They may not have the festival’s budget, but they all make it—or don’t—on whether people are fed and happy. Whether you’re organising your school summer fair, village fete, or community fun day, feeding your event doesn’t mean feeding the whole festival circuit. We provide food concessions to large festivals and small community days, and the tips that keep your small event’s food cheap and tasty are not secret – they’ve just not been recorded. Until now.
Decide who provides the food: the three routes
Prior to comparing menus, plan how you are going to get the food there because this will have a greater influence on the cost than anything. There are three practical options for a small community event, and depending on your budget, your volunteers, and how much you want to risk the money, which is the best, it is highly variable. Here is a harsh lesson for organizers to consider: it may be more profitable to hire a professional concession.
Affordable menus that still please a crowd
Cheap food should not always mean bad food. The aim is always to find things that work for the most people, that can be cooked and stored in bulk, and that ideally need few ingredients and minimal preparation before serving so that you can be a little more relaxed in the kitchen.
As an alternative, rely on easily available cheap food that is inherently inclusive and that many of us eat anyway. Salads, rice and pulses, flatbreads, salad, and barbecued vegetables can serve plenty for very little cash—and naturally tick vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free boxes too.
Where the real costs hide
Keep your eye on the hidden costs. A menu on a paper can look cheap but then blow your budget if the food itself isn’t the largest expense. Calculate the things you always forget about first. Power and kit are the usual unexpected costs.
A professional trader will have all this kit already, which is partly what makes the overall hire cost cheaper than you might expect when you add up the kit you’d need to hire. The other hidden cost to factor in is waste, washing up, and water when you’re off-grid.
Do not skip the legal basics, even for a small event
Small and friendly is not an excuse. Even if you’re selling food for a charity, you must abide by food safety law. If you make and sell food as a regular business, you must register as a food business with your local authority (free registration, and you can check the rules at the Food Standards Agency website). When hiring a trader, you should check their hygiene rating (search the FSA rating search) and make sure they have public liability insurance, as your event will require it too.
Allergens count just as much at a fete as a festival. There are 14 allergens that have to be declared – including home-baked cake stalls which are often a final grey area. See the FSA allergen guidance for what you need to include. An ingredients card by each item will protect your volunteers and visitors.
Case study: feeding a village fete without blowing the budget
Here’s one, loosely anonymised, to show what a modest event can still get right on budget. We were approached by a village fete committee concerned about their catering for a predicted 600 visitors for an afternoon with no budget and just a few exhausted volunteers. They had anticipated doing it all themselves, and were daunted by the prospect. We offered a compromise: maintain their popular volunteer-run cake-and-tea stall (which is both a source of income and part of the event’s charm), and employ one professional concession to cook the hot food.
The figures added up. Professional stalls paid a small pitch fee and sold hot food at a cost that contributed to the coffers. The volunteers baked the tea-and-cake stall that everyone loved and raised more than they’d thought possible with just an allergen card for each item.
Food for thought: low budget doesn’t mean low effort. For an event, a little of both may be best.
How EMA Catering helps community events
We cater to any size event in the UK, from large festivals to small community events, so we appreciate limited budgets and time-strapped volunteers. We are happy to cook your hot food at a cost based on your pitch fee, allowing you to offset catering as a contribution, enabling your volunteers to run stalls they love.
We have been a family business since 1995, we keep prices family-friendly, food hygiene rating high, and we carry full public liability insurance. We supply our own power and equipment, halal meat (HMC-approved), and one helping or plenty for a community crowd price. Vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free alternatives to feed a township for a modest cost, so everyone eats, and no one starves.
Questions to ask a concession vendor
If you hire in, these questions keep it affordable and safe. Take them to every vendor you approach.
- Do you charge a pitch fee, a flat fee, or take a share of sales?
- What is your current Food Hygiene Rating, and can I see it on the FSA register?
- Can I see your public liability insurance certificate?
- Do you bring your own power, water and equipment?
- Can you keep prices family-friendly for a community crowd?
- What affordable vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options do you offer?
- How quickly can you serve at peak so queues stay short?
- Have you worked community events like ours before?
If you would like a professional, approachable team to do the food duty for your committee, we’d love to help. Check out our event catering page, view examples of events we’ve previously catered, or get in touch with us with your date, headcount and budget and we’ll get back to you within one working day.
The bottom line
The basics for cheap food concessions for events is three-fold: select the most cost-effective drop off route for your budget and volunteers, select the simplest dishes most popular with as many people as possible with the lowest price per head, and remember all the hidden costs of power and equipment before they bite you. Don’t forget the food-safety and allergen basics just because it’s a small event, and be aware that paying for a food concession may actually pay the small event a pitch fee! Balance it right and small local events can feed everyone well, raise funds, and leave their volunteers grinning.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest way to provide food at a community event?
The basics are usually a combination of volunteer stalls for inexpensive, high margin items such as tea and cakes and one professional catering concession for hot food. Managing all with volunteers is the cheapest on paper but the costs are buried in equipment rental, power and a lot of unpaid labour. The cheapest dependable solution is often a compromise of volunteer effort and one or two professionals.
Can hiring a food concession make money for my event?
Yes, all the time At many events, vendors pay a pitch fee in order to sell and keep their own takings, turning catering into a small revenue stream instead of a cost. The amount of the fee is proportional to the footfall you expect at the event. Ask vendors up front whether they sell on a pitch-fee basis because this can change your catering from a budget-burden into a modest money-spinner.
Do I need a licence to sell food at a small community event?
If you are preparing and selling food on a regular basis, then you must register as a food business with your local authority at no cost and comply with food hygiene law and allergen legislation. Occasional charity sales have some allowances but, if in doubt, it’s better to ask your local council’s environmental health team in advance. If you employ a seller, they must register themselves, but you should ask to see their hygiene rating and insurance.
What food is cheapest to serve to a crowd?
Select food items that are cheap to prepare, very popular, and simple to cook:- For example – burgers and hot dogs, jacket potatoes, wraps and flatbreads, tea and cake. Reduce your costs by selecting a menu that does not contain a lot of expensive ingredients, but has wider appeal – rice, vegetables, salad, and pulses are all naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten free.
How do I handle allergens at a charity bake sale or fete?
Allergen rules still apply. You still have to declare 14 big allergens, so it’s an ingredient card, per item, for the safe option. Can you get volunteers to make a note of what they bring, or don’t do it at all? Better to be safe for guests with allergies and for your event, so this is the simple way forward. Precooked versions and prepacked foods might be eligible for Natasha’s Law labeling.
How much food should I order for a community event?
Base it on your realistic maximum attendance rather than total, as this builds up during the day (hungry crowds!). A good caterer will advise on covers for you based on visitor numbers and duration of event. How much you order is a balancing act—you don’t want to run out and disappoint your excited visitors, but you don’t want too much and end up throwing it out.