What to feed 30 x 5 years olds on a tight budget

[Ontheperiphery79]

I know it's not an AIBU, but DC bday party next weekend; I need to provide food on a shoestring.
They'll be eating at 13:30 and the venue allows 30 mins in the party room with no flexibility. They'll be very active for the hour preceding this.
Please throw some ideas my way re: what to feed and how best to present it. There are 30-ish of the little darlings to feed.
Help!

Do you have access to a kitchen?

Hot dogs in a slow cooker, cold pizza, cakes and crisps?

Pizza?

Pizza. Chop into finger slices. Throw some bowls of chopped cucumber, carrot sticks and pepper sticks on for veggies.

Cocktail sausages. Rice Krispie buns.

Little individual pack lunch boxes or bags. Sandwich, fruit, crisps etc in each bag

Chicken nuggets and potato chips

You'll need to clarify what kind of facilities you have, and what the actual budget is per child.

I'd either do ham sandwiches/jam sandwiches, cucumber sticks, crisps and strawberries; or maybe pizza, cucumber, mini sausage rolls and crisps if I could heat things up.

In my experience everything but the crisps is pretty much disregarded by the kids anyway.

They eat very little really. Individual lunch boxes, tiny sandwich, yoghurt, crisps. Then cake. And just jugs of water.

That way you won't waste food

Pizza. Chicken nuggets and fries. Anything that's easy to eat with fingers.

A very cheap and easy treat that kids love is 'fairy bread' = white sliced bread with butter/marge and sprinkles / 100s & 1,000s, cut into triangles.

Individual lunch boxes or bags

Sandwich
Fruit
Multipack crisps
Sweetie

Jugs of diluting juice on table

Traybake type cake!

Do what Liz does in motherland

stick a few Collin the caterpillars together and let them fight over it 😂

Pizza isn’t particularly cheap. Sandwiches are cheaper.
sandwiches, veg sticks (carrot/cucumber, both cheap)
big bowl supermarket own brand crisps, big bowl popcorn
fruit
biscuits

Cheese and tomato pizza
Pom bears/ Aldi version
Squash
Party rings

Sandwiches
Cold pasta
Sausage rolls
Cocktail sausage
Cheese and pineapple - sticks are probably band now but who knows
Crisps
Jaffa cakes
Cupcakes
Carrots
Cucumber
Hummus
Ready maybe pancakes
Party rings

I really would worry to much about it and could sort all of that for £20

Strawberries

If you want something faux healthy on the table

I change my answer, do this

Honestly, 30 mins for that many kids I think
A fruit Shute and crisps with a spice of cake to take home

Pizza - buy the super cheap ones and add a few bits (if you want).

Or sandwiches (which are cheaper but not exciting to a 5 year old) and sausage rolls.

But I’d do cheap pizza followed by ice cream out of a tub with some sauce and sprinkles - lay it out so they can chuck on some toppings which they love to do.

I wouldn’t bother with cake but you could make or buy cheap cookies and ice them to spell out happy birthday and they can have that with the ice cream.

Honestly? Happy meal each if you have someone on hand to collect it (pre order on the app) Then you just need a cake. It's all the paper plates/cups/napkins and serving dishes that add up.

30 mins to prep, serve and eat?
I would go with a couple of large pizzas and cut them up into pieces for hot food. 10 mins in the oven
Bring pre cut up carrot and cucumber sticks and tip out onto serving platters/plates.
A couple of baguettes already cut up at home.
Big bags of crisps or big multipack of crisps (Lidl are super cheap) Hand these out while pizza is cooking.
Sweet things - biscuits and/or cake, the traybakes are good for parties. Or packs of mini muffins etc.
Paper plates for the kids and get adult helpers to walk round with the plates of food.
Kids don't tend to eat lots at parties.
Water or squash.

I'm not sure that fits the description of a tight budget,

Individual bags of food - less waste. Half a round of sandwich - white bread and ham = 1 slice of bread per child wrapped in cling film, carrot/cucumber batons, chocolate bar/freddo, crisps from a large bag in a small plastic bag.
but the happy meal idea is also a good one.