Estimate total meat needed and meat per person for events from guest count, meat type, cut, serving style, and raw or cooked purchase type.

Use the same raw or cooked basis for basic calculations. Planner portions and yields are examples, not minimum intake requirements; blank overrides use the selected preset.

Meat Per Person Formula

The following formula is used to calculate the total amount of meat needed to host an event given a certain number of people.

TM = P × 8
  • Where TM is the total cooked edible meat (ounces) for this 8-ounce-per-person example
  • P is the total number of guests hosted

To calculate the meat per person, divide the total meat used by the total number of people. For example, if there are 5 lbs of meat, and 10 people, the meat per person is .5 lbs.

How much meat per person?

A planning example is 8 ounces (1/2 pound) of cooked edible meat per person, not a universal minimum. Portion needs vary with appetite, age, side dishes, and meal style. Raw purchase weight must account for cooking, trimming, and bone losses.

How to calculate meat per person?

Example Problem:

The following example outlines how to calculate how much meat to use for a given event.

First, determine how many guests will be served meat. For this example, 10 people intend to eat meat.

Next, using an example cooked portion of 8 ounces per person, multiply 10 × 8 = 80 ounces of cooked edible meat. Raw purchase weight will be higher when yield is below 100%.

Finally, divide by 16 to get the amount of meat in pounds.

80 / 16 = 5 lbs of meat