Setting up a pantry supply is mostly a question of scale. Ten people can get by with a weekly trip to a shop. Fifty people cannot, and a hundred or two hundred need a proper standing order. The trouble is that most offices reach that size without ever sitting down and working out what they use, so they run out of one item, over-order another, and pay retail prices for both.
This guide gives you a starting checklist and a set of monthly quantities for offices of 50, 100, and 200 staff. It also shows how the numbers are calculated, so you can adjust them to your own office.
The assumptions behind the numbers
Every estimate needs a starting point. These are the ones used below, and each is easy to change:
- 22 working days a month.
- Two cups of tea per person per day.
- About 3 grams of loose tea per cup.
- About 6 grams of sugar per cup, roughly a teaspoon and a half.
- About 60 millilitres of milk per cup, for milk chai.
- About four in every ten cups taken with a biscuit.
- Two litres of drinking water per person per day, if you supply water.
If your staff drink three cups a day, multiply the tea, sugar, and milk rows by one and a half. If half your office takes tea without sugar, halve that row. The method matters more than the exact figures.
Monthly quantities
| Item | 50 staff | 100 staff | 200 staff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cups of tea | 2,200 | 4,400 | 8,800 |
| Loose tea | 6.6 kg | 13.2 kg | 26.4 kg |
| Sugar | 13.2 kg | 26.4 kg | 52.8 kg |
| Milk | 132 litres | 264 litres | 528 litres |
| Biscuit servings | 880 | 1,760 | 3,520 |
| Disposable cups, if used | 2,200 | 4,400 | 8,800 |
| Drinking water, 19-litre bottles | about 116 | about 232 | about 463 |
Add about 10 percent on top of every figure. It costs little and protects you from a busy week or an unexpected visitor.
The full pantry checklist
Beyond the quantities above, here is what a working office pantry typically needs, grouped so it is easy to order:
- Hot drinks: loose tea for the main pantry, tea bags for meeting rooms, green tea, and instant coffee. Brands such as Tapal and Lipton are among those buyers commonly ask for.
- Milk and whitener: fresh milk if you have refrigeration and daily delivery, otherwise UHT milk or tea whitener.
- Sweeteners: sugar, sugar sachets, and a sugar substitute for those who need one.
- Snacks: two or three types of biscuits, plus rusks.
- Cold drinks: a cola such as Pepsi, a local option such as Pakola, a lemon-lime drink, a sugar-free choice, and bottled water for meetings.
- Serving items: cups, stirrers, paper napkins, and tissue.
- Cleaning items for the pantry: dishwashing liquid, sponges, hand wash, and a sanitiser.
Order in a rhythm, not in a panic
The cheapest way to run a pantry is to stop ordering it item by item. Group non-perishables like tea, sugar, biscuits, and cleaning items into one monthly order. Keep perishables like milk and fresh items on a more frequent delivery schedule. Cold drinks and water can follow a weekly or fortnightly rhythm depending on your storage.
A standing arrangement usually gets you a steadier rate than repeated one-off purchases, and it makes your spending predictable, which finance teams appreciate.
Use attendance, not headcount
If some of your staff work from home or on rotation, base the numbers on how many people are actually in the office on an average day. An office with 100 people on the payroll and 70 in the building on a typical day should use 70 for tea, milk, sugar, and water. Use the full headcount only for annual events or when everyone is called in. Getting this right is often the biggest single saving in a pantry budget.
Expect the seasons to move the numbers
Consumption is not flat across the year. In winter, tea and coffee climb and cold drinks fall. In summer, the reverse happens, and water and cold drinks become the main lines. Ramadan changes the pattern again, with daytime consumption dropping and demand moving to iftar arrangements. Review your standing order at the start of each season instead of leaving it fixed for the whole year, and tell your supplier in advance so stock is ready when the shift happens.
Track for the first month, then adjust
The estimates above are only a starting point. For the first month, note the date each item runs low and how much is left at month end. Two months of this will tell you the real consumption of your office better than any formula. After that, you can fix your standing order and stop thinking about it.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Buying by price alone. A cheap pack of tea that makes weak chai means staff use twice as much of it.
- Over-ordering perishables. Milk and fresh items should never be bought in quantities you cannot use in their shelf life.
- Ignoring storage. Tea, sugar, and biscuits all suffer in humidity. Airtight containers cost very little.
- Forgetting the small items. Cups, stirrers, and napkins run out quietly and cause the most complaints.
- Not writing down the specification. Brand, pack size, and quantity should be on the order every time, so the delivery matches.
Get a quotation for the whole pantry
BST PVT LTD supplies the complete pantry range to offices, hospitals, schools, factories, and institutions across Karachi and Pakistan: tea, coffee, sugar, whitener, biscuits, cold drinks, water, disposables, and cleaning items, all on a single monthly order with one delivery. Send us your staff numbers and your current items, and we will build a quotation around what your office actually uses.
Brand names mentioned in this article are trademarks of their respective owners. They are used only to describe products that buyers commonly request, and do not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by those companies.