Quality is a matter for more than ingredients
Ask any person in the catering sector if they would like to improve their business's reputation and put a smile on the face of the local authority's Environmental Health Officer into the bargain, and the answer for most would be "Yes."
On a visit to any eating establishment, customers experience a whole package of quality variables, including the food, the service, the furnishings, the setting, the tableware, the standards of food hygiene and the general cleanliness. These aspects of the service provided can be embraced under the term service quality.
There is an argument, which must be recognised, suggesting that standards of food hygiene for eating-places are laid down in law, are not variable and should not therefore be in the quality variable equation. The law, however, is open to interpretation and includes various exemptions.
The word "quality" is commonly used in advertisements and promotional material. Yet the term means different things to different people.
One extremely helpful definition states that a measure of service quality is the difference between the expectations of customers and their perceptions. In other words, the difference between how customers think it should be and how it actually is.
If the expectations are higher than the perceptions, then the service will be viewed as poor quality. But if the perceptions are higher than expectations, then the service offered will be assessed as high quality.
Results of recent research suggest that customers of restaurants take standards of food hygiene and cleanliness for granted, therefore they are coming to the establishment with already high expectations. Their expectations are also boosted by such things as advertising literature, awards, certificates on display, etc.
It is vital, therefore, if businesses are to offer, from their customers' perspective, a high-quality service, that they take food hygiene and general cleanliness seriously.
There is evidence that many managers and supervisors in the catering trade deem food hygiene important only when something goes wrong. Indeed, this evidence was somewhat reinforced at a conference organised by the Transport and General Workers Union in London.
One speaker from the Meat and Livestock Commission said that that body had been endeavouring to develop a culture in the trade where both businesses and individual workers actually want to do things right, in terms of food hygiene, not one where they go through the motions of doing it right because of the fear of an inspection.
It is recommended that managers in the catering industry re-evaluate the priority they attach to food hygiene, and treat the subject with an importance equal to that given to other quality variables.
Proprietors of food businesses, if they wish to achieve success and gain a competitive advantage, should consider developing a strategy for managing quality in the work environment, thereby endeavouring to match the expectations that customers have with the level of service offered, including food hygiene and general cleanliness matters.
Accreditation scheme
This initiative will require benchmarking data, and this should emanate from a consortium of experts, including caterers. An accreditation scheme for catering premises could then follow.
Therefore, providing what customers expect - hygienically prepared food and a clean environment in which to eat their meals - makes good business sense and provides an opportunity to gain an advantage over competitors. It is an opportunity which should be grasped with both hands.
Dr Jeremy Leach is an environmental health officer in East Sussex. He has just completed a research programme at the University of Brighton into public and professional perceptions of food hygiene in public eating-places.
