Contents
- 01What office catering costs per head
- 02The whole day: breakfast, lunch and the afternoon break
- 03Formats that survive a conference room with no kitchen
- 04Timing: the driver who arrives mid-presentation
- 05What a standing weekly delivery actually changes
- 06Ordering when the headcount is a moving target
- 07Set the dietary defaults once instead of asking every week
- 08The Bewirtungsbeleg: the paperwork nobody enjoys
- 09Common questions about office and meeting catering
- 10How Catervia feeds a floor
Office catering rarely fails on the food and almost always on the choreography. The budget is agreed, the menu is uncontroversial, and then the driver rings the bell at 12:40 while the quarterly numbers are still on the screen. Anyone feeding a floor regularly plans four things rather than one: the format, the delivery window, the quantity and the paperwork. All four are here, with the per-head prices from the budget calculator and the places where office catering usually comes unstuck.
The short answer
Breakfast in the office starts at €6 net per person, a business lunch at €10. A full meeting day with breakfast, lunch, an afternoon break and drinks adds up to somewhere between just under €40 and a good €80 per person, depending on how high you set each individual line. On top of that comes a delivery fee per booking, and for small groups the minimum order value, which in an office is the real price driver.
- Breakfast: from €6, typically €8 to €22 per person · from sandwiches through to a hot breakfast buffet
- Business lunch: from €10, typically €14 to €30 · the standard format for meetings, training days and conferences
- Afternoon break with cake or a sweet table: from €6, typically €8 to €18
- Drinks: soft drinks, coffee and water from €4, typically €5 to €9 per person
- Delivery with setup from €1, typically €2 to €5 per person. Plus a €30 delivery fee to central Berlin, €65 to the outer districts, €120 to Brandenburg
- Minimum order value typically €250 net per delivery · the reason small teams pay more per head
What office catering costs per head
Office formats sit at the affordable end of catering, and there is a straightforward reason: they are delivered rather than staffed. No service team staying for the evening, no two-hour setup, no equipment to collect again. What you pay for is essentially food plus the drive. The from column is what the price-led end of the Berlin market charges for a brief that has been cut cleanly; the typical column is where most quotes land.
Office catering per person · net, excluding drinks and the delivery fee
| Format | from | typical |
|---|---|---|
| Breakfast & brunch Sandwiches and fruit at the lower end, a hot breakfast buffet at the upper. | from €6 | €8–22 |
| Business lunch Bowls and wraps in boxes through to a hot two-course lunch. | from €10 | €14–30 |
| Finger food For receptions, product launches and anything that happens standing up. | from €10 | €14–25 |
| Buffet (hot & cold) When the meeting turns into a celebration or the whole floor eats. | from €14 | €20–35 |
| Vegan menu Fully plant-based for everyone instead of a special portion for two people. | from €15 | €22–45 |
| Dessert & sweet table The afternoon break. Costed as an addition, not as a meal. | from €6 | €8–18 |
Net per person. Food and service carry 7% VAT, drinks 19%. The delivery fee is charged per booking, not per head.
The widest range belongs to the business lunch, and that is because the same phrase covers two entirely different things. At €14 you get a well-made bowl or an assortment of sandwiches in boxes that stays cold and can be handed round. At €28 there is a hot lunch with a side and something sweet, and somebody has set it up. Both are a business lunch, and if you compare two quotes without having asked that question, you are comparing two different days. How to take those lines apart is in the guide to reading a quote.
The whole day: breakfast, lunch and the afternoon break
A workshop, a training day or a client session running eight hours is not one order but three. Work it through concretely: 25 participants, breakfast at €12, a business lunch at €18, an afternoon break at €8, soft drinks and coffee at €8, plus delivery with setup at €3 per person and a €30 delivery fee to central Berlin. That is €1,255 net, or €50.20 a head, and this is how it splits.
A meeting day for 25 people with three catering windows · €1,255 net
- Breakfast24%€12 per person, midway between sandwiches and a hot buffet.
- Business lunch36%€18 per person, inside the usual €14 to €30 range.
- Afternoon break16%€8 per person for cake or a sweet table, the bottom of the range.
- Drinks16%€8 per person for coffee, water and soft drinks across the whole day.
- Delivery & setup8%€3 per person for the setup plus a €30 delivery fee to central Berlin.
Three things fall out of that split. First, lunch is the largest single line, so it is where cutting back or trading up shows most. Second, the afternoon break costs a sixth of the day and is the cheapest moment at which you can look good · after six hours in a conference room nobody remembers the salad at midday, but everybody remembers the cake at half past three. Third, delivery barely registers across 25 people. Across eight people the same flat fee would be €3.75 a head, more than half an entry-price breakfast.
Formats that survive a conference room with no kitchen
The real constraint in an office is not the budget, it is the room. A conference room has a table, maybe a sideboard, a socket in the wall and no water. Whatever arrives has to work without an oven, without a sink, without surface to plate up on and without anyone topping things up halfway through. Caterers know this, but they cannot guess it. They work from what the brief says.
What reliably works is anything planned cold that holds up for an hour at room temperature: bowls and wraps in single portions, sandwiches, salads in jars, antipasti, cold finger food, fruit. Hot food works when the caterer brings chafing dishes and sets them up, which means the delivery with setup service level and upwards. What stays difficult is anything that has to be fresh and hot to the minute: anything fried, anything pan-cooked to order, anything with a sauce that splits after twenty minutes. For receptions and launches finger food is the safest choice, and for conferences with fixed breaks it is conference catering with set windows.
Which formats actually run regularly in Berlin offices is on the office catering page. And if you are unsure what fits your room: describe it once in a catering request and let the caterers propose what works there without a kitchen. That is the more honest order of operations than picking a menu and discovering afterwards that it needs an oven.
Timing: the driver who arrives mid-presentation
This is the classic failure, and it does not happen through carelessness but because two times get confused: the time people eat, and the time the food arrives. Write "lunch at 12:30" into the brief and you get a driver ringing the bell at 12:30, leaving the food in the corridor while the meeting runs on. Give a delivery window that sits before the break instead, and say separately when people actually eat.
In practice: delivery 30 to 45 minutes before the break, so that setup and coffee are done by the time the door opens. Cold formats take that lead time without complaint. For hot food, agree the timing with the caterer, because chafing dishes hold a temperature but they improve nothing. And plan the clear-down too: somebody has to take the leftovers away before the next meeting walks into the same room.
Five things that belong in every office brief
- A delivery window, not a timeA 30-minute window that ends before the break. Berlin traffic is not a variable a caterer controls, and a window takes exactly that pressure out of the booking.
- Who opens the doorThe name and mobile number of someone genuinely reachable who is not sitting in the meeting themselves. A reception desk that is unstaffed at noon costs you half the break.
- The way upstairsFloor, lift or stairs, goods lift with a key, rear courtyard rather than the main entrance. Whatever costs ten minutes on the first delivery costs the same ten minutes on every one after it.
- When people eatNot just the break but its length. A 20-minute break needs single portions; an hour can carry a buffet with a queue in front of it.
- Collection and disposalSettle whether the caterer collects platters and equipment the same day, whether a second trip is billed, and who takes the waste. Otherwise the crockery sits in the kitchenette until Friday.
What a standing weekly delivery actually changes
A fixed slot, the same weekday every week, the same floor, the same window: for a caterer that is a fundamentally different thing from a one-off order. The drive sits on a known route, the setup is practised, the dietary requirements are settled, and the quantity varies by a few heads rather than by half. That predictability is the lever you negotiate with.
The honest part: a standing rhythm does not automatically lower the price per head. Some caterers discount recurring deliveries, others do not, and the terms differ from house to house. What reliably changes is the effort on your side. You brief once instead of weekly, you get the same contacts, and after four weeks you can see how much actually gets eaten. Whether that turns into a better price is decided in the conversation · and anyone filling a quiet Tuesday in a caterer's calendar walks into it with an argument.
What you should put in writing is not a long contract but half a page: a fixed weekday and delivery window, a cut-off for confirming numbers, a framework for the menu so that the same bowl does not arrive six weeks running, monthly rather than per-delivery invoicing, and a notice period that fits your budget year. Notice periods and recurring-order discounts are the part that varies most between caterers, so have them stated rather than assuming a standard.
Ordering when the headcount is a moving target
In an office the guest list is an estimate, not a set of confirmations. Forty people are in the calendar and 28 turn up: three working from home, two at a client, four ill, three in a meeting that overran. Order against the calendar invite and you will reliably pay for food nobody eats. And it is not small money: ten heads too many on an €18 lunch is €180 net a week, and across a quarter of thirteen deliveries, €2,340.
What helps is a cut-off rather than a survey. Ask about attendance the day before, not two weeks ahead, and give the caterer a date on which the number becomes binding. Plenty of Berlin kitchens will still take an increase on the morning itself; they are stricter about reductions, because the shopping and the prep are already done. How tight that cut-off is sits in the quote and differs noticeably: some caterers want the number 24 hours ahead, others three working days, others again work with a guaranteed minimum. Ask before you book the first slot.
The second lever is how you cut the order. Order the fixed base against the number that is reliably there, the people who come every week, and let the variable part be single portions added on top. Boxed single portions are better than a buffet for this: what stayed sealed keeps in the fridge until the next day, what stood open on the table does not. How much per person is realistic in the first place is covered in detail in quantities per person.
And if something is left over anyway: put it in the kitchenette, tell the team, and do not leave it on the conference table until the end of the day. It is not a grand sustainability strategy, but it is the difference between leftovers that get eaten and leftovers that go in the bin.
