Party food to order is the grown-up answer to the oldest party problem: somebody has to make the food, and it is usually the person who should be enjoying the party. Whether it is a board meeting, a training day, a family birthday or the office Christmas do, ordering in means the food turns up ready, labelled and looking like somebody cared, because somebody did. I make party food to order in Peterborough, including sandwich platters in Peterborough delivered across the PE postcodes, and this is my guide to getting it right: what to order, how much, what makes the perfect sandwich platter, and how to keep it safe until the last crust is gone.
I bake alone, in small batches, from a registered home kitchen in Peterborough with a food hygiene rating of 5, using generational recipes. I learned at my gran's side from about twelve, in a kitchen that catered birthdays and weddings, and I was taking my own orders at fifteen. Catering for a room full of people is where I started, and it is still my favourite kind of busy.
(I would tell you a joke about a sandwich, but I am worried it would go stale before the punchline)
What party food should I order?
Order party food that people can eat standing up, with one hand, while talking: sandwiches, savoury bites, cake cut into proper pieces, cupcakes, brownies and cookies. The best spreads balance something filling with something sweet, and give every dietary need its own labelled corner rather than an apologetic gap.
Start with the occasion rather than the menu. A working lunch at a board meeting wants food that is tidy, quiet and quick, because nobody wants to be the person crunching through the quarterly figures. A training day wants a lunch that keeps people awake for the afternoon session. A family gathering wants generosity, and a Christmas party wants a little theatre.
Then think about the room. If people will sit, a platter of sandwiches and a cake to cut works beautifully. If they will mingle, small things win: sandwich fingers, sausage rolls, cupcakes and brownie squares, all of which survive being held in one hand with a drink in the other. For a bigger celebration, a party grazing table built on site turns the food into the centrepiece and looks after itself all evening.
How much party food do I need?
Plan by headcount and by meal. If the food is the main meal, people eat more; if it is a snack between sessions, they eat less. For sandwiches, a caterer's lunch menu published on the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health's website allows one and a half rounds of sandwiches per person when sandwiches and a piece of fruit are the whole lunch, one and a quarter with finger food alongside, and three quarters when there is finger food and a salad as well.
A round is two slices of bread with the filling between, usually cut into four, so one and a half rounds is six quarters each. That sounds like a lot until you have watched a room of trainees at lunchtime. For sweet things, one cupcake or one brownie square per person is the honest baseline, with a few spare for the people who swear they are not having one.
My advice is to tell your caterer the headcount and what the food is for, and let them do the sums. When you enquire, I size the platters to the room, so nobody leaves hungry and nothing goes in the bin. If you are also ordering a cake, my guide to cake portion sizes does the arithmetic for slices.
(people who say they will only have one sandwich are the reason the platter is empty by half past twelve)
What makes the perfect sandwich platter?
The perfect sandwich platter has five things: fresh bread, generous fillings that hold together, a balance of classic and vegetarian choices, a label that tells everyone what is in each one, and timing, so it arrives close to when it is eaten. Get those right and the platter disappears; get one wrong and you are taking it home.
Bread first. It should be fresh and soft enough to bite cleanly, but sturdy enough to hold its filling for the journey from platter to plate. Fillings come next, and the rule is generosity without collapse: a sandwich that sheds half its contents on the first bite is a sandwich with ambitions above its station.
Balance matters more than variety. Four or five fillings that cover the classics, a vegetarian option or two and something for the adventurous will please a room better than twelve fillings nobody can tell apart. Vegetarian and vegan sandwiches deserve their own platter and their own label, so they are not hiding at the sad end of a mixed tray.
Labels are the quiet hero. At a business event you rarely know everybody's allergies, and nobody wants to interrogate the caterer over the egg and cress. Every platter I make carries its ingredients and allergens, so people can help themselves without a briefing.
And then there is timing. A sandwich made for your date and delivered for your event tastes like a sandwich; one that has been waiting around tastes like a waiting room.
Britain takes its sandwiches seriously: the University of Manchester, citing the British Sandwich Association in 2018, put the figure at more than 11.5 billion sandwiches eaten in the UK every year, roughly half of them made at home. The sandwich, by the way, has a respectable pedigree. Royal Museums Greenwich notes that the modern sandwich is named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, and points out that the famous story of it being brought to him at the gaming table is ill-founded: he far more likely ate that way during long hours at his desk at the Admiralty. So the sandwich has been a working lunch since the eighteenth century. It is practically a board member.
(if the Earl of Sandwich really did eat at his desk to keep working, he is the patron saint of every training day since)
Homemade, supermarket or made to order: which party food is best?
