Food & Beverage Management

Food and Beverage businesses are an essential part of the hospitality industry and they can be defined as the provision of food and beverages away from home. The categories of Food and Beverage operations are classified by the output of products and the basic function is to satisfy the demand of the customers. It is important to understand that the manufacturing of food is not included in this definition.

Nowadays, a lot of different Food and Beverage operations exist. These can be divided into several sectors. One way is to classify between the commercial sector, which means generating profit as a primary object, and the non-commercial sector, called subsidized or welfare. Further distinctions can be made on the commercial level, where the market is either opened, such as hotels and restaurants, or restricted, which means not accessible for everyone. A good example for this is travel catering. On the subsidized or also welfare level, it can be distinguished between employee catering and institutional catering. Institutional catering is mainly dominated by public ownership. However, it is difficult to clearly assign Food and Beverage operations in the above mentioned categories, since some of the areas may overlap.

Another distinction is possible according to a cost and market oriented approach. Businesses following cost orientation usually have a higher percentage of variable than fixed costs. Furthermore, they are facing a stable market demand, which allows them for better planning. This is often the case for in-house catering. Market orientation is found in hotels or restaurants, where the focus is on generating profit by increasing sales, rather than reducing costs. They are further classified by high fixed costs and facing an unpredictable market demand.

As a result of the change in the meaning of Food and Beverage over time, the variety of Food and Beverage operations has increased. In the past food was seen as a commodity and has now developed to an entertainment possibility. Different categories include for example fine dining, fast food, transport catering, event catering or retail stores.

In the following paper the two different Food and Beverage categories, fine dining and event catering, are compared on the basis of FMPSST (finance, marketing, product, service, staffing and technology), in relation to POC3 (planning, organizing, commanding, coordination and controlling), according to HACCAP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) and in a final step regarding the monitoring of quality standards.

First of all, it is important to understand the concepts of fine dining and event catering, before comparing both sectors on the level of financial implications, marketing, product and service style, staffing and technology.

Fine dining is classified as high class restaurants, serving customers in a formal way. Characteristics are amongst others high quality food, an à la carte