THE FOOD INDUSTRY

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Food is essential to man. The very reason why food service industry, which deals with preparing
food items/products, is and will always remain in high demand, is because of its necessity. With the
changing lifestyle of people and the growing popularity of eating away from home, the food industry is
likewise evolving to meet these impending challenges. The industry includes restaurants, fast foods,
school and hospital cafeterias, catering operations and food carts.

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Objectives:

1. Identify the different classification of food and beverage establishment.

2. Enumerate the main goals of food and beverage operations to customer satisfaction

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Topic 1

Classification of food and beverage establishments:

1. Restaurants - offer a large menu including variety cuisines. They also offer meals that a re
prepared, cooked, served and eaten by its guests at the premises. Diners may either eat inside
the restaurant or order their food “to-go”.
2. Fast food – offers a limited menu accompanied with quick service, affordable take- out food.
They are either meals that are easily cooked or are prepared in advance. Customers usually pay
before eating unlike in full service.
3. Gourmet- follows formal and classical style and preparation. Quality and presentation of food
are of high quality and unique.
4. Bistro – Smaller establishment – Offer traditional, robust and basic cooking. More casual and
often have a café style atmosphere and sometimes even counter or serve yourself style.
Amenities include wooden tables and chairs, rustic décor, checkered table cloths
5. Coffee Shop - Usually follow a theme. Primarily serves coffee of various types. Some coffee
houses may serve cold drinks such as iced coffee and iced tea.
6. Ethnic Restaurant – reflect ethnic origin and ethnically themed to reflect a certain culture and
ethnic foods
7. Commercial Restaurant – offers wide variety of dishes. Service range from full table service to
assisted service. Prices of menu varies
8. Health food and vegetarian – specializes in vegetarianism and health food
9. Cafeteria – self- service, with customers choosing their food from counters. First developed for
industrial feeding market but now can be seen in other sectors.
 Ma. Sandra S. Bueza
The Meal Experience

There are various kinds of food service operations that are designed to meet a diverse range of
demand. These operations are fashioned to specifically cater to the needs of people at a particular
time, rather than, for the type of people that they are. For instance, a corporate employee wants a
themed party for a friend or may want a quick lunch or a full meal preparation for a conference in
another occasion.

The main goal of food and beverage operations is to achieve customer satisfaction and ultimately to
meet customer’s needs. These needs may be:

1. Physiological: the need to satisfy one’s cravings or quench one’s thirst, or the need for a
specific kind of food like a taco or a smoothie for instance.
2. Economic: for example, the need for fast, value for money food items found in a
convenient location.
3. Social: for example, attending an event or conference in order to meet other people or going
out with friends or business partners.
4. Psychological: for example, the need for personal change, pursuing a new hobby or need
to enhance self-esteem; as a result of promotion and advertising.
5. Convenience: this is the outcome of time constraints or the desire for someone else to do
the work; or the logistics and physical limitations of having a party at home(weddings and
other special functions).

Customer Service

A specific food service operation will determine the level of customer service that one should provide
in order to enhance the customer’s meal experience and to meet expectations.
Customer service is very important in the success of any business endeavor. It is the personal need and
dedication to allocate an amount of attention to detail or the extra mile any food service staff is willing
to give to attain his primary goal of fulfilling customer satisfaction. Customer service in food service
operations can be defined as being a combination of these five characteristics.

1. Service level: this is the intensity of or the limitations in the individual person’s ability to
give customers the attention expected ad required in the operation.
2. Service availability: this is based on what was agreed upon on the onset. For example, this
offers variations in the menu and beverage list approved by the customer.
3. Level standards: for instance, the quality of food and beverage, the service staff, the standard of
equipment and decorations being utilized.
4. Service reliability: this is the extent to which the project is intended to be consistent with
industry practices and goals to satisfy customer’s needs at all possible and workable cost.
5. Service flexibility: this is the extent to which alternatives are made available, and to which
there can be variations and alterations in the standard products that can be offered.
 Ma. Sandra S. Bueza
Topic 3

MENU PLANNING

MENU FORMS AND FUNCTIONS

Menus must be planned for the people eating the food. This sounds like a simple rule, but is
frequently forgotten. You must never forget that the customer is the main reason for being in business.

This rule means that, in most operations, the taste and preferences of the cooks or chefs are of
little importance when planning the menu. Tue some of the most famous restaurants exist primarily as
showcases for the chef’s own artistry, but these are only a small percentage of all food service
establishments. Instead, the taste and preferences of the clientele must be given top priority if the
business serves influences the form the menu takes

Types of Menu

1. Static menu - is one that offers same dishes every day. These menus are used in restaurants and
other establishments where the clientele changes daily or were enough items are listed on the
menu to offer sufficient variety. A static menu may be in place indefinitely, or it may be place
indefinitely, or it may change at regular intervals, such as every season, every month, or even
every week.
2. Cycle menu – is one that change every day certain period, after this period, the daily menu
repeat in the same order. For example, a seven day cycle menu has a different menu every day
for a week and repeats each week.
3. Ala carte – is one in which each individual item is listed separately, with its own price.
4. Table d’hote – originally meant a fixed menu with no choice. ,

Factors to consider in Menu Planning

In planning a menu, certain factors basic to the situation must be known in order to ensure a
successful meal plan:

1. Knowledge of the patrons or customers to be served

Eating habits play a larger part in menu selection than actual physical needs. Such habits
depend upon racial and social backgrounds, climatic and geographical conditions, economic
consideration and individual differences.
 Ma. Sandra S. Bueza
2. Physical equipment

The physical facilities including equipment and its arrangement for the preparation,
service and storage of food influence directly the menu planning

The space should provide adequate housing for the necessary equipment and for the
traffic flow which includes the passage of workers, movement of consumable supplies, and the
transport of needed small equipment.

