FoodCore gives event caterers accurate per-head costs, allergen-safe menus, compliant buffet labels, and multi-event shopping lists — all in one place. Spend less time on paperwork and more time producing food worth talking about.
7-day free trial · no card required · £55/mo after
Every event is different. The guest count changes, the menu gets revised, one guest rings up the morning before to mention they're anaphylactic to nuts, and you still need to arrive with a shopping list, a production plan, and labels for everything on the buffet table. For small event catering businesses, this is the reality of every job.
The operational complexity of event catering is underestimated by most software. Generic catering platforms are either built for restaurants — with features you don't need and nothing tailored to per-event workflows — or they're enterprise tools priced for hotel groups and stadium caterers. Small UK event caterers are left using spreadsheets, which work until a client asks for a last-minute menu change at 9pm the night before.
FoodCore is event catering management software designed specifically for the way small caterers actually work. It connects your recipe library to your event orders, calculates per-head food costs automatically, generates allergen information for every dish on the menu, and creates your shopping list for each event in seconds. And for any food you're pre-packing ahead of the event — individual portions, buffet items, dessert boxes — FoodCore generates fully compliant Natasha's Law PPDS labels automatically.
Whether you're catering a 40-person corporate lunch, a 150-guest wedding breakfast, or a weekend festival pitch, FoodCore handles the admin so you can focus on the production. It is the software for event caterers that removes the operational friction without adding complexity.
No two events are the same. That variability is what makes event catering challenging to manage without the right tools.
One week you're catering a 30-person office lunch; the next it's a 200-guest wedding. Each event needs its own ingredient quantities, its own cost calculation, and its own shopping list. Working this out manually for every booking is a significant time cost that grows with your client base.
Clients change their minds. A dish gets dropped, a new request comes in, or a dietary requirement emerges late. Every change cascades — the cost changes, the shopping list changes, allergen information changes. Without connected software, you're making manual updates across multiple documents every time.
Guests at events have diverse dietary requirements. Under UK food law, you must be able to provide accurate allergen information for every dish you serve. For buffets, PPDS items need compliant labels. For served food, your team needs a clear allergen briefing. Managing this across a full menu, per event, is genuinely complex without dedicated software.
A typical event menu might involve ingredients from a butcher, a greengrocer, a wholesale dry goods supplier, and a specialist deli. Coordinating what to order from each supplier, in the right quantities, for multiple upcoming events is a logistics puzzle. FoodCore builds your shopping list by supplier, automatically.
Quoting a per-head price without knowing your actual ingredient cost per head is a risk. Underquote and you lose margin; overquote and you lose the booking. FoodCore calculates your exact food cost per head from your recipe data, so every quote you send is backed by real numbers — not an educated guess.
When you have three events booked in the same week, keeping the shopping lists, costs, and allergen information for each one separate and accurate is a serious admin challenge. FoodCore keeps every event distinct in its own workspace while letting you reuse recipes and ingredient data across all of them.
From initial quote to post-event review — FoodCore supports every stage of your event catering operation.
Build your full recipe library in FoodCore with ingredients, quantities, and costs. Assemble event menus from your library — mix and match starters, mains, and desserts per event. When you reuse a recipe across events, any updates you make carry through automatically. Your recipe library grows with your business without becoming a maintenance headache.
Enter the guest count for an event and FoodCore calculates the total food cost and per-head food cost automatically, based on your recipes and current ingredient prices. Add your target margin and see the minimum viable price per head. You can model different menu options to find the right balance of cost, quality, and margin before you send a quote.
FoodCore's allergen matrix shows every allergen across every dish on your event menu at a glance. When a guest informs you of an allergy, you can immediately check which dishes are safe across the entire menu — without manually cross-referencing ingredient lists. You can also generate a per-event allergen summary to brief your serving team and share with the venue.
When you have multiple events in the same week, FoodCore can consolidate your shopping lists across events, broken down by supplier. You place one efficient order with each supplier rather than multiple fragmented orders. Alternatively, view shopping lists per event if you prefer to keep each job separate — FoodCore works both ways.
Buffet food that you prepare and pack ahead of the event — individual portions, canapés in boxes, dessert pots — is classified as PPDS under UK law and needs a compliant label. FoodCore generates these automatically from your recipes: full ingredients list, all 14 allergens highlighted in bold, ready to print. No manual label creation required.
Each event in FoodCore has its own workspace — client name, event date, guest count, menu selection, special requirements, and notes. You have a clear record of every booking at a glance, can compare upcoming events, and can pull up the full details of any past event to help with future quoting. Your event history becomes a business asset.
FoodCore works for small UK catering businesses across every type of event — from private parties to large corporate functions.
Birthday parties, anniversaries, family gatherings — private events are often the bread and butter of a small catering business. FoodCore keeps your per-head costs accurate, your allergen information reliable, and your shopping lists efficient, regardless of whether you're cooking for 15 or 150.
Wedding catering has unique pressures — large guest counts, diverse dietary needs, tastings, menu revisions, and the need for everything to go right on the day. FoodCore's allergen matrix and per-head cost tools are especially valuable for wedding caterers. See our dedicated wedding catering software page.
Corporate clients often want detailed documentation — menu packs, allergen sheets, catering briefs. FoodCore makes it easy to generate accurate allergen information and menu details for corporate clients, and the per-head cost calculation is precise enough to quote confidently on contract catering.
Festival catering often involves pre-packed items — pot meals, wrapped sandwiches, boxed desserts — all of which need PPDS labels under UK law. FoodCore's label generation is built for exactly this: high-volume label production from a consistent recipe library, updated whenever ingredients change.
Private chefs and private dining operations serve small, discerning groups where precision matters. FoodCore's recipe costing ensures your pricing reflects your actual costs, and the allergen matrix means you can serve guests with confidence when dietary information has been collected in advance.
Why event caterers choose purpose-built software over manual tools.
Small UK catering businesses using FoodCore to run their event operations.
"Before FoodCore, quoting for events involved a lot of guesswork on food costs. Now I enter the menu and guest count, and FoodCore tells me my cost per head immediately. I can quote the same day a client contacts me instead of spending an evening on a spreadsheet."
"We do a lot of corporate events where the client needs a full allergen sheet for their HR team. FoodCore generates this for us in seconds from the event menu — it used to take me an hour to compile it manually from my recipe cards."
"I cater outdoor events and festivals. A lot of my food is pre-packed — portion pots, sandwich boxes, snack packs. Getting compliant labels for all of them every weekend was a nightmare. FoodCore generates them from my recipes. I print, peel, and go."
Most small event caterers manage their business with a combination of spreadsheets, Word documents, and their email inbox. Recipe costs sit in Excel, menus are written in Word, allergen information is either memorised or kept in a separate document, and shopping lists are worked out from scratch for each event. FoodCore brings all of this into one system — so a change to a recipe updates the cost, the label, and the shopping list simultaneously.
FoodCore's allergen matrix gives you a complete overview of every allergen across every dish on your event menu. You can see at a glance which dishes contain which allergens, quickly identify safe options for guests with specific requirements, and generate a guest allergen summary to share with your front-of-house team or venue. For buffet food and PPDS items, FoodCore also generates compliant Natasha's Law labels.
Yes. Buffet food that is pre-packed before the event is classified as PPDS (pre-packed for direct sale) under UK food law, which means it requires Natasha's Law compliant labels — a full ingredients list with all 14 major allergens highlighted in bold. FoodCore generates these labels automatically from your recipes. For served food that isn't pre-packed, FoodCore's allergen matrix gives you the information you need to brief your team and answer guest queries. See our food labelling software page for more detail.
FoodCore calculates the exact ingredient cost per head for any menu and guest number. Enter your recipes with ingredient costs, enter the guest count, and FoodCore calculates the total food cost for the event and the cost per head. You can also factor in your target margin to arrive at a minimum per-head price. When ingredient costs change, your event cost calculations update automatically.
FoodCore starts at £55/month for the Core plan, which includes all features — recipe management, allergen matrix, PPDS label generation, per-event cost calculation, shopping lists, and order management. There's a 7-day free trial with no card required. For small event catering businesses, the time saved on admin typically pays for the subscription within the first event booking.
Every feature included. No card required. Cancel any time. Recipe management, allergen tracking, per-event cost calculation, and compliant labels — all at £55/month.
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