ABSTRACT
This chapter explains what is meant by quality in food and drink service operations and why it is important. It describes the challenges facing the management of quality in F&B. The chapter also describes a systematic approach to managing quality. It explores compare and contrast a range of approaches to quality management. The chapter also explains of how quality management works in practice. The matrix identifies that the food and beverage product consists of a combination of tangible and intangible elements. The best known approaches to managing quality propounded by the quality gurus such as Deming, Crosby, Juran, Ishikawa, Shingo, Taguchi and others started in the manufacturing sector. The quality matrix described earlier illustrates the problem facing food and drink service operations. The earliest and probably the easiest approach to quality is the inspection approach. This simple approach is based on finding defects in a product or service before it reaches the customer by introducing an inspection stage or stages.
