Corporate catering minimums, delivery, and headcounts
The corporate account that reorders weekly is the best customer in catering — and the fastest way to lose money if the terms are loose. Minimums, delivery, and headcount rules are not fine print; they are the difference between a profitable route and a busy one.
What follows is the terms sheet behind a drop-off operation: what a minimum is protecting, the three shapes a minimum can take and when each fits, how delivery gets priced and taxed, and the cutoff rules that keep a moving headcount from moving your margin. Every dollar figure is computed from the same market table the price-per-person calculator runs.
Set the order minimum where the smallest job still pays for the trip. On the delivered band of $23.50 to $39.00 per person, an 8-person order bills $188.00 and a 40-person order bills $940.00 for the same drive, which is why most drop-off operations set a floor somewhere around a 10 to 12 person order and charge delivery as its own line.
The worked number
Food-cost percentage
34%
Margin after labor & overhead
54%
What the portion really costs, loaded
$7.43
A boxed office lunch that costs $5.50 in ingredients, priced at $16.00, with labor at 20% and overhead at 15% of ingredient cost.
What a minimum is actually protecting
Every delivery has a fixed cost that does not shrink with the order: the shopping trip, the packaging run, the loading, the drive, the parking, and the walk from the loading dock to the fourteenth floor. None of it cares how many people are eating. On the delivered band, an 8-person order bills $188.00 to $312.00 while the identical trip for 40 people bills $940.00 to $1,560.00. The small order is not slightly less profitable; it is frequently not profitable at all.
A minimum is how that fixed cost gets defended without raising the price for everybody. It is also a scheduling tool: a floor around $282.00, roughly a 12-person order at the bottom of the band, keeps the calendar full of jobs that can each carry a van. Publish the number rather than applying it case by case, because a minimum discovered mid-negotiation reads as a penalty while a minimum on the order page reads as a policy.
Three ways to write a minimum, and when each fits
A dollar floor is the most honest version: below a stated order value you do not deliver. It scales automatically with your menu prices and it is easy for a buyer to plan around. It also reads bluntly, so it fits operations with a full calendar and a clear position more than one still building a book.
A headcount floor is the friendliest version and the least precise, because ten people ordering the premium spread and ten ordering sandwiches are very different jobs. Use it when the menu is narrow enough that headcount is a good proxy for value. The third shape is a delivery ladder: no floor at all, but a delivery charge that rises as the order falls, so a small order is possible and pays for itself. That is the version that keeps the door open for the eight-person team that becomes a hundred-person account.
Delivery is a line item, not a favor
Free delivery is never free; it is just hidden in a higher per-head price that makes you look expensive on the food. Break it out. A clear delivery fee lets the food price stay competitive and lets you charge honestly for distance, timing, and the setup a client actually asked for.
Break it out properly and it stops being an argument. Delivery belongs on the quote as a charge in its own right, sitting beside the food rather than inside it. A service charge, staffing, and gratuity all belong there the same way. Delivery and staffing are naturally a flat amount; a service charge and gratuity are naturally a percentage, and a percentage line should name what it is a percentage of on the client’s copy. “Gratuity (18% of food)” lets them check it against the dishes above instead of squinting at a surcharge. Keep those four apart for a duller reason too: they are taxed differently state by state. Delivery is taxable in Florida when the food is and generally is not in Illinois, so the charge needs its own tax setting rather than inheriting the food’s.
Zones, stairs, and the second trip
A flat delivery fee across a metro subsidizes the far customers with the near ones and eventually loses you both. Zones fix that: a base charge for the ring you serve daily, a higher one for the ring you serve when the order is large enough, and a stated cutoff past which you quote the job individually. Buyers accept zones easily, because every delivery service they use already works that way.
Then price the access, which is where drop-off time actually disappears. A ground-floor kitchen with a loading dock and a lift is a fifteen-minute drop. A third-floor walk-up with a locked lobby, a single passenger elevator, and a meeting that starts in ten minutes is an hour. Ask about the floor, the parking and the access on the first order, note the answer on the account, and charge for the ones that consistently cost a second trip.
