PLANNING — CORPORATE
How to Build a Film Crew Catering Budget — Per Day, Per Head, No Surprises
Catering is one of the few production lines everyone on set notices. Here is how to budget it per day, what moves the number, and where crew catering budgets usually go wrong.
Budget crew catering per person per day, not per meal, and keep catering, staffing and travel as separate lines. That is how production accountants want to see it, and how a good caterer should quote it. A day line covers breakfast before first call, lunch, and snacks through the shooting day, with dietary covers included. from R395–695 pp per person · Min spend R10,000.
The short answer
Budget crew catering per person per day, not per meal, and keep catering, staffing and travel as separate lines. That is how production accountants want to see it, and how a good caterer should quote it. A day line covers breakfast before first call, lunch, and snacks through the shooting day, with dietary covers included.
Our film production catering in Cape Town prices inside our published corporate band of R395–695 pp, which carries a R10,000 minimum spend on the rate card. Staffing runs on hourly or flat event lines, and travel beyond the metro follows our published zone table. Every line is agreed on a per-day quote before day one.
The budget lines
A clean crew catering budget has four or five lines per shooting day. If a quote collapses them into one number, ask for the split.
Included
- Catering: per person per day inside the published band, covering the services on your call sheet and the crew's dietary covers.
- Staffing: waiters from R195 an hour with a four-hour minimum, or flat event staffing from R950–1,400 per event.
- Travel: Zone 1, the metro, is included; Zone 2 towns add R300–500 per day and Zone 3 adds R500–800 per day.
Quoted separately
- Accommodation: overnight crew accommodation where shoots run remote, quoted separately and approved upfront.
- Included, not extra: the mobile kitchen and service kit that packs and re-sets between locations on the same day.
What moves the per-head number
Where your day sits inside the band depends on a few honest variables. The first is the number of services: breakfast and lunch is a different day from breakfast, lunch, a substantial afternoon snack and a hot second meal on an overrun. The second is the menu itself, agreed at quote stage, including any separate client or talent lunch on the same day.
The third is scale. Large-group rates apply at crew scale, and the per-head cost generally eases as headcount grows. The fourth is the shape of the shoot: a multi-week production runs on a rotating menu plan so day twenty does not feel like day two, and recurring-account terms bring consolidated invoicing and standing briefs. Night shoots follow the same logic in reverse, with a hot meal at the hour the clock calls midnight and the crew calls lunch.
Worked examples
Orientation arithmetic only, using the published corporate band. Your quote sets the actual per-head rate for your call sheet and menu.
- 01A small unit of twenty at the floor of the band, R395 pp: R7,900 of catering, which sits below the R10,000 minimum spend, so check that floor on your quote. For a very small, low-touch content day, drop-off office platters from R195 pp (min 10) may suit better.
- 02A crew of forty: from R15,800 per day at the floor of the band, up to R27,800 at the top, before staffing and travel.
- 03A crew of eighty: from R31,600 per day at the floor, up to R55,600 at the top.
- 04Add two waiters for a four-hour lunch window at from R195 an hour: from R1,560.
- 05Add a Zone 2 location day, for example in the Winelands: R300–500 for that day.
- 06A five-day shoot of forty at the floor of the band: from R79,000 of catering before staffing and travel.
Headcount bands and actuals
Crew numbers move daily, and a budget should expect that. Tell us your average and peak headcounts at quote stage. We staff to the peak and bill to actuals within the agreed bands, so a quiet day does not cost a busy day's price. Headcount and dietary updates close at 20:00 the evening before, alongside the call sheet.
If numbers surge past the agreed band, that becomes an honest availability conversation before the day rather than a quiet surcharge afterwards. The same applies to schedule slips: service flexes with the shooting day, and your coordinator re-times everything from the updated call sheet.
Where crew catering budgets go wrong
Most overspends are planning gaps rather than food costs. The usual suspects:
Included
- Forgetting travel: the metro is included, but a location day in the Winelands or beyond adds a zone line.
- Remote shoots without an accommodation line: if the unit sleeps on location, the catering team may need to as well.
- Wet-weather cover added late: covered service areas and menus that hold in bad weather belong in the quote, not on the day.
Quoted separately
- Dietary needs captured late: collect them once at onboarding into a dietary register that runs for the whole shoot.
- One line for everything: without per-day splits, it is hard to see what changed when the schedule did.
The paperwork production accountants want
Every engagement runs on three documents, agreed before the first shooting day. The per-day quote itemises catering, staffing and travel per day, matching your budget lines. The catering schedule keys service times to the call sheet and is updated daily as the schedule shifts. The dietary register holds crew needs for the whole shoot, labelled at every service.
On the corporate side, we support POs and vendor onboarding, and recurring productions can run on monthly invoicing with one named coordinator. Our wider corporate catering page covers those account terms. If your production also hosts a wrap party or a client event, our conference catering checklist shows how we plan staffing and queues at volume.
Getting a quote
Send your shoot dates, locations, average and peak headcounts and any known dietary needs on WhatsApp. We come back with availability within the hour, 08:00–20:00 SAST, and a per-day quote follows. A single commercial or stills day works exactly the same way as a season-long production, just with one day on the quote.
Questions, answered.
We update this guide annually — figures re-verified October 2026.
Related guides & services
Get an exact quote.
We handle everything else — menu, shopping, cooking, service, cleanup. Guaranteed.
Replacement-or-refund · Fixed itemised quote · Published cancellation tiers