Set the dietary defaults once instead of asking every week
The weekly round-robin email asking who eats vegetarian is the quiet time sink of office catering. It never reaches everyone, it never reaches the same people twice, and somebody ends up in front of a bowl of side salad. The way out is a standing default you set up once and then only maintain. It costs you an hour and saves twenty minutes every week.
The default you set up once
- A fixed vegetarian shareSet a quota rather than guessing it each time, then correct it after four weeks against what came back untouched. Nobody knows the share in your team in advance · what you measured over a month is what applies from then on.
- Vegan as its own lineA vegan dish is not a vegetarian one with the cheese left off. Put it in the brief as its own line, or that is exactly what arrives. A fully plant-based menu for everyone starts at €15 net per person and is often simpler for a small group than three special portions.
- Allergens in writing with every deliveryNot as an attachment to the quote but as a sheet that comes with the food. What was in the order is not necessarily what is in today's box.
- Standing requirements, not individual casesIf colleagues eat pork-free or halal, that belongs in the framework agreement rather than in every single order. Set once, and nobody has to explain it again.
- Named portions for strict requirementsGluten-free and lactose-free work badly on a buffet, because the same tongs end up in two bowls. Have those portions packed separately and labelled with a name.
- One person who keeps the listNot the boss, and not whoever is around. One person who keeps the requirements current and lodged with the caterer · the cheapest process improvement in this entire article.
How to communicate allergens properly and what a caterer has to supply is covered in the piece on allergens and dietary requirements. For the order itself, one sentence is enough: "These requirements are standing; changes come from me."
The Bewirtungsbeleg: the paperwork nobody enjoys
Business hospitality in Germany has to be documented. That is not a special case for large companies, it is the normal case as soon as a catering invoice reaches the bookkeeping. The practical part of it is pleasantly small, and it costs you two minutes on the day of delivery · later, when somebody asks, it would cost hours.
You need the caterer's machine-generated invoice, made out to the company with the full address rather than to you personally. Alongside it you note the occasion, meaning what the food was for, and the participants, with names and companies for guests from outside. Date and place follow from the invoice. Keep the whole thing together; digital is fine as long as it is findable.
How it is treated for tax depends on the case, and that is exactly where this article stops. It makes a difference whether you are feeding your own team or hosting outside guests, whether it is a working lunch or a celebration, and whether drinks are itemised separately. Collect the documents completely and let your Steuerberatung decide how they are treated. That is the only honest answer a catering marketplace can give on the subject.
Common questions about office and meeting catering
Answered in brief
Breakfast starts at €6 net per person and typically runs €8 to €22; a business lunch starts at €10 and typically runs €14 to €30. Drinks add from €4 per person, delivery with setup from €1, and each booking carries a delivery fee from €30. For small teams the €250 net minimum order value shapes the per-head price more than the menu does. Work out your own range in the budget calculator.
Tell the caterer about the room before the menu: setup area in metres, sockets, fridge or no fridge, lift or stairs. Cold formats in single portions always work there; hot food works when the caterer brings chafing dishes, which means the delivery-with-setup service level at €2 to €5 per person.
As a window 30 to 45 minutes before the break, not at the break itself. Give a window rather than a time, name a reachable person with a mobile number, and say separately when people actually eat. That is the difference between a setup that is finished when the door opens and a driver ringing the bell mid-presentation.
For the planning almost always; for the price it depends. A fixed slot is predictable for the caterer, which is an argument in the negotiation, but every house handles recurring-order discounts differently. Put the weekday, delivery window, cut-off, menu framework, invoicing and notice period in writing, and have the terms stated rather than assuming a standard.
Order the base against the number that is reliably there and the rest as single portions that can be added at short notice. Ask about attendance the day before rather than two weeks ahead. Ten heads too many on an €18 lunch is €180 net a week, and €2,340 across a quarter.
Hospitality costs are a chapter of their own in German tax law, and the treatment depends on who you are hosting and why. What you need in every case is the machine-generated invoice made out to the company, the noted occasion and the participants. Collect that completely and let your Steuerberatung do the classification.
How Catervia feeds a floor
The tiring part of office catering is not the individual order, it is the search in front of it. Writing to five caterers, explaining the same room five times, receiving five quotes that cannot be compared because one includes delivery and the other does not. That is the part we take off your desk.
You describe your office once: team size, rhythm, room, dietary requirements, budget. Several Berlin caterers quote against that same brief, so the offers line up side by side. You have a response within 24 hours. If you are after a fixed weekday, we say so in the brief · caterers with free capacity on that day answer differently from those who are booked out anyway.
If a quote comes back above your figure, we take it back and ask about the cut rather than the discount: is cold enough instead of hot? Is delivery without setup enough? Can the menu be rebuilt around what is in season? The step-by-step version is on how it works, and if you want numbers first, put your office once into a catering request.