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Sheffield Hallam University: MSc. Hospitality Management Assignments
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Food Quality Management
Assignment 2
Peak Cuisine is based in the Sheffield area and produces ready meals. It was established in 1990 by five graduates of the MSc course of Food Management at Sheffield Hallam University. The original five are still with the company in the roles of Managing Director, Technical Director, Finance Director, Marketing Director and Production Manager. The Company employs 110 full time workers in production including quality control and 25 in other roles (e.g. administration, maintenance, marketing, company secretary). The area is one of settled, small communities and high unemployment since the local pit closed.
The products are ready meals : chilled (traditional English) and frozen ("healthy" range)
| Traditional | Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, carrots & peas | CHILLED |
| Roast lamb, boiled potatoes, cabbage carrots & mint sauce | ||
| Roast pork, crackling, apple sauce, toast potties, carrots & peas | ||
| Healthy | Vegetable lasagne | FROZEN |
| Tagliatelli carbonara | ||
| Salmon and dill ravioli |
"Healthy" products are calorie counted, reduced fat and include wholemeal pasta.
Product development occurred intensively when the company was being established, hence the high profile of traditional meals. Eight years on, it is time to review the product portfolio.
The products branded "Peak Cuisine" are marketed via northern retail multiples including Morrison´s, Asda, local co-operative societies and WM. Lowe. There is concern within the management team that these outlets do not reflect the up-market image for which they are aiming.
Distribution is "bought in" from two local haulier companies. The temperature control demanded by Peak Cuisine has not always been supplied reliably.
Financially, the company has met its own modest targets. It entered the market at a time when other food businesses were proceeding cautiously because of the financial recession, and adopted a low risk, conservative strategy, which has paid off. There are ambiguous signs that the recession is ending and the markets are slowly becoming more buoyant. The company's profit for the financial year 1996-1997 was GBP 400,000.
Customer complaints for the last 12 months are:
| Complaint | Frequency |
| Foreign bodies | 36 (hairs 16, metal 14, stones 4, wood 3, glass 1) |
| Meat quality | 17 (tough 10, gristle 7) |
| Portion size | 9 (too small) |
| Food poisoning | 1 (Salmonella, referred to EHO) |
These all referred to products from the traditional (chilled) range -
Report for the Board of Directors of Peak Cuisine by the company’s Quality Manager.
Due to the increase in the consumer complaints about a decrease in the quality of products of the Company, it was necessary to appoint a Quality Manager, with the purpose to improve the current situation.
It is important to point out that not only have the customer complaints for the last 12 months been quite a few, but also there have been complaints from retailers such as Asda and Morrison's about the decrease of quality. This is very worrying because Asda, for example, is one of the biggest retailers in UK that could provide an extraordinary possibility of introducing Peak Cuisine products all over UK
The complaints are affecting:
The essence of quality is to provide the customer with the desired product and level of service expected every time. Chaudry (1997) states "better quality leads to higher reputation, increase market share, exporting capabilities and higher profits".
East (1993) established the elements of quality:
a) Customers are the priority
b) a clear mission statement and objectives are vital
c) quality is everyone's business
d) appropriate systems and processes are essential -"the job must be done right first time"
e) communicate and co-operate
f) measure performance
Moreover, Peak Cuisine should implement a Quality Assurance Programme which will allow it, to get a systematic control of quality and food safety. Early (1995) states through this programme, food manufacturers should be able to:
And as Waller (1996) quoting Fuller and Waller (n.d.), it is important to remember that the catering cycle must be continuous and customer driven.
The catering cycle must be continuous and customer driven. Source: Waller K (1996)
And indeed, if Peak Cuisine is committed to offer quality to its customers a deep re-organisation in the company would be necessary. To achieve this it would be necessary to adopt short term measures and medium term measures
The short term measures:
The medium term measures:
The long term measure
The short term measures
COLLECTING AND ANALYSING THE INCIDENTS
Peak Cuisine can implement a technique for identifying quality improvement points. Lockwood (1994) describes an adaptation of the critical incident technique developed by Flanagan (n.d.) to identify critical requirements. "The technique is essentially a classification method consisting of a set of procedures for collecting observations of human behaviour and classifying them in such a way as to make them useful in addressing practical problems." Using the service incident approach follows four key steps:
Collecting the incidents.
