Competitive products design in public catering

Abstract

A nutritious and safe diet maintains human health and endurance. In addition, it preserves the national gene pool. Unfortunately, Russian diet is poor in vitamins C, PP, B1, and E, as well as in folacin, calcium, phosphorus, iodine, iron, magnesium, and zinc. The present research introduces a new method of assessing the degree of demand for designing new foods and dishes that provide various socio-demographic groups with essential nutrients. The research employed standard scientific methods, both empirical and analytical. The new method presupposes scoring four main sets of properties of the product under development. They include 1) formula components; 2) functional properties; 3) technological effectiveness of the cooking process; 4) consumer performance. The paper describes the score assessment for each indicator that forms the basis of each set of integrated properties. It also defines the weight coefficients for each indicator and each set of product properties. The research provides boundary values for the feasibility coefficient. The practical application of the proposed method allows to create functional competitive dishes for catering enterprises of different ownership forms. The developed method makes it possible to design functional dishes with a sufficient content of nutrients and consumer performance required for a particular social group, e.g. pre-schoolers, school children, coal miners, chemical industry workers, etc. The method will allow producers to design competitive products and expand the range of functional products.