Catering equipment hire
Field kitchens, hot cupboards and fridge trailers behind the scenes. Delivered, set up and collected by suppliers who cover your patch.
Catering equipment hire typically costs £45 to £90 for a hot cupboard, £80 to £150 for a 6-burner LPG range, and £150 to £350 per weekend for a refrigerated trailer. A full field kitchen for a wedding-sized event usually totals £400 to £900 for the weekend. Most field catering runs on LPG to keep generator load down. Your caterer should specify the list; you provide power, water and a level dry area.
This is the category guests never see and caterers live or die by: the field kitchen. The standard pattern is a catering tent annexed to the marquee, LPG cooking (to keep the generator honest), hot cupboards for service, and a fridge trailer humming outside. The caterer specifies; the organiser’s job is the environment: level ground, water, light, and the agreed power feeds.
Quoted prices are usually per item per weekend, and normally include delivery, collection and gas bottles for LPG kit: check whether that is the case before comparing two quotes, since a lower headline figure sometimes hides a separate delivery charge. Most suppliers ask for the caterer's equipment list directly rather than taking it from the organiser second-hand, so put your caterer and the hire company in touch early.
What it costs
| Item | Typical guide price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hot cupboard | £45–£90 | |
| 6-burner LPG range | £80–£150 | |
| Catering tent 6×3m | £250–£500 | |
| Fridge trailer, weekend | £150–£350 | |
| Water boiler | £25–£50 |
Guide prices exclude VAT and vary with season, region and site access. Quotes from suppliers are always the real number.
Catering equipment hire across the launch corridor
Local pages for every corridor town, with the same honest ratios and local site knowledge.
Catering equipment hire: questions organisers ask
Who hires the catering equipment, me or the caterer?
Either works; what fails is nobody owning it. Many caterers bring or hire their own kit and bill it through. If they expect you to arrange hire, get their written list with power ratings, then put it on the same order as your generator so the loads reconcile.
How much does a full catering equipment hire package cost?
For a wedding-sized event, a hot cupboard, 6-burner LPG range and catering tent together typically total £400 to £900 for the weekend, before a fridge trailer. Delivery and collection are usually included in the headline price; confirm this line by line, since it is where quotes diverge most.
Does a fridge trailer need to run overnight?
Yes: it stocks up the day before and must hold temperature until service. That makes it the defining load for overnight generator running (or a mains hook-up if the site has one), so flag it to the power supplier explicitly.
Is catering equipment hire the same as booking a caterer?
No. Catering equipment hire supplies the kit only: hot cupboards, ranges, fridge trailers and tents. It suits self-catering, a booked caterer bringing their own staff but wanting extra hot-hold or cold-store capacity, or a village hall committee running its own kitchen. If you need chefs and food as well, you want a catering company, though many equipment-hire suppliers can point you to one they work with regularly.