The ideal is to collect incidents from three different groups of people - Peak Cuisine's customers, managers and staff. There are several different methods to collect these incidents:
Analysing the incidents.
There are two stages to analysing the incidents that have been collected. The first is to develop and describe a series of categories into which the incidents fall and second is to classify all the incidents collected to establish the relative frequency of incidents occurring in each category.
Prioritising the incidents.
At the simplest level, the number of incidents in a category provides an indication of the importance of that area. The original incidents were examples of what people found memorable and this suggests that they should also been seen significant. If the frequencies are then calculated for positive and negative incidents, the categories can be placed in rank order of frequency.
Actioning the improvements.
Using customer´s complaint to identify improvement points should be a continuing process.
IMPLEMENTING A QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAMME
Current Good Manufacture Practice (GMP)
Peak Cuisine can implement a Quality Assurance Programme which will assure the way the food safety is secured for each of its products. The Institute of Science and Technology (IFST, 1998) published "Food and Drink-Good Manufacturing Practice - a guide to its Responsible Management". GMP standards define requirements for the management and control of activities and operations involved in the manufacture, storage and distribution of foods.
Peak Cuisine can tailor their GMP standard for all its production.
With the implementation of GMP, the Peak Cuisine's organisation and production will obtain better product, better staff output working in better utilities. In the same way, Peak Cuisine will avoid the risk of customers' complaints such as foreign bodies or food poisoning in it finished product. Early (1995) states "GMP integrates with Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point systems and provides a framework for the development and implementation of Quality Management Systems, with subsequent registration to ISO 9000."
Lomas (1998) wrote "GMP requires that every aspect of the manufacture is fully specified in advance and that all resources and facilities specified are in fact provided and utilised as intended. This covers aspects such as adequate premises and space, appropriately trained personnel, correct raw materials and packing materials, written operational, procedures and cleaning schedules, etc."
Areas covered by GMP standards include:
Quality Management
Peak Cuisine should have a designed, documented, implemented and finished system with personnel and specifications to achieved the product quality standard. The involvement and commitment of all the Peak Cuisine's staff would be necessary.
Personnel and Training
Peak Cuisine's personnel should be adequate in all levels, taking into account its size and its type of business. The personnel should have the ability, training and experience required. They should have professional and technical qualifications. Each member of Peak Cuisine's staff must know his duties and responsibilities very clearly which should be recorded. Training will embrace more than only specific tasks stressing specially in good manufacturing practice, factors involved in, personal hygiene. Early (1995) wrote "The initial training of staff and the monitoring of staff performance should be carried out consistently, according to defined training requirements or plans"
Documentation
It is an essential and integral part of Good Manufacturing Practice and one of the essential features of a properly operated HACCP system. For this reason, Peak Cuisine should be ready to prepare any documentation to define the materials, operations, activities, control measures and products to record and communicate information needed during or after manufacture; to reduce the risk of error arising from oral communication. The system of communication should be such that as far as is practicable the history of each batch of Peak Cuisine products should be recorded, including utilisation and disposal of raw materials, intermediates and bulk or finished products.
Premises and equipment
Peak Cuisine's premises and equipment should be located, designed, constructed, adopted and maintained to suit the operations carried out in them and to facilitate the protection of materials and products from contamination or deterioration. Peak Cuisine equipment should be designed, constructed, adopted and maintained to suit the processes and products for which it used and to facilitate protection of the materials handles from contamination or deterioration.
Manufacture
The operations and processes used in manufacture should with the premises, equipment, materials, personnel and services provides, be capable of consistently yielding finished products which conform to their specifications and are suitably protected against contamination or deterioration. Defined manufacturing procedures, including associated activities and precautions, are necessary to ensure that all concerned understand what has to be done, how is to be done, who is responsible.
Recovery or Reworking of Materials
Peak Cuisine can recover or rework or reprocess its material by an appropriate and authorised method at as many stages as it would possible.
Complaints procedure and Product Recall and Emergency Procedures.
