Abstract

Reference is repeatedly made in the media to consumer dissatisfaction with the Catering Industry. Consumer awareness and exposure to new and varied foods via foreign travel has raised expectations in relation to product quality and value for money. This has created a demand for standards to be raised and has caused Management to re-exaraine its strategy in relation to consumer satisfaction. Loss of customer confidence caused by a poor quality product has serious consequences fo r any enterprise. Industry today is finding that it costs fiv e times more to create a new customer than to provide a system that relia b ly assures that each customer Is satisfied. LX). The trend towards contracting out non-core business activities Is widespread in the U.S.A. and appears to be growing in Europe. It may be that Ireland as a small open Economy cannot afford to ignore this development. The principal objectives of this dissertation are fir s t ly , to examine the concepts of Quality and the Catering Product and secondly, to analyse the growth In contracting out non-core business a ctivities with specific reference to Catering. Finally, the Quality o f the Catering Services in selected organisations w ill be evaluated and compared. Organisations were selected on the basis that while their core activities are similar, the Catering is managed "In-house" in one firm and by Contract Caterers in the ether. The results of this research should yield valuable information on how Quality is managed in the Contract Catering Industry and on the future of that Industry as a business option. The Catering function was selected for the study as it Is the area on which to date, very l i t t l e has been written about in terms of Quality or Contracting out in an Irish context*