For
A price per person is not the price of the food. It covers ingredients, the hours spent preparing them, packaging, transport, and the coordination that gets everything to your office warm and on time. In a serious kitchen, raw ingredients are rarely the largest line. Labour is. Someone has to wash, cut, cook, portion, label and load, and that work does not become cheaper because the order sounds simple on paper.
Why the Same Dish Has Two Different Prices
Take grilled chicken with vegetables and a grain. The gap between an expensive and a cheap version of that plate is almost entirely invisible in the description. It is the cut and the origin of the meat, whether the vegetables are in season or shipped from far away, how much protein is actually in the portion, whether the sauce was made in the kitchen or poured from a bottle, and how much time the dish was allowed to take. A line on a menu hides all of it, which is exactly why comparing menus alone is useless.
Portion Size Is a Price, Not a Detail
The fastest way to make a quote look cheap is to make the portion smaller and not mention it. If one caterer builds lunch around 150 grams of protein and another around 90, the second wins on price and loses in the office at three in the afternoon. When you compare offers, ask for portion weights. A caterer who cannot tell you what is in a portion has just told you something important.
Delivery, Packaging, and the Cost of Arriving Properly
Food has to arrive at a specific time, at the right temperature, in packaging that holds it together. Thermal transport, decent containers, labels, serving equipment and staff on site are all real costs. Some caterers include them, some add them at the end, and some solve them badly and let the client absorb the result in the form of lukewarm food. Ask early whether delivery, packaging and equipment are inside the per person price or outside it.
Why a Weekly Program Costs Less Than the Same Food Ordered Once
Recurring orders are genuinely cheaper to produce, and the saving is not a favour, it is arithmetic. Fixed days and a known headcount let a kitchen buy in planned quantities, prepare in one pass, and waste far less. One off orders carry uncertainty, and uncertainty gets priced in. If your company eats catered food more than twice a month, moving to a standing weekly rhythm usually lowers the cost per person while raising quality, because the kitchen stops guessing. Our piece on workplace nutrition programs goes deeper into how that works.
The Cheapest Quote Is Rarely the Cheapest Outcome
The real cost of catering includes everything that happens after the delivery. Food nobody wants gets thrown away, and a bin full of lunch is the most expensive meal there is. Add the time your office manager spends chasing a late van, the meeting that starts twenty minutes behind, and the quiet cost of a team that has stopped expecting the food to be good. Companies that change providers almost always do it for those reasons, not because of the price.
How to Compare Two Offers Fairly
Put both quotes side by side and normalise them. Is the price per person or per portion? What is the protein weight? Are salad, bread or dessert included, or extra? Is VAT inside the number? Is delivery included, and to which floor? Who brings serving equipment and who takes it away? What is the deadline for changing the headcount, and what happens if the delivery is late? Once both offers answer those questions, the comparison usually becomes obvious, and it is frequently not the lower number that wins. Our guide to choosing a catering partner covers the rest of the evaluation.
"A quote you cannot take apart is not a low price. It is an unfinished sentence."
What Legitimately Raises the Price
Some things genuinely cost more to produce: several dietary tracks in one delivery, individually packed and labelled meals, service staff on site, short notice, difficult building access, and menus built around better protein or fully seasonal produce. Each of those is worth paying for when it solves a real problem in your office, and worth removing when it does not. A good caterer will tell you which is which instead of quietly including everything and calling it a package.
How We Quote
At Swastha we prefer to give a number after two questions: how many people, and how often. Those two answers move the price far more than the menu does. From there we build an offer that states what is in a portion, what delivery includes, and what would change the price, so that you can compare us honestly against anyone else. If you want a real figure for your office rather than a range from an article, tell us the headcount and the rhythm and we will send one.
The Bottom Line
Price per person is a useful number only once you know what it contains. Ask about portions, inclusions and frequency before you ask for a discount, and you will usually end up paying less for food your team actually eats.
