Jasmine owns a catering company that serves food and beverages at exclusive parties and business functions. Jasmines business is seasonal, with a heavy schedule during the summer months and holidays and lighter schedule at other times.

She offers a standard cocktail party and estimated the typical cost per guest as:

This standard cocktail party lasts three hours and Jasmine hires one worker for every six guests, which is one-half hour of labor per guest. These workers are hired only as needed and are paid only for the hours they actually work.

Jasmine ordinarily charges $45 per guest. She thinks that for the past few months this has been the going rate for caterers in her area. But, she knows that she has lost 3 bids in September and October to a new competitor.

You have been hired to market her business. There is a 120-guest fund-raiser cocktail party to be given next month by a local non-profit. You highly recommend that she bid for this November cocktail party because the guest list includes many prominent individuals that are excellent prospects for future business.

She is confident that her estimate of the cost of foods, beverages and labor are appropriate but she is not confident of her overhead estimate. She estimated her overhead cost per hour by dividing total overhead expenses for the last 12 months by total labor hours. She provides the following to you:

What should she bid for the fund raiser? Support your decision.

Please do not use excel to calculate what her bid should be.

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|} \hline Food and beverage & $21 \\ \hline Labor (0.5 hour @ $12.00 per hour) & 6.00 \\ \hline Overhead (0.5 hour @ $18.63 per hour) & 9.32 \\ \hline Total cost per guest & $36.32 \\ \hline \end{tabular} \begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|} \hline Month & Labor hours & Overhead expenses \\ \hline October 2021 & 2700 & 54400 \\ \hline November 2021 & 1860 & 49600 \\ \hline December 2021 & 3900 & 58400 \\ \hline 2022 & & \\ \hline Jan & 1500 & $44000 \\ \hline Feb & 1680 & 47200 \\ \hline March & 1800 & 48000 \\ \hline April & 2520 & 51200 \\ \hline May & 2700 & 53600 \\ \hline June & 3300 & 56800 \\ \hline July & 3900 & 59200 \\ \hline August & 4500 & 61600 \\ \hline September & 4200 & 60000 \\ \hline October & 2700 & 54400 \\ \hline total & $34,560 & $644,000 \\ \hline \end{tabular}