Apart from providing food and beverages to their consumers, the food and beverage (F&B) operations have other functions in the hospitality industry. The following are the functions:

1.      Purchasing Food and Beverages

As the primary function of the F&B operations is to provide food and beverages to the consumers, it is important for them to find reliable sources.

First the purchasing process involves determining which types of ingredients, food, drinks or wine etc. should be order, finding and having reliable suppliers’ lists to ensure consistent quality, and determining the suitable order size to avoid over buy which need extra space for storage and some of them may deteriorate or under buy which mean can’t serve the guests properly. Usually, invoices and receipts are required to be signed to facilitate the examination of any misuse or stealing.

Finally, it has to design the appropriate procedures of receiving and storing the food and beverages to prevent any wastage. For example, the wine is store in bottles which need special care and store in specific temperature.

2.      Planning Menus

In the menu planning, the food preferences of consumers play a key role. A well-planned menu can stimulate the revenue and attract the consumers to come again.

In fact, the menu planning is not just designing what cuisine or beverages should be included in the menu, but also concerns with what items will be acceptable to the consumers. As the consumers are the one to taste the food and beverages, when planning menus we have to comprehend, empathize on their food habits and enable to meet their changing preferences. For example, now consumers more concern about the health and nutritional values, the menu should be able to adjust to provide corresponding food item to satisfy their needs. It should be ongoing process and dynamic process since the many ingredients are seasonal and sometimes there will be shortages due to particular reasons like weather and delivery problems. So it should be designed upon the availability of the raw materials. Furthermore, the menus should match will the design and the atmosphere of the restaurants as well as the physical facilities and equipments so as to provide a superior dining experience for the guests.

Lastly, the food pricing is also important as consumer will judge the prices whether it is worthwhile. It also should be designed within the available budget and enable to have the profitability against with its costs.

3.      Maintaining Daily Operations

The Stewarding Department plays a supportive role for the Food and Beverage operations. If it doesn’t perform properly and efficiently, the food and beverage division will greatly affected. The main goal of it is to

optimize the assistance and service to the different F&B outlets and kitchens by maximizing efficiency and productivity while keeping the highest standards of cleanliness and hygiene.

It is mainly responsible for the following functions:

  •  Maintaining a Cleaned Organized Environment in the Kitchen

Since a small error will disturb the operation in the kitchen, the stewarding department will have proper sanitation and pest control to keep the cleanliness and organization of the environment in the kitchen to favors the kitchen flow efficiency so everyone will know where everything is. Also, a clean cooking environment ensures the safety of consumers as the food is cooked under the clean environment.

  •  Maintaining Perfect Cleanliness of All Service Areas in Food & Beverage   Outlets

The areas should be not responsible by the Housekeeping Department

  •         Cleanliness of Glassware, China, and Cutlery
  •         Cleanliness of all Food & Beverage Stores
  •   Providing Efficient and Planned Preparation of all Operating Equipment

It provides the necessary equipment for the coming and upcoming functions so that they can be held successful.

  •   Maintenance of Dishwashing Machines

This is very important as if the machines are out of service, the dirty dishes and utensil can’t be washed and there will be no or enough cleaned container for the cuisine and utensil for cooking. The operations of F&B must be disrupted.

  •   Forecasting Labour and Cleaning Supply Needs

If the labour level is not too low, the efficiency and the productivity will be reduced but if the level is too high, the labour cost will be huge. Moreover, the cleaning supply is important for sanitation and pest control for the sake of providing a clean environment in kitchen and all F&B stores but if it is too much, an extra space is needed for the storage.

  •   Inventory of Chemical Stock
  •   Maintaining Strict Inventory Control and Monthly Stock Check

4.      Food Service Hygiene

Hygiene is a key element for an eating joint. Reputation of a restaurant is made based on its menu and hygiene. Employees have a direct contact with food and preparation equipment. Therefore, Employees should be trained to ensure that they maintain personal hygiene.

