How much food per person for a group trip

Buy too little and someone goes hungry; buy too much and you haul waste home and split a bloated bill. Here are the rough per-person, per-day quantities that get a group trip right without a spreadsheet.

Start with people × days × meals aboard

The only number that matters is meals actually eaten together: people times days times which meals you cook versus eat out. Two people over three days eating all meals in is very different from ten people eating only dinners in — count that first, then scale the quantities below.

Per adult, per day — the rough amounts

• •Protein (meat, fish, eggs, tofu): 150–200 g at the main meal, a little at others.
• •Carbs (pasta, rice, bread, potatoes): 100–125 g dry pasta/rice per main, plus bread through the day.
• •Vegetables and fruit: ~400–500 g across the day — hardy veg for cooking, fruit for snacking.
• •Dairy: milk for coffee/cereal, plus cheese as a lunch and snack staple.
• •Snacks: 1–2 handfuls of nuts/biscuits/chocolate — groups always under-buy these.

Water and drinks

• •Water: 2–3 litres per person per day for drinking, more for cooking or in heat.
• •Coffee and tea for mornings; add a realistic amount of wine, beer or soft drinks for the evenings.
• •When there is no tap on site (boats, wild camping), treat water as the first thing you plan, not the last.

Scale by appetite and activity

These are averages. A hard day hiking, sailing or skiing pushes portions toward the top of every range; a lazy beach week sits at the bottom. Kids eat roughly half an adult portion. Adjust once for the group rather than second-guessing every item.

Buy a little buffer, not a lot

Add maybe 10% on the staples that keep (pasta, rice, tins) and nothing on the fresh stuff that spoils. That covers the big appetites without turning the last day into a fridge-clearing challenge or an oversized bill to split.