Unique Features of F&B Managed Services in Different Service Sectors
- ms3304dealer
- Nov 24, 2017
- 3 min read
[Source: https://www.skyscanner.com.hk/news/flights/9-tips-to-help-you-choose-the-best-airline-meals/]
More and more businesses adopted managed services instead of operating the F&B services by themselves, but different industries may have different features needed to be considered. Let's have a more detailed look of their unique features!
Airlines & Airport
As the target customers are travelers in different age groups that come from all over the world. They have different backgrounds, eating habits and religions. As a result, the catering should accommodate to all special requests. For example, a meatless meal should be provided for a vegetarian and a bland meal should be provided for a discomfort person. Therefore, we can see that the meals designed could be very diverse in airlines F&B service.
Take Cathay Pacific as an example, there are 24 special meals offered, including low-salt meal, kosher meal and baby meal. Yet, they will only be ordered at least 24 hours before the scheduled flight.
[Source:https://goo.gl/images/gxRmUf] [Source: https://goo.gl/images/uw5ABP] [Source:https://goo.gl/images/AL46Q2]
On the other hand, the airline and airport catering services are mostly contracted and the logistical operation is too complicated. Firstly, there is not a kitchen in the flight. Secondly, there is time gap between production and consumption, that means it is not simultaneous. Thirdly, the meals provided must be boneless or otherwise it would be too dangerous. Fourthly, it is too difficult to maintain the quality, especially for long haul flight as the meal is prepared in the central kitchen rather than in-house.
Schools
As the target consumers are students who are in their puberty. Therefore, the meals provided should be healthy enough. For example, the meals needs to be high in proteins and vitamins so that students could have balanced diet, which is necessary for their physical development. However, we all know that many students nowadays are not willing to consume vegetables. They think that they are not delicious and therefore they prefer something that is tasty like hamburgers and French fries. Yet, as required by the parents, the meals offered for their children should put nutrition as the first priority. As a result, this may place a challenge for the food provider to balance the nutrition requirement and students' desire.
For instance, this meal could satisfy both expectation of parents and student. This is because there are fast food, like the hamburger and fries, which students like the most. Besides, there is also milk and tomato which contain high nutrition value. It is appreciated that the tomato have cut in pieces so that students are less likely to resist. Moreover, it is noteworthy that primary students and secondary students have different needs on the food portions.
[Source:https://goo.gl/images/dYcQzB]
Healthcare
The target consumers are mainly patients so that the meals provided to them must been low in salt, sugar and oil. Actually, each patient has it own needs so that the food served to them sometimes should be customized according to their personal diet requirements. On the other hand, let's imagine that a patient has to stay in the hospital for a long-period and therefore, he/she may feel bored for the hospital meal. As a result, the food provider should consider how to make the meal well- presented so that those patients are more willing to consume.
[Source:https://goo.gl/images/g6zK4R] [Source:https://goo.gl/images/WsXQwx] [Source:https://goo.gl/images/9LXnWN]
Apart from airline and airport catering service, the other two sectors are more easily to forecast the demand. This is because there are too many unexpected situation for the flight service, such as overloaded or no show. However, for the school and health service, the number of meals needed can be predicted more accurately.
Learning reflection
Before the lesson and research, I think it is not necessary to emphasize on the F&B managed service. It is because that the core service of airport and airline is flight service, and that of school and health is education service and healthcare service respectively. The food and beverage is only their managed service that is not worth on putting efforts. However, I now understand that each service sector has unique feature for the F&B managed service as their target customers are totally different. Therefore, each of them has to provide specialize service based on consumers' requirements and needs.
References
[1] Inflight Services Management – The interfaces between the airline and the service provider. Retrieved from: http://www.airlinehubbuzz.com/inflight-services-management-the-interfaces-airline-service-provider/
[2] Kiran B., Vinod N. (June 2015). Airlines F&B (Food and Beverages) and Catering. India: Tech Mahindra. Retrieved from: https://www.techmahindra.com/sites/ResourceCenter/White%20Papers/Industries/TTL/Airline-Food-Beverages-Catering.pdf
[3] Clayton W. Barrows, Tom Powers, Dennis Reynolds. (3 Feb 2011).United States: John Wiley & Sons. Introduction to management of Hospitality. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com.hk/books?isbn=1118135822
Comments