Charcuterie Math for Everyone

Wondering how much to buy for your boards to feed a crowd? Use our FREE Charcuterie Calculator.

I used ZOOM to create an overview clip of the calculator (the really long link below) Just click the Get Your FREEBIES button in the clip or use this link to get them NOW https://agoragrand.hbportal.co/public/
6596332735ad8600385c15fc

https://us04web.zoom.us/clips/share/3BqQ3UFiuH_S8U6KlaYJY5ysY_whjUWjvBjcX-_qX-1TRe-xXE3DegTHgI5AoXSjWK3W8yqBs85V-o-y1nILadWiMw.TN2TTt21Z8p42fH2

Agora Grand Event Center

Below is the "suggested" serving sizes for a charcuterie board for an appetizer and for a grazing table that is a meal. This are just suggestions, and I strongly suggest that you adjust based on your personal experience as you create more boards and tables. However, for everyone wondering "HOW MUCH SHOULD I BUY?", this is a great starting point.
My next post will have a FREE Simple Calculator that you can download. Stay tuned!!!

Visualizing serving sizes.
This was a board I quickly put together for this exercise. It will feed 4-6. The second photo shows almost 5 ounces of meat and cheese - a high appetizer serving size. With the sweets, you’ll notice the plate is over half a pound of food and that does not include the bread and crackers.
Ask yourself if this is a normal appetizer serving?

Life got in the way of my goal for today, but I still needed to post for myself.
Do you know your portion sizes? Stop overbuying. If things work out tomorrow… I’ll not only reveal the suggested serving sizes, but I will also show you exactly what that looks like.
Stay tuned!

Knowing portion sizes is so important to knowing how much to buy. I will say it again, a $10 kitchen scale is your friend.

This slice of bread is about an ounce. If you notice, it is about as wide as my thumb and a little larger than my palm. Of course different bread weighs different amounts, but now when I’m thinking about offering a baguette, I can immediately picture the size of a serving.

Tonight a reel is coming about portion sizes. Stay tuned!

New Group Name to better reflect what I am learning that can help all of us. Know how much food is needed and know howmuch to charge. Even if you only do boards for fun, you will learn how to stop overspending on wasted food.

I am having a slight "identity" crisis currently. While I think learning tips and tricks is fun and needed - they are easy enough to google. At this point, I am showing you how to do something that many others on the internet can show you too.
What I really need, is a way to manage the creation of my boards - how much to buy, how to cut/present/layout, how much it cost me to make and how much I sell for. And what I see in the groups I follow are many, many, many folks that are operating on a small scale that ask these same questions over and over - how much do I buy and how much should I sell it for?
SO... what I really what to focus on every day, is breaking the math down for everyone in simple lessons that we are going to build upon. Less of the tips that you can google and practice on your own, and more the control of creating your board. If this is a fork in the road of the journey that you would still like to take with me, I would love to have you continue down this path with me, I would also appreciate it if you could share this group so we can get more folks to travel this journey with us.

Below is a link to the free sheet I shared yesterday. It takes you to a short opt in form that operates under my venue name, Agora Grand. Just want you to know!

Free Digital Product

Want a free way to help you better control the charcuterie chaos? Hit the "Sign Up" option on the top of my page and you can download a free spreadsheet to help you start to get organized and KNOW YOUR OPTIONS! This is part of exactly what I am doing for my own experience and learning.

This video shows you the spreadsheet and explains how to use it. You can even build it yourself. Nothing fancy here, just getting myself organized and passing it on to you to help you. I am also giving everyone permission to "play with your food". 🙃



This

Spreadsheet Tips and Tricks In this video, I provide a detailed walkthrough of a spreadsheet that will help you with menu planning and offering choices to your clients. I explain the different tabs and columns, and how to customize them to fit your needs. I also highlight the importance of checking labels for gluten-free produ...

Tonight is a two for! Strawberry roses first and a downloadable freebie to help you organize your charcuterie offerings.
Download link is coming shortly, but first… more roses!

How cute are these cucumber roses in their own vase. No toothpicks needed. Reel with video coming.
Biggest challenge to me was slicing thin enough and getting over my fear that there were delicate. They are tougher than they look. 😮‍💨

Idea to take your tomato hearts to the next level!

Heart Shaped Valentine's Caprese Skewers Make these delicious Heart Shaped Valentine's Caprese Skewers for Valentine's Day! Sliced grape tomatoes shaped into hearts are so cute.

Hi! I am Billie-Jayne. I live in Lewiston, Maine where I own an inn and an event center. My journey into charcuterie started because I was brainstorming ways to utilize the commercial kitchen in my event center that you actually can't cook in. Viola! Charcuterie was the perfect answer! Bonus points for not leaving appetizer or grazing table money on the table to hand over to other caterers. (Side note, I will still happily let outside caterers come in for the buffets, sit-down meals and such).

After all of my research, I finally sat down to see IF this was something I could actually do and replicate to make it cost effective and teachable for my staff to learn.

On Saturday, December 30, 2023, I armed myself with a recipe from the Sargento Cheese site to attempt to replicate. I had never made a food rose or anything like that before. Guess what? It worked!

As the New Year was about to begin, not only did I know this was the way to go, but I also knew I needed to learn more. I hate resolutions but decided that I was going to commit to learning one new simple thing every day about improving my skills.

The resources are available to learn EASY ways to manage, make and create a guest experience that hits all of the senses - the visual display, the wonderful smells, of course the amazing tastes with the feel of textures, and the sense of hearing as guests express their pleasure.

Being artistically challenged, I find it hard to be creative especially when everything is new. So, I have been studying other boards like most of us and searching for "directions" or "recipes" to let me learn technique without worrying about creativity. The creativity comes later once I am armed with knowledge about possibilities.

My immediate goal is to be able to take a photo from a client of their vision, break it down, and recreate it scaled to the party size they wanted. I am currently working on a calculator that lets me do that! Not only will I be able to break the photo down, but I will have a shopping list, a full cost breakdown and be able to produce a proposal for the client with the complete retail price - including supplies and time/staffing. Please message me if you would be interested in helping me test it.

Follow along with me as I learn one simple tip or skill a day to improve and stay tuned as my calculator becomes available to help all of us be able to price our work for profit and reduce waste.

Yes, the photo is of the board I created on 12/30/23. If I can do this, so can you. Let's learn together.