British BBQ Society Forums

Don't forget cooking and wood costs. Insurance. Etc.

I think these things do just break even until you can buy bulk, then you make some money.

I remember reading somewhere at some point that if you do it less than a certain amount of times in a period of time then you don't need insurance. Probably not true but something important to find out before you start


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I like the idea of woody B's in America. Sell the food in bags to be boiled or microwaved


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Vibe wrote: the 9lbs butt would provide enough to feed approx 9 people using 50% loss and 0.5lbs per serving

I think that you will find the 50% loss is with a whole hog roast and not a pork shoulder. This should not exceed 25% loss.

Ok so without insurance, fuels (wood/coal/pellets), BBQ sauce and anything else I have forgotten as i'm doing this while I should be working.

So at a 25% loss would mean 13.5 people instead of 9.

For quick math i'll leave the other figures the same (slaw and buns) selling again at £5 each would yield £35.5 profit from a cost of £32 - so that's a lot better but again i'm sure there are quite a few things i'm missing in the cost side of things.

Anyone care to list? I'm interested in working it all out.

I would also not include start up costs in any equation other than just a separate start up cost and then you can just work out how long it will take to write it off/cover it

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£25 - 9lbs butt
£2 - buns
£5 - slaw
Total £32

25% loss = 6.75lbs left so times that by 2 (0.5lbs per person) gives you 13.5 then times that by sell price (£5) gives you £67.5.

Don't forget that as you cook more you might get the butts cheaper. If you have a freezer it would pay to buy as many as you can to get the best price.

There is probably another debate right there - Freezing, defrosting meat - is it as good as fresh from butcher?

Or do most butchers nowadays receive it frozen? (like half cows or something).

My butcher gets a fair amount of frozen stuff. Especially ribs, both pork and beef.

1/2 lb is a big sandwich.

Most people would serve a 1/3 lb sandwich and would charge £6 or more depending where you are.

To make money from BBQ vending at festivals and so on, i think you really need to serve 800 people + to make it worth while as you also need to think about van hire (if you don't own one) Petrol/Diesel and then the amount of work that is involved in cooking for and serving that many people and then cleaning up everything afterwards.

Also I haven't seen any mention of pitch fee's which can be as much as 30% of your takings!!!