Equipment hygiene should also be maintained. The cleaning area should be clean so as to ensure food service hygiene. The sink and work surfaces should be cleaned before and after every use. The equipments should be sanitized and sterilized after every cleaning. These sterilized equipments need to be stored in a clean area with protection from splash, dust and contact with food. Various sanitation methods like thermal and chemical sanitation methods among others should be used.

The kitchen area and dining space should be pest free. Pests like, mice, cockroaches, etc. bring negative reputation to a place because they are carrier of many diseases. Hence, regular pest control methods must be undertaken so as to ensure hygiene of food and the surroundings.

5.      Beverage Control

Beverages refer to drinks either alcoholic or non-alcoholic. Non-alcoholic beverages include tea, coffee, juices, shakes, aerated drinks and mineral water. The entire food service outlet usually provides non-alcoholic beverage.

When we need to control the beverage, we need to consider the following factors.

  •  We need to keep the record of the suppliers and the deliveries received from them in case there are some problems, we can chase back the sources.
  • We need to keep the record of movement of stock between bars and restaurants, so that we can balance our stock in these two places. E.g. when there is stock shortage in bars, the stock surplus can be used in restaurant immediately. This can help to reduce the cost of reorder stock which may cause stock surplus.  to prevent any shortage and surplus and cause loss to the company
  • A cellar stock ledge should be kept to maintain the stock records; it can help to order stock in a effective way. When the stock level is reached the reorder level, the company can order the stock immediately in order to prevent any shortage and surplus and cause loss to the company.

6.  Cost control and budgeting

There are two basic approaches to control – Behaviouristic Approach and Traditional Approach.

Traditional control is measurement of performance with that desired or deemed attainable. This is the comparison aspect of the management scheme which is usually considered to have four parts:

1) Establishment of standards or goals. These can be expressed in different ways, for instance, a budget figure, a percentage figure, or a performance figure such as meals served per server hour. Many industry standards are available for consideration by individual food service operations.

2) Measurement of performance. There must be some means of measuring performance. Usually it is a quantitative figure, such as a dollar amount, percentage, or standard such as meals served per server hour, that related to standards.

3) Comparison and analysis. Once the standard or goal has been established and actual performance determined, it is possible to compare the two. The figures will rarely be the same and the manager must decide how much variance is acceptable and how often the comparisons should be done or over what time periods.

4) Corrective action. Once a significant variation is determined, the manager must take corrective action. Such action might involve more observation, personnel changes, or different methods of operations, among many others. Or perhaps the standard is unrealistic and must be changed.

The behaviouristic approach is based on the motivation of people towards the best interest of their employer. The employers tend to have good relationship with their employees in the food service industry. Yet they feel that the need for traditional control systems is necessary.

Menu pricing is another cost control tool. According to James Kieser factors that need to be considered in the menu pricing include:

  •  Elasticity of demand: whether a change in selling prices will have a significant effect on customer demand.
  •  Perception of value: or what a customer perceives the meal or food item is worth regardless of what it costs to produce.
  • Effect of competition by which competition can hold selling prices down or lack of competition can allow higher prices than normal.

Whether the operation might try to increase profit by using low selling prices to increase volume or concentrate on higher unit profits with fewer unit sales.

Budgets provide the framework for forecasting the need for supplies and labor and they also cause the F&B manager to focus on specific costs for specific periods. They are also good because this require the manager to look back at prior results very carefully and to analyze them to see why they happened the way they did.

The budgeting process must be taken to ensure a high degree of accuracy as the budget becomes a fairly strict rule of thumb for the operation.

The first component which needs to be calculated is the revenue section. Revenues are the dollars which come into the operation through a variety of sources. The primary source of revenue is food and beverage sales to customers.

We generally prepare budgets for specific time periods such as weekly, monthly, and annually. Many of the costs, such as property taxes, are annual expenses and need to be broken down to the amount allocated to the period in question, ie. $1200 in annual property taxes would become $100 per month.