Headcounts, guarantees, and the last-minute add
Corporate headcounts move. Quote against a guaranteed count the client confirms by a cutoff, price the inevitable day-of additions at a higher rush rate, and put both on the quote with an expiry date so a number you gave in January cannot be held to in June. The terms live on the quote, not in a memory of a phone call.
The rule that makes this work is that the guaranteed count is a floor, never a ceiling. You cook for the guarantee, you bill for the guarantee or the actual count if it is higher, and additions after the cutoff carry the rush rate. Written that way it is a fair deal a buyer accepts without much argument, because the risk they are being asked to carry is exactly the risk they control.
The cutoff calendar
Put the cutoff where your purchasing actually happens rather than where it sounds reasonable. If you order proteins on Thursday for the following week, a Friday cutoff is theater and a Wednesday cutoff is real. Write it as a day and a time, not as a number of days, because "48 hours" invites arithmetic on a weekend and "by 3pm Wednesday" does not.
Then give the cutoff one deliberate exception and no more. A standing account gets a same-day add for a small number of extra guests at the rush rate; everybody else waits for the next order. An exception you grant on request becomes the rule within a month, and the accounts that ask the most are rarely the ones paying the most.
What the boxed-lunch numbers are telling you
The worked example above is a boxed office lunch: $5.50 of ingredients sold at $16.00, which is a food cost of 34% and, after labor and overhead, a loaded cost of $7.43 and a margin of 54%. That margin looks comfortable, and it is, right up until the delivery is unpriced.
Run the check that matters: divide your real delivery cost by the headcount and subtract it from that margin. A trip that costs an hour of driving and a tank of packaging lands almost nothing on a 40-person order and a great deal on an 8-person one. That is the whole reason minimums and delivery charges exist, and it is why a drop-off operation with excellent food cost can still have a bad month if it says yes to every small order that calls.
Standing orders, and how they end
A weekly account is worth writing down. Agree the menu rotation, the standing headcount, the cutoff, the delivery window and the review date, then send it as a short confirmation rather than leaving it in a thread. The single most common way a good account degrades is drift: a substitution here, an extra head there, a delivery moved twenty minutes earlier, none of it priced, all of it permanent.
Set a review date for the per-head price at the start, ideally quarterly, so a price change is a scheduled conversation instead of a surprise. And decide in advance how the account can end on both sides, including notice and any final invoice. Accounts that end cleanly come back; accounts that end in an argument about the last three deliveries do not.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What should a corporate catering minimum be?
Set it where the smallest order still pays for the trip. On a delivered band of $23.50 to $39.00 per person, that is often somewhere around a 10 to 12 person order, or $282.00 at the bottom of the band. Publish the figure rather than applying it case by case.
Should I offer free delivery on office catering?
Free delivery is not free; it is hidden inside a higher per-head price, which makes the food look expensive and removes your ability to charge for distance or difficult access. A stated delivery charge on its own line is easier for a buyer to approve and lets the food price stay competitive.
How should delivery fees vary by distance?
Use zones rather than one flat fee: a base charge for the area you serve daily, a higher charge for the outer ring, and a stated boundary past which you quote individually. Then price access separately, because a third-floor walk-up with no parking costs far more time than a building with a loading dock.
What is a guaranteed count and how does it work?
It is the headcount the client confirms by a stated cutoff, and it is a floor rather than a ceiling. You cook for the guarantee, bill for the guarantee or the higher actual count, and charge additions after the cutoff at a stated rush rate. Written that way, the risk the client carries is the risk they control.
When should the order cutoff be?
Where your purchasing actually happens, expressed as a day and a time rather than a number of hours. If proteins are ordered on Thursday for the following week, a Wednesday afternoon cutoff is real and a Friday one is decorative. Give the rule one deliberate exception for standing accounts and no others.
Is a boxed lunch at a healthy food cost automatically profitable?
Not on its own. The worked example on this page runs 34% food cost and a 54% margin on a loaded cost of $7.43, and the delivery is not in that figure. Divide your real trip cost by the headcount and subtract it: on a small order it can consume the margin entirely.