The distance between the points of distribution should be considered definitely as the
type of service to be offered. An influential if no a determining factor in food quality is the time
elapsing between competition of the preparation of food and its service. Foods that will not
change to markedly during their transportation must be selected, if a central kitchen is far from
service areas.
3. Personnel

Aside from the skills and abilities of the personnel the total man hours available and the
number of employees on duty at any given time will be the limiting factors in selecting foods
and food combinations that can be included on the menu.

Knowledgeable food service managers estimate that up to one third of the labor in restaurants
and institutions is wasted through lack of proper scheduling. The employees cannot be held
responsible if he is not told exactly what he is expected to do during his work period.

Many employees, although willing, seem unable to direct themselves. They are happier
when someone else plans their schedule and tells them what to do next. Most people like to be
busy and find that time passes more quickly when they are occupied with consecutive tasks. So,
generally scheduling increases worker satisfaction as well as productivity.

4. Food budget

Before planning any meal, knowledge of the food budget to be spent must be known.
For there is no known formula applicable to every organization, the determination of the
expected income is not always an easy process. The type of food service and its location will
influence the class of customers who eat there. The economic level of this customer will
ascertain to a large extent the amount of money they will spend when dining. The volume of
business will affect the income.
 Ma. Sandra S. Bueza
5. Seasonal factor

The weather exerts a definite influence on both appetites and body needs of people.
That more and heavier foods are needed in the cold weather than hot weather is a well-known
fact. A menu featuring roast pork and canned spinach on a hot summer day does nothing to
inspire or refresh tired traveler, whereas a crisp colorful salads, cool in temperature and
appearance, has much more appeal. Each meal usually will include at least one food even in
warm weather

VARIETY AND BALANCE

1. Flavors

Don’t repeat foods with the same or similar tastes. This applies to any predominant flavor,
whether of the main ingredient, of the spices, of the sauce, and so on. For example: ∙ Don’t’
serve broiled tomato halves with the main dish if the appetizer has a tomato sauce.
∙ Don’t serve both a spicy, garlicky appetizer and a spicy, garlicky main dish. On the other
hand, don’t make everything too bland.

2. Textures

Texture refers to the softness or firmness of foods, their feel in the mouth, whether or not
they are served with sauces. Don’t repeat foods with the same texture or similar texture. For
example:
∙ Serve a clear soup instead of a thick soup if the main course is served with a cream
sauce. On the other hand, a cream soup goes well before a simple sautéed or broiled
item.

3. Appearance

Serve food with a variety of colors and shapes. Colorful vegetable are especially valuable
for livening up the appearance of meats, poultry, fish and starches, which tend to be mostly
white or brown.

4. Nutrients

The importance of nutritional balanced menu is obvious in the case of menus for hospitals and
nursing homes, for hospitals and nursing homes, for example. But even a la carte

Ma. Sandra S. Bueza

 menus in restaurants should provide enough nutritional variety to allow customers to select
nutritionally balanced meals.

PRECEDENCE IN MENU LISTING

If it is right to dine from the light to the heavy, then it is certainly right and proper to build our
menus with this thought in mind.

I. Appetizers
a) Juices
b) Coupes – cup of fruit or seat food
c) Supremes – means the finest pieces of fruits or seafood served in glass which
sits on ice
d) Canapés – means something raised, tiny sandwiches open, closed or rolled or
bits of toasted bread or crackers with highly seasoned foods.
e) Relishes
II. Soups
III. Eggs
IV. Fish and shellfish
V. Poultry
VI. Meats
VII. Sandwiches
VIII. Vegetables
IX. Sandwiches
X. Dessert
XI. Desserts
a) Sherbets
b) Ice cream
c) Parfaits
d) Sundaes
e) Bombes
f) Custards
g) Jellos
h) Bavarians
i) Pastries
j) Cheeses
k) Fruit and fruit compotes
XII. Breads
XIII. Cereals
XIV. Beverages

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 Ma. Sandra S. Bueza
Learning Activity 1

Answer the following:

1. What do you mean by “a menu is a sales tool”?

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Give an example of a table d’ hote menu
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Activity 2

Identify what is being asked in the following items by filling up your answer on the line
provided.

_________________1. Term that is used to describe the manner and method in which food is
served to guest in food service operations.
_________________2. A menu which is not defined by how long it remains the same but by
how the customer order
________________ 3. It is often a smaller establishment that tends to offer basic and robust
cooking
_________________4. They offer full service and have a high quality of ambiance
_________________5. Establishments tending to reflect ethnic origin

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Performance Task 1

1. Of the type of food and beverage operation discussed which do you prefer to cater the
needs of your clientele? Choose one and discuss in terms of:
a) Service
level____________________________________________________________________
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 Ma. Sandra S. Bueza
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Service
availability_______________________________________________________________
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Level of
standards_______________________________________________________________
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 Ma. Sandra S. Bueza
Performance Task 2

Create an ala carte menu. Limit your menu into two dishes and classify each

accordingly. Write your answer inside the box illustrated below.

Ma. Sandra S. Bueza