Peak Cuisine must provide an appropriate channelling of all quality complaints. There should be a pre-determined written plan, clearly understood by all concerned for the recall of a product. A crisis procedure and management team should be established.
Indeed, Peak Cuisine should have plan with a strategy for possible crisis. This strategy should define the company's key vulnerabilities and positive values. It should contain, as well, an action plan with defined responsibilities which must take into account communication with customers and suppliers. Moreover, it should include the necessary actions to implement including defence positioning, against issues with a high probability.
Flickinger (1999) wrote : "HACCP and GMP are rapidly emerging as international norms which benefits from similar standards all over the world. It is becoming clear to anyone doing business with suppliers or customers that standardised methodologies and laboratory procedures are an essential frame of reference, a lingua franca for scientists, purchasing people and regulators to communicate the quality and safety characteristics of their goods "
It would be very useful to Peak Cuisine if the Lab which conduit the test of the food and the results that it generates, are within some framework of international acceptability. The well established ISO/IEC Guide 25 can be the vehicle for showing clients that it conducts its analyses based on internationally recognised guidelines.
Control Food Hazards
For Peak Cuisine the implementation of the HACCP system will be the first step down the quality route which will improve its food safety record.
Adams (1995) said "the concept of hazard analysis … the proprietor is responsible for, first, identifying hazards, and, second putting into place a procedure for controlling such hazards. The caterer will have to put into place a well-documented procedure known as Hazard Analysis Control Points (HACCP)."
For Dillon (1996) " Hazard Analysis Critical Point (HACCP) is a food safety management system which concentrates prevention strategies on known hazards and the risk of them occurring at specific points in the food chain. It is this specific which makes HACCP so effective."
The following 7 principles should be used and considered by anyone involved in hazard analysis:
1. Conduct Analysis
2. Identify Critical Control points (CCP)
3. Establish target levels and critical limits
4. Establish monitoring system
5. Establish corrective action
6. Establish verification
7. Establish documentation
East (1994) wrote: The HACCP process will, if carried out properly, identify:
This system identifies specific hazards (biological, chemical or physical that adversely affects the safety of the food) and specifies measures for their control. In the controlling Food Hazards the control of basic hygiene practices, has a very special relevance
The Department of Health (1997) established "Control and monitoring are linked. The control target should be expressed in a way that relates to the chosen system of monitoring" and establish, three central points to highlight and control of these hygiene practices:
Basic Hygiene principles
1) Control of contamination
a by good cleaning and disinfecting
b by separation of raw and ready to eat foods
c by good personal hygiene of food handlers
2) Good temperature control to limit growth
3) Stock rotation and control of storage life to limit growth of harmful bacteria
4) Good heat processing to destroy microbial contaminants
Introducing the concept of "control"
Business must control and monitor critical points. A system that identifies all the hazards but fails to implement control is not satisfactory.
Training and supervision
There is a basic requirement that all food handlers must be supervised and instructed and /or trained.
As Mitchell (1997) states the "HACCP and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system is a systematic way of analysing the potential hazards in the food operation, identifying the points in the operation where the hazards may occur and deciding which are critical to consumer safety"
Flair (nod.) said "Both the company and the personnel involved in the HAACP study must be totally committed to its implementation".
Following Shapton (1991), Peak Cuisine should pursue these steps:
In the case of Peak Cuisine, the control option must be focus in foreign material contamination (physical contamination), in the quality of the raw materials (microbiological contamination) and in food safety in the finished products. Tacking into account that most foreign materials are very difficult to detect, then the way to eliminate them is through good design and appropriate controls forming part of Good Manufacturing Practice.
The HACCP system should be implemented in Peak Cuisine by a team or group with expertise. Amongst the peoples team, should be a microbiologist, a production manager, and a cleaning specialist. Representatives from purchasing, product development, packaging distribution and marketing should form part of the group as well. The HACCP will avoid the microbiological contamination in raw materials and in its finished products.
Shapton (1991) said "It is important to educate and train and retrain employees in the use of HAACP system. With employees turnover, there may otherwise come a time when very few people in a plant will understand that the HAACP system is or understand the need for the various controls that have been established; therefore, training should be done on semi-annual basis or as necessary."
