Gluten Free Budget Brilliance

I have been a meeting planner for over 16 years and have a pretty good grasp of the essentials.  My meal guarantee-to-attendee ratio is 95% for the dozens of large meetings and conferences I have planned, meaning lower food cost and less waste for our clients.

We are very good at stretching sometimes unrealistically low food and beverage budgets to make an event work well – not unlike some moms do a couple of days before payday.  But like those moms I know that in order to do that you sometimes have to sacrifice quality, or certain types of food.  And be creative as heck.

It seems like just the last couple of years the number of gluten-free and lactose intolerant food requests we have received has shot up exponentially.  In the past we may have six or eight per event of 500 attendees, and I always knew who they were and served them personally.  Now it’s not unusual to get 40 or more special dietary requests, and the large conference venues seem not to have kept up with what seems to be an increasing cultural shift, so they are not much help in the planning process.  Not sure what the reason is, I just know that I don’t want to deal with a mob of hunger crazed attendees with nothing much to eat at a four-day conference!

So for the past week I have given up wheat (gluten), dairy and sugar all at the same time.  I tried to give up chardonnay too, but without any bread, cheese or chocolate for a few days, a girl can only bear so much!  My husband went along with me, which was incredibly tough for him. When we play that game “what ONE food would you want to eat for the rest of your life if you were stranded on a desert island?”*  he would say bread, period.  This was a very hard week for him!

It was an invaluable exercise for both of us.

We got a chance to see how difficult it is to find healthy and satisfying food choices that contain ‘none of the above’.  And not only that, purchasing prepared substitutes is a pricey endeavor – just go to Whole Foods and take a look at their teeny loaves of gluten-free bread.  I even tried to make my own loaf of gluten-free, it wasn’t BAD… but, as my dad used to say, I wouldn’t walk across the street for that.

The result and sustaining takeaway is that I have developed a strategy for how to provide meals at these large events that satisfy all food needs of our attendees – Carnivore, vegetarian, vegan, lactose and gluten-free.  Now, if you give me a vegan who is gluten-free and suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, I throw my hands up and surrender.

SHOW ME THE PROTEIN!

To save money, we usually select “continental breakfast” which, at nearly all convention venues, consists of fruit or juice, wheat-based breakfast breads like bagels, muffins and pastries, and coffee.

We still serve the budget friendly continental with fruit and bread et al, but we select an add-on item like fat-free Greek Yogurt – high in protein and gluten-free; and/or side dish with eggs – a vegetarian breakfast burrito or sandwich.  For gluten-free requests, we offer egg, tomato and spinach plates; and for vegans we offer veggie bean burritos – no egg.  You order these ‘add ons’ ala carte so you don’t have to order a 1/1 in numbers as your full continental is guaranteed.  I haven’t encountered a vegan gluten-free request yet, but I know I can now make that work!  It doesn’t take much, just a couple of options.  And a concern for the nutrition of my attendees.

My foolproof choice for a large reception event where the meal needs to be dinner hearty and budget appropriate is a Pasta Bar.  On most hotel and convention center banquet menus you can find a reception “station” pasta bar meant as an add-on to a large meal buffet.  But if you add an anti pasto or vegetable tray or salad station, you have dinner at a fraction of the cost!  Here’s how I satisfy all of my “Free Willies” as I like to affectionately refer to those with special dietary needs:

1-Select at least one starch that is gluten-free:  a risotto perhaps, or a rice-based pasta noodle like penne which is pretty hearty.

2-Select at least one starch without dairy – often you can combine 1 and 2 to satisfy lactose intolerant, gluten free and vegan requests.

3-Provide lots of vegetable toppings – I like to have a chef serviced station where they quickly sauté the fresh vegetables for each individual. The cost for chef service is usually not significant, maybe $150/hour, and the perception of having been served something special is priceless.  You can also offer meat or seafood protein this way, on request – just make sure the chef doesn’t cook the protein in the same pan as the vegetables, this isn’t appropriate for vegans.

4-Provide a fresh vegetable-based dairy free marinara sauce which will satisfy everyone.  We also offer other sauces for those that can and prefer to eat cheese, meat etc. but this way you have a guaranteed option for

EVERYONE.

The bottom line:  We can save upwards of $25,000 on a single event’s food and beverage budget just by creatively planning meals, AND we satisfy the growing hordes of special dietary needs attendees at the same time.  And everyone is happy!

Patty Morgan, Peer Powered Non Profits

*My one food to have on a desert island is turkey sandwich. I prefer to think of it as a single food.