Made-to-order party food from a local caterer is the best balance of quality, effort and cost for most events. Homemade costs the host the day, and a supermarket shelf tray is made before anybody orders it, for whoever happens to pick it up. Made to order means the food is prepared for your date, your headcount and your guests' needs.
Homemade is lovely if you have the time, the fridge space and a kitchen that can produce sixty sandwiches without becoming a crime scene. Most hosts do not, and the party starts with them exhausted.
A supermarket shelf platter is convenient, and I will not pretend otherwise. But it was assembled to sit on a shelf until somebody chose it, and the fillings are whatever the shelf had. You cannot ask it to leave out the onions, add a second vegan tray, or arrive at Lynch Wood at a quarter to twelve.
Made-to-order party food from a small local baker gives you what neither of the others can. Mine is made for your date and your headcount, by one baker who answers your questions personally. The fillings follow your brief, and vegetarian and vegan sandwiches are labelled and set out on their own platters. Every platter is labelled with its ingredients and allergens, from a registered kitchen with a food hygiene rating of 5 that you can check for yourself; under the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, 5 is top of the scale, meaning hygiene standards are very good and fully comply with the law. Delivery runs across the PE postcodes at £3 minimum, then 55p a mile, collection in Peterborough is free, and the cakes, brownies, cookies and cupcakes come from the same kitchen, so pudding arrives with lunch.
(it is quite hard to make a sandwich platter feel personal, but you would be surprised what a little care can butter up)
Where I deliver sandwich platters: the PE postcodes and business parks
If you are in Peterborough or the PE postcodes, my sandwich platters in Peterborough are made to order and delivered to your door, your office or your business park. That covers the city and reaches into Cambridgeshire, south Lincolnshire, north Northamptonshire and west Norfolk: Yaxley, Whittlesey, Oundle, Stamford, the Deepings, Bourne, Spalding, Holbeach, March, Wisbech, Ramsey, Huntingdon, St Ives, St Neots and King's Lynn.
I deliver to the business parks too, which is where most of the meetings happen: Lynch Wood, Orton Southgate, Fengate, Hampton and Fletton Quays in Peterborough, and further out to Alconbury Weald, Ermine Business Park and Hinchingbrooke Business Park in Huntingdon, St Ives, Stamford, Spalding, Wisbech and King's Lynn. Delivery is priced into the quote at £3 minimum, then 55p a mile from Peterborough city centre, and collection is free.
Sandwich platters are priced per head and quoted in writing, and I ask for one week's notice. Send the date, the headcount, the address and any dietary needs through the sandwich platter enquiry form, and I will come back with a menu and a price.
Party food for board meetings, seminars and training days
Business catering has three jobs: arrive on time, look professional, and not make anybody ill or awkward. For board meetings, seminars, conferences and in-person training, that means tidy platters, clear labels, and a caterer who sends a written quote and a proper invoice your accounts team will recognise.
For the full spread, from a working lunch to a launch or a leaving do, my corporate event catering page covers the rest: pastries for the morning meeting, grazing spreads, cupcake and brownie boxes for a team milestone. A recurring order, such as the monthly board meeting or a regular training day, can be set up once and repeated, which means one less thing on somebody's list every month.
And for the client or colleague who could not be in the room, my letterbox cakes by post go through the door anywhere in the UK, which is a far nicer thank you than an email with a smiley face.
Party food for family gatherings and celebrations
For birthdays, christenings and anniversaries, party food to order means the family can be with each other rather than in the kitchen. Sandwich platters feed the room; something sweet turns it into an occasion.
For the gathering after a funeral, I make sandwich platters quietly and simply, so the family can look after each other while I look after the food.
For the sweet side, my cupcakes in Peterborough are made to order and can be matched to any colour or theme, and a birthday cake in Peterborough gives the candles somewhere to live. If the gathering is bigger, the party grazing table brings everything together on one long table and looks after itself while you look after your guests.
Christmas party food to order
Christmas is the busiest time of year for party food, so order early. Office parties, team lunches, carol evenings and the family open house all want feeding in the same few weeks, and the platters that get booked first are the ones that get made.
For a Christmas lunch or party, sandwich platters do the filling, and the festive bakes do the cheering. My Christmas menu has cookie boxes, peppermint brownies, lemon cranberry cake and rum fruit cake for the table, and if you are sending presents rather than feeding a crowd, my guide to letterbox Christmas gifts covers the boxes that go through the door. The Christmas fruit cake has a story of its own, involving rum and several months of patience.
