Cost Per Cover: How to Amortise Buffet Equipment Properly

Short answer: divide the equipment cost by the number of covers it will serve over its life. A $120 chafer lasting five years at 300 services a year and 60 covers per service delivers 90,000 covers, which is $0.08 per cover — a rounding error against food cost. That is why buying cheap equipment rarely pays. Compare models in our chafing dish range using this method rather than price alone.

The calculation

Amortisation is simple arithmetic that most operators never do, which is why purchase decisions default to the lowest quote. The formula needs three inputs: purchase price, useful life and covers per year.

Equipment	Price	Life	Covers per year	Cost per cover
Fuel chafer, 304	$70	6 years	18,000	$0.0006
Electric chafer	$120	6 years	18,000	$0.0011
Hydraulic chafer	$200	8 years	18,000	$0.0014
Heat lamp, triple	$180	7 years	18,000	$0.0014
Beverage dispenser	$220	7 years	18,000	$0.0017
Cake stand set	$150	6 years	18,000	$0.0014

Read those figures against a typical buffet food cost of $6-12 per cover. Equipment amortisation is around one ten-thousandth of the plate cost, which makes durability far more important than purchase price.

The practical implication is counter-intuitive: doubling the equipment budget to buy units that last twice as long is close to cost-neutral per cover, while dramatically reducing the disruption of failures and replacements.

Useful life assumptions

Life estimates drive the whole calculation. These figures reflect typical commercial duty and are the ones worth arguing about, because a wrong life assumption changes the answer more than a wrong price.

Equipment	Light duty	Standard duty	Heavy duty	What shortens life
Chafer, 304	10 years	6-8 years	4-5 years	Chlorine washing, salt
Chafer, 201	5 years	2-3 years	1-2 years	Rust, usually terminal
Heat lamp	10 years	7 years	5 years	Bulb heat, vibration
Dispenser	10 years	7 years	5 years	Seal and tap wear
Cake stand	8 years	6 years	4 years	Transport damage
Food pans	4 years	2-3 years	18 months	Dishwasher abuse

Notice how 201 stainless collapses under standard duty. Its purchase price looks attractive precisely because the amortisation is never calculated, and the two-to-three year life means buying it twice or three times over the period a 304 unit lasts once.

Including consumables and labour

A complete per-cover picture includes what the equipment consumes and the labour it requires. Those costs exceed amortisation by an order of magnitude.

Cost element	Per cover	Share of equipment-related cost
Amortisation	$0.001-0.002	Under 2%
Fuel or electricity	$0.05-0.25	25-40%
Cleaning labour	$0.08-0.20	30-45%
Consumables (pans, bulbs, seals)	$0.02-0.06	8-15%
Repairs and spares	$0.01-0.04	4-8%

Cleaning labour is the largest single element and the one most affected by equipment choice. Units with crevices, rivets or non-removable parts add minutes to every wash, and those minutes compound across hundreds of services.

Applying the method to a purchase decision

Worked comparisons change purchasing behaviour more than any policy document. The example below is a realistic choice between two chafer specifications for a hotel running 300 services a year.

Option	Price	Life	Cost per cover	Five-year cost per unit
Economy 201 chafer	$38	2.5 years	$0.0008	$76 plus two replacements
Standard 304 chafer	$72	7 years	$0.0006	$72, no replacement
Premium hydraulic	$205	9 years	$0.0013	$205, no replacement

The premium unit costs about twice as much per cover as the standard one, which is trivial against food cost, and it buys quieter operation and a longer service life. The economy unit is more expensive per cover than the standard one, which is the finding that surprises most buyers.

What this means for tender evaluation

Once cost per cover is understood, tender evaluation changes shape. Instead of scoring on price, score on cost per cover plus risk, which produces very different winners.

Criterion	Weight	Notes
Cost per cover over expected life	40%	Price divided by life and covers
Cleaning and labour impact	20%	Time it on a sample unit
Spares availability and price	15%	Ask for a five-year commitment
Warranty and failure response	15%	Replacement guarantee matters
Purchase price alone	10%	Deliberately de-weighted

Ask every bidder to state expected service life in writing. It converts an unverifiable claim into a comparable, contractual figure, and suppliers who will not state it usually know their product scores badly on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I buy cheap equipment for a short-term venue?

Yes, if the venue will genuinely close within two years. Below about 30 months of use, low-cost equipment can be the rational choice — just do the calculation rather than assuming.

How do I account for equipment used across multiple services?

Allocate by covers served. If a chafer serves breakfast and dinner, count both, which halves its per-cover cost.

Does amortisation affect tax?

Tax depreciation follows local rules and differs from this management calculation. Use this method for decisions and the tax schedule for accounts.

What about equipment that sits unused?

Unused capacity is a real cost. A chafer serving 50 covers a year costs far more per cover than one serving 18,000, which argues for rightsizing the fleet.

Is leasing better than buying?

Leasing suits operations that need to preserve cash or refresh equipment frequently. Over a full useful life, buying is almost always cheaper per cover.