Office catering is judged over months, not on one day. Nobody photographs the buffet; what matters is that 200 people eat inside a 45-minute break, that the menu does not repeat itself by week three, and that the invoice matches the purchase order. Here is how it is priced in Hyderabad and what to put in the brief.
Per-head rates, 2026
- Tea and coffee service — ₹35–70 per head per round, with biscuits or one snack
- Breakfast — ₹140–260 (South Indian tiffin, or a mixed continental and Indian spread)
- Daily office lunch, veg — ₹110–190 per head on a monthly contract
- Daily office lunch, with non-veg twice a week — ₹150–240
- Buffet lunch, one-off — ₹280–450 veg, ₹380–600 with non-veg
- Meeting / meal boxes — ₹150–320 depending on contents and packaging
- High tea and evening snacks — ₹180–320
- Conference lunch with live counters — ₹500–800
- Gala or awards dinner — ₹800–1,500
Daily contracts price very differently from one-off events — ask for both, because a company doing one quarterly offsite and daily lunches is really buying two services.
The constraint nobody puts in the brief: throughput
A 45-minute lunch break for 200 people is a queue problem before it is a food problem. One buffet line serves roughly 100–120 people in thirty minutes. For 200 people in 45 minutes you need at least two parallel lines, double-sided, with the slowest item placed last so the queue does not stall at the front.
Write it into the brief as a number: “200 covers served within 35 minutes.” It changes the setup, and it is the single most useful line you can add.
Daily lunch — the menu rotation question
The thing that kills an office catering contract is repetition. Ask for a four-week non-repeating cycle in writing before you sign, and ask to see it. A typical working rotation:
- Two rice options (one plain, one variety) daily
- Rotating dal, one dry curry, one gravy
- Curd, pickle, papad, salad daily
- One sweet twice a week
- Non-veg on fixed days, with a veg alternative always present
- Regional days — Andhra meals, North Indian, Chinese — to break the pattern
See office lunch catering and packed meal boxes.
Meeting and training boxes
For sessions that cannot break for a buffet, individually packed boxes are faster and cleaner. A workable box at ₹180–250: one rice or biryani portion, one curry, two rotis, salad, curd or raita, one sweet, cutlery and a napkin. Label veg and non-veg clearly on the outside, and keep a labelled Jain or no-onion-garlic set aside rather than mixed into the stack.
What to put in a corporate RFQ
- Headcount, and the split between veg, non-veg and Jain
- Exact service window, and how long food must hold
- Required throughput (covers served per minute)
- Venue constraints — kitchen access, power points, lift access, security clearance timings
- Crockery standard: disposable, melamine or china
- Staff uniform and ID requirements
- Invoicing: GSTIN, PO reference, payment terms
- Whether tea and coffee rounds are continuous or scheduled
- For contracts: menu rotation cycle, and the notice period on either side
Compliance, sorted before rather than after
Confirm up front: GST-compliant invoice with your entity name and GSTIN, PO number on the invoice, FSSAI licence copy for the kitchen, and a staff ID list if your site needs security clearance. Sorting these before the first delivery avoids the finance-team email chain after it.
Per-head costs for event formats — annual days, conferences, dealer meets — are in corporate catering per-head costs, and total budgets by guest count in catering cost for 100 to 500 guests.
Vinora Events caters offices across HITEC City, Gachibowli, Madhapur and the Financial District with GST invoicing and PO support. Call +91 97036 16476 or see corporate catering services in Hyderabad.
