Film and TV catering is priced around your shoot, not off a fixed menu. The main things that move the cost are crew size, how many days you’re filming, how many meals a day you need, where you’re shooting, and how self-sufficient the caterer has to be to work there. A studio backlot and a remote moorland location produce very different quotes for the same crew.
If you’re budgeting TV and film catering for a production, this guide explains what really drives the cost and what a full service includes, so you can plan the line properly and compare suppliers fairly.
We cater location shoots across the UK, from tight urban jobs to sites with nothing on them but a field and a gate. The productions that get a clean quote are the ones that share the real shape of the shoot up front.
How much does it cost to cater a film set?
There’s no flat rate, and any caterer quoting one before they’ve seen your shoot is guessing.
The biggest levers are crew size and shoot length. Feeding forty people for three days is a different job to feeding two hundred across a six-week block, and the cost scales with both. On top of that sit the number of services a day, the location, and how much the caterer has to bring to operate there.
Location does more work than people expect. A site with vehicle access, hard standing and nearby supplies is straightforward. A remote location with no power, no water and a long track in means the caterer brings everything and factors in the effort of getting it there. Same crew, same menu, different cost, purely because of where you’re asking them to work.
What’s a typical daily catering budget on a production?
Most productions think about catering as a per-head, per-day allowance rather than one lump figure, because it keeps budgeting predictable as the crew size changes.
What sits inside that allowance depends on the shoot. A single hot lunch for a day crew is one thing; breakfast, lunch and a hot dinner on a night shoot is another and the menu standard you want changes it again. Dietary spread plays in as well, since a crew with a lot of separately prepared vegan, halal or allergen-safe meals takes more prep and stock than a straightforward menu.
Rather than chase a benchmark number that may not fit your shoot at all, the useful thing is to hand a caterer your crew size, your shoot dates, your locations and how many services a day you expect. That gets you a per-head figure built around your production instead of someone else’s.
How much do you feed a crew per day?
A working film crew eats properly, and more often than an office day would suggest.
On a standard shoot day, that usually means a hot breakfast before the unit call and a full hot lunch at the meal break, with tea, coffee and snacks running throughout from craft services. Push into a night shoot or a long overrun and you’re into a second main meal, because you can’t ask people to do fourteen hours on one lunch. Crews work long, physical days outdoors, often in the cold, and their appetites reflect that.
For budgeting, headcount alone undersells it. What matters is headcount multiplied by services: two hundred crew fed twice in a day is four hundred meals out of the kitchen. That’s why services a day sits right alongside crew size as one of the first things a caterer asks about.
What’s included in unit base catering?
When you pay for unit base catering, you’re paying for a self-contained operation, not just the food on the plate.
Full service includes the mobile kitchen and dining setup, the silent power and fresh water to run independently of the site, the crew to cook and serve, hot meals timed around the call sheet, and a dietary spread that covers everyone working. It also includes the things that don’t show up on a plate but matter on a professional set: RAMS, full insurance for site access and a team used to working around a shoot without getting in its way.
On a longer or more complex production, it extends to multiple services a day, moving between locations, and the flexibility to handle a schedule that shifts under everyone’s feet. That autonomy and reliability is a real part of what you’re paying for, and it’s the part a cheap quote usually skimps on.
Do productions pay for crew meals?
Yes. Feeding the crew is standard practice in TV and film, not an optional extra.
In the UK, productions are generally expected to provide meals, and the meal break is written into the schedule as part of the working day. If a break gets pushed too far past its due time, some crew agreements trigger penalties, which is one more reason a caterer who can serve a big crew quickly inside the window earns their fee. Well-fed crews work better and the schedule holds; a badly handled meal break costs money and goodwill at the same time.
So catering isn’t a soft cost to trim to the bone. It’s crew welfare and schedule protection, and the money is usually better spent getting it right than saving a little and dealing with the fallout.
Budgeting your production catering
The honest way to cost film catering is around your actual shoot, not a rule of thumb. Crew size, shoot length, services a day, locations and how remote they are will shape the figure more than anything else.
Give us the shape of your production, and we’ll put together a clear, itemised quote you can budget from. Find out more about our TV and film catering or get in touch to talk it through.
