Catering quotes are hard to compare because every house bundles differently: one includes rentals and staff, another quotes food per head and adds service later, a third gives a single number for the evening. The fix is to rebuild every quote into the same five blocks: food, kitchen, service, rentals, logistics.
Three questions that reveal everything
First: how many staff, by role, for how many hours, including setup and strike. Second: what hot holding equipment is on site. Third: who removes the waste. A supplier who answers all three without hesitation is running a real operation. A supplier who cannot has either not planned your evening or is hoping you will not notice until midnight.
The paperwork test
Ask for the food business licence or registration, public liability insurance and an allergen matrix for your menu. All three exist in every professional business and arrive within a day. How quickly they come tells you how the kitchen is run, which is a better signal than any tasting.
Our fifty mark standard is written to be held against a quote line by line, and the cost planner rebuilds the five blocks for your own numbers.
