Technological developments and the need for technical competencies in food services

Abstract

The growing scale of institutional and commercial food services poses a technological challenge of producing large quantities of high quality meals in terms of their safety, sensory and nutritional attributes. Developments in food service technology and systems (cook-freeze, cook-chill and others) allow the replacement of fast food with the service of cooked meals, which are often nutritionally superior. Reliance on equipment, packaging and technological 'know-how' makes food service operations more complex. Operators have to minimise the impact of the numerous steps in the production process, the fundamental weaknesses of cook-chill food safety design, coupled with the practical limitations of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points management, the potential unevenness of temperature distribution and product deterioration during storage. The fundamental knowledge of food science and microbiology, engineering and packaging technologies is needed. At present, the 'high tech' options, which can improve a product's nutritional value, such as natural preservation hurdles or functional meals, are not used in practice.

Optimisation of large‐scale food production using Lean Manufacturing principles

“…The quality of meals produced is complex to define, and usually parameters, such as odour, colour, microbial population and vitamin retention, are used as indicators along with texture (Rodgers 2005c). These parameters are difficult to measure in a large-scale kitchen, thus, it is extremely important to control the production parameters to avoid unintended changes in product quality.…”

“…When technology changes and output reaches a certain size, the traditional cooking procedures established for smaller scale cook‐serve production are no longer suitable. They do not automatically fit production systems with increased scales of output because criteria, such as volume‐to‐surface ratio and product time temperature history, are altered (Rodgers 2005c). Internal production processes must change to reflect the demands for increased output, especially when the number of employees is simultaneously reduced.…”

Food Safety in Fast Food Restaurants

“…Our anecdotal evidence indicates that training of fast food employees is not a priority, despite the obvious benefits of food safety-related knowledge (Rodgers, 2005). Employees have little understanding of the rules or the significance of the rules, especially when their first language is not English, as is the case with at least one out of every six restaurant workers (Schlosser, 2002).…”