F&B Service Industry - An Introduction

Food & Beverage Service Industry ‐ An Introduction

The food & beverage industry is usually defined by it output of products, to satisfy the various demands  of food & drinks of people. Bu it doesn’t include the manufacturing of food & drink and its retailing. In today’s world, the food & beverage service industry has expanded a lot and nowadays, it is serving more than 100million meals per day.

It has spread across all walks – of life. Hotel, restaurants, industrial canteen, hospital canteen, railway, airways, all are now part of food & beverage service industry.

The basic function of this industry is to serve food & drink to people, to satisfy their various types of needs. The main aim is to achieve customer satisfaction. The needs that customer might be seeking to satisfy are:

• Physiological: the need of special food items
• Economic: the need for good value for the price paid
• Social: a friendly atmosphere, to express feelings frankly
• Psychological: the need for enhancement of self‐esteem
• Convenience: the desire for someone else to do the work.

These various needs play a major role in deciding the factors responsible for defining the different type of service methods in Food & Beverage service industry.

The service of food and beverage may be carried out in many ways depending on a number of factors:

• The type of establishment
• The type of customer to be served
• The time available for the meal
• The turnover of customer expected
• The type of menu presented
• The cost of meal served
• The site of establishment

Food & beverage service can also be viewed from the customer’s perspective.   Essentially, the customer enters a food service area, orders or selects his/ her choice and then is served (the customer may pay either at this point or later). Food and beverages are then consumed, following which the area is cleared.