catering multiple meats and sides - portions question

Hello!
Planning a few 100-200 people "self serve buffet" style events. I am pretty good at estimating food needed for selling out of our trailer at events where I am controlling things, but this is a bit newer to me.

If I am serving pulled pork, brisket, a 3 sides (slaw, beans, corn casserole), is 4oz per each item per person a decent average to use for planning purposes? Not serving football teams or crazy big eaters or anything.

I'm guessing I would need about 80lbs brisket and 80 lbs pork (raw) to get close to that for 150 people, if indeed that is a good portion average.

Thanks!

medic92 said:

I don't know what I was thinking when I completely misread your post. Self-serve is tough for portion control. For pulled pork we use a six ounce disher so people might somewhat control themselves, and when I slice the brisket I take the slices and cut them in half or thirds so they're not grabbing three or four full slices.

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that is a good call on cutting brisket slices!

I think I'm going to put in the contract that we are agreeing on a specific serving size for the amount of people eating with a buffer of 10-15% so we can't be held liable if something runs out because either too many people show up or people take way too much.