ABSTRACT
The food and beverage industry is a fast moving and exciting business. Looking at the Sunday papers, there are regular news articles about the expansion plans of new theme restaurants or multi-million pound take over deals; there are regular restaurant or hotel reviews and articles about cooking food at home. Television provides growing numbers of programmes on aspects of cookery – from woks to barbecues, from cooking up a feast in twenty minutes to the real or imagined feasts of bygone eras. Cookery books, often tied to TV series, regularly top the best seller lists. Chefs are a key part of the current cult of celebrity. The food and beverage manager faces an increasingly knowledgeable and sophisticated customer with broader tastes and experiences than ever before. These customers demand satisfaction, but are increasingly diffi cult to satisfy.