(why did the sandwich platter get invited to every Christmas party? Because it always brought something to the table)
How long can a sandwich platter be left out?
Keep sandwich platters in the fridge until you serve them, and put them out when people arrive. Government food hygiene guidance is clear that chilled food must be kept at 8°C or below, which is a legal requirement in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and that you can keep chilled food out of the fridge for up to four hours, after which it must be thrown away.
In practice, that means a platter set out at noon for lunch is fine until four o'clock, but a platter set out at nine for a lunch at one has used up all four hours before anyone eats, and has to go in the bin. If you are hosting at home, clear a fridge shelf before the delivery arrives; if you are at a venue, ask where the fridge is before you need it.
Do sandwich platters need allergen labels?
They should carry clear allergen information, and the rules depend on how they are sold. Since 1 October 2021, food prepacked for direct sale must be labelled with its name and a full ingredients list, with allergenic ingredients emphasised, and sandwiches packed on site before a customer orders are named as an example. Food ordered online or by phone is treated as distance selling instead, where allergen information must be available before you buy and again when the food is delivered.
My platters are ordered in advance, and every one is labelled with its ingredients and allergens anyway, because a room full of guests should not have to guess. My kitchen handles all fourteen major allergens, nuts included, so I cannot promise anything is free of traces; read my allergen information and tell me about any allergies when you enquire.
How do I order party food from Sploffin?
Ordering takes a few minutes. For sandwich platters, open the sandwich platters page and send the date, headcount, address and dietary needs through the form, with a week's notice. I reply with a menu and a written quote, and once you are happy, I make it for your date and deliver it, or you collect it free in Peterborough.
For the rest of the spread, the party grazing tables, corporate event catering and cupcakes pages each have their own enquiry form, and the letterbox boxes and Christmas menu can be ordered online straight away.
And if you would like to hear first about new menus, seasonal bakes and pop-up dates, join my Pop-Up List on the pop-ups page; it is the easiest way to stay in the loop for the next party.
Party food to order is a small decision that makes a big difference: the host gets to be at the party, the guests get food somebody made for them, and the person who booked it gets the credit. I would like to make yours. Start with the sandwich platters, and bring your appetite.
(I tried to end on a bread joke, but I could not find the right roll for it)
Questions people ask
- What party food should I order for a business meeting?
- Order food people can eat tidily and quickly: sandwich platters, a few savoury bites and something sweet such as brownies or cupcakes. Make sure vegetarian and vegan options are labelled separately and every platter carries its allergens. For a meeting in Peterborough, I make sandwich platters to order and deliver them to offices and business parks across the PE postcodes.
- How many sandwiches per person for a buffet?
- A caterer's lunch menu published on the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health's website allows one and a half rounds per person when sandwiches and fruit are the whole lunch, one and a quarter with finger food, and three quarters with finger food and salad. A round is usually cut into four, so one and a half rounds is six quarters each.
- How far in advance should I order party food?
- For my sandwich platters, one week's notice is what I ask for. At Christmas, order as soon as you have a date, because it is the busiest time of year for party food. Bigger spreads such as grazing tables and corporate catering need more notice, so check each page for its lead time.
- How long can sandwiches be left out at a party?
- Government food hygiene guidance says chilled food can be kept out of the fridge for up to four hours, after which it must be thrown away. Keep sandwich platters in the fridge until guests arrive, then set them out, so the four hours cover the party rather than the morning before it.
- Is ordering party food cheaper than making it yourself?
- Not always on ingredients alone, but usually once you count the time, the shopping, the fridge space and the washing up. Ordering in also gets you labelled allergens and a platter sized to the room. My sandwich platters are priced per head and quoted in writing, so you know the cost before you commit.
- Do you deliver party food outside Peterborough?
- Yes. I deliver across the PE postcodes, which reach into Cambridgeshire, south Lincolnshire, north Northamptonshire and west Norfolk, including Stamford, Spalding, Huntingdon, St Ives, Wisbech and King's Lynn. Delivery is £3 minimum, then 55p a mile from Peterborough city centre, and collection in Peterborough is free.
- Can I order sandwich platters for a Christmas party?
- Yes. Sandwich platters are ideal for office Christmas parties, team lunches and family gatherings in December. Order as early as you can, with at least a week's notice, and add festive bakes from my Christmas menu, such as cookie boxes, peppermint brownies or rum fruit cake, for the sweet side of the table.
Written by Sploffin, a small-batch bakery in Peterborough. Questions about an order? The FAQ answers most of them.