Jacobsen (1992) states "without the full understanding of the HAACP, management will not be capable of implementing the system in the company. It is also important that they become familiar with the look and techniques needed for full participation on the operation of the system."
Reisman (1998 )wrote: "HACCP now carries the force of the law for meat, poultry and seafood processors in the US. Government inspectors, ready or not are empowered with overseeing the implementation and operation of HCAAP plans."
Distribution: Controlling and monitoring temperatures
The distribution of Peak Cuisine's products is carried out by two hauliers companies. However, the temperature control demanded by Peak Cuisine has not always been supplied reliably.
Temperature is the major factor affecting microbiological growth. For this reason, the vehicles which carry out the Peak Cuisine's distribution should be refrigerated. The vehicles should maintain and be able to produce a continuous time log of temperature. Sprenger (1998) states: "Properly located thermometers should be fitted to all vehicles. The maximum temperature will be recorded by a sensor fitted in the returned air system and the minimum temperature can be measured near the outlet of the evaporators." The temperature record must be in accordance with the temperature required by Peak Cuisine.
Auerswald (1999) quotes Linda Harris, Extension Specialist in Microbial Food Safety at the University of California-Davis. She said "Since people in the processing, distribution and retail sectors of the industry realise how important temperature and time-temperature monitoring are, there needs to be an increase of record keeping and the use of monitoring device is one way to add a company’s ability to maintain these important records. The emergence of HACCP as the new model of food safety has made these time-temperature records imperative for many food plants, but the plethora of new devices on the market has made this task easier than before."
James (1995) said: "Temperature is the major factor affecting microbiological growth. Micro-organisms have an optimum growth temperature at which particular strains grows most rapidly."
Minimum growth temperatures are shown in the following table:
| Micro-organism | Food | Minimum growth temperature (Cº) |
| Clostridium perfringens |
Beef Broth |
15.0 5.0 |
| Staphylococcus aureus |
Meats (growth and toxin) Custard |
10.0 7.7 |
| Salmonella spp. |
Chicken à la king Chicken broth |
6.7 5.1 |
|
Clostridium botulinum Type A Type B |
10.00 3.3 |
|
| Listeria Monocytogenes |
Broth Broth and milk |
1.0 -0.1 |
| Yersinia enterococolita |
Meat Milk |
0.0 -1.3 |
The Department of Health (1997) states the following control targets :
"Chilled Food: Businesses should set themselves specific targets usually in the 0º C to 8ºc range. "High risk" food will almost need to comply with the 8º C target in Temperature Control Regulations.
Frozen Food: Storage temperatures are unlikely to be "critical" control points. But many businesses will set targets around -18º C ".
Because of the above and due to the importance of temperature control, Peak Cuisine should demand refrigerated vehicles from the two local haulier companies which carry out the distribution of its products. Moreover the vehicles should maintain and be able to produce a continuous time log of temperature.
If the two local haulier companies cannot provide the required vehicles to Peak Cuisine, it should change distributors and look for the hauliers that can meet the required specifications.
The medium term measures
Product Development
Peak Cuisine menus are not frequently revised and to the customers' eye they can appear unattractive, old fashioned with a not very wide selection.
For McIlveen (1994) "The ultimate objective of an product development effort is to generate products that perform as well as they were designed and intended to perform and in the last decade, companies have discovered the returns that can be generated by adding value in the form of convenience , nutritional factors, variety, economy /or consistent quality."
The product developer should be a very restless and imaginative person. S/he has to know, not only everything related with food tendencies and peoples' preferences, but to know at any time, the products and its price that the direct competitors are offering to the customers. S/he has to speak to their clients to know their needs to satisfy them. The trends are very changing and demanding, requiring constant innovation. Sometimes these trends are only a question of fashion or of an article in the last Elle magazine speaking about the good properties of a certain vegetable. For this reason, a good source of information can be in magazines, newspapers, customers and suppliers.
Although it is true that people are very careful about calories they still like and appreciate periodic changes - tasty and attractive - of counted calories products.
However, there exist as well, people who do not care at all about food calories or fat "free" meals. These people like condimented food and will appreciate periodic changes in the Peak Cuisine menus.
Chinese and Indian food are very popular especially amongst vegetarian people. It will be an excellent idea to include some such dishes in the products offered by the company.
The products of both lines must change every three months.
Waller (1996) established that the purposes of product development may include:
If the finance situation allows it, it will be useful to appoint a consultant Chef, three weeks every year who. The consultant, with the product developer and the company's chef, will plan and prepare the dishes for each trimester of the year, taking into account circumstances such as the temperature and the seasonal products corresponding to each of those ones.
Benchmarking
Peak Cuisine can benchmark all those areas that can make significant improvements in its business, such as improvements in its products, processes and services.
Peak Cuisine can obtain suitable information asking its customers, its suppliers and paying good attention to the competitors' products. Another way to benchmark is through the exchange of information.
To adopt Benchmarking Practice requires strong commitment from top management and authorisation for employees to spend some of their time and, if it is allowed, money, on benchmarking activities.
DTI (1992) states "Best Practice Benchmarking is a technique used by successful companies around the world -in all sectors of business, both manufacturing and service - to help then become as good or better than the best in the world in the most important aspects of their operations.
Companies world-wide have found that, there are very significant gains to be made from the BPB approach. Among them :
Fong S.W (1992) said "The fundamental objective of benchmarking is to gain and sustain performance superiority. This would involve change and improvement in product, processes and services."
There are four types of benchmarking: Competitive, Functional, Generic and Internal.
The competitive benchmarking, which is the most common form, is the appropriate for Peak Cuisine. Lema and Price (1995) wrote " Competitor benchmarking is the comparison of one company with its direct competitor which is the best performer in the practice that is chosen to be benchmarked. Such a comparison may be of general practices or services, specific product design, business processes, and administrative methods."
Peak Cuisine can benchmark from its directs competitors such as M&S, Heinz or McVities to improve the design of products, quality control or packaging.
Number of staff
The number of employees of Peak Cuisine is, perhaps, too high; this applies to the full time workers in production (110) and those in other roles (25). Even if the Company enlarges its production, still existing too many employees. With such a large number of employees it will not be easy to increase Peak Cuisine's profit. For this reason, it is necessary to monitor, control and evaluate all the staff's productivity, including that of the founder partners.
This information will be essential to know which staff will remain working for the company.
It will be necessary to implement best practice in regard to efficient staffing.
Obtaining a multidisciplinary team will have some important advantages such as getting a multi-skilled, committed and motivated staff. A reduction in the number of workers will bring, also, a saving in the Peak Cuisine's general expenditures and focus on more and better staff training to offer the best quality and food safety products.
Early (1995) wrote "As with making clear to staff requirements for health and hygienic conduct, staff can only be expected to be effective in their jobs if they have received suitable training. Whenever a job has the potential to adversely affect product quality and food safety then the need for consistent training is paramount. (..) Records of staff training should be maintained to demonstrate the diversity of staff ability and to enable planning for future training needs."
Marketing
The Director of Marketing of Peak Cuisine should realise that Peak Cuisine's products need a spectacular and deep change. Otherwise the Company will not be able to survive making enough profits.
The company only can achieve an up-market image, being a serious and reliable company. And to have these distinctive qualities, is necessary to work accurately with new image, new products, imagination, perfect knowledge of the customer and its preferences and over all, food safety.
To project a new image of the Company Peak Cuisine should look for a brand new level.
It will be necessary to incorporate the new dishes in the two lines of products: chilled - traditional and frozen - "healthy" which, necessarily, should be launched in the market with fashionable denominations, such as for example: "Trends-in" for the traditional line, and "Green-up" for the healthy one.
As said before, it will be very "marketable" to re-launch Peak Cuisine products, to appoint a consultant Chef who, with the chef of the company and the product developer, will prepare and cook the new menus for both lines "Trend-in" and "Green-up". The picture of the Chef and his/her signature can appear in front cover of each of these products.
Moreover, the Director of Marketing has to be part of the team, because s/he will be person who would sell them to the different supermarkets and outlets.
Once Peak Cuisine has really achieved, new attractive and tasty dishes, with quality and perfect food safety, the Director of Marketing, can start a campaign to re-launch the company, visiting firstly the old clients trying to increase the sales and secondly new potