Summer camp, a youth trip, a club outing: as soon as you are feeding more than a handful of people, two questions come up. How much do you need in the first place – and how do you get it all into the carts in a reasonable time?
Below are rough quantities per person, a worked example, and the part quantity charts rarely cover: shopping as a team.
These are starting points, not a shopping list to copy: rules of thumb from camp kitchens and catering guides, and our own experience cooking for a club trip of about 50 people. How much your group actually eats depends on age, the day's program and the weather – and you know that better than any chart.
raw weight
whole fish 300 g
as a side 45–50 g
as bought · as a side 200 g
as bought · as a side 250 g
as a starter 200 ml
or 100–150 g of bread
children toward the low end
as bought, as a side
When everyone serves themselves, people try things and go back for seconds. Catering guides raise the protein portion from about 115–170 g for a plated meal to 170–225 g for a buffet – roughly the same step.
Younger children eat clearly less than adults – barbecue guides plan about half the meat for a child. Teenagers after a day outdoors often eat more. Count both groups separately instead of using one average.
German camp-kitchen guides cut 10–15 % above about 30 people, because big and small eaters average out. Catering guides say headcount alone does not change what a person eats. If you are unsure, skip the cut.
Checked against: WebstaurantStore – catering portion size guide · Pasta Evangelists – pasta portion sizes · Foodess – how much rice per person · Strack & Van Til – meat per person for a cookout · FeedMyGuests – feeding large groups · Zeltlagerplatz.info – camp kitchen quantities (German). The sources agree on the rough size and disagree on the details – breakfast and the large-group cut most of all – which is why the ranges are wide.
One dinner, 50 people. Scale the per-person amount up, then decide whether to take the large-group cut – shown here with 10 percent. This is the method, not a list to copy.
| Ingredient | Per person | × 50 | With the cut |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ground meat125 g × 50 = 6.25 kg | 125 g | 6.25 kg | ≈ 5.6 kg |
| Spaghetti, dry100 g × 50 = 5.0 kg | 100 g | 5.0 kg | ≈ 4.5 kg |
| Vegetables for the sauce250 g × 50 = 12.5 kg | 250 g | 12.5 kg | ≈ 11 kg |
| Leaf salad45 g × 50 = 2.25 kg | 45 g | 2.25 kg | ≈ 2 kg |
With several dishes the same ingredient turns up again and again – salad on three evenings, ground meat on two. Merged, that is one line at the meat counter instead of three. How to let an AI do the adding up. For a single party with a grill and drinks there are separate rules of thumb.
A printed list exists exactly once. Four helpers in the store then means four photos of the same sheet, or constant questions about what is already in a cart.
Every tick shows up on every phone at once. Whoever is standing at the shelf can see whether someone already has the pasta.
Name and order the categories the way the store is laid out. Then split the aisles between you and walk the list once.
Next to every ticked item it says who got it. With eight helpers that saves half the “did anyone get …?” questions.
Anyone with the link can tick things off. With a PIN, only the people who know it can change or delete items – so nobody wrecks the planning by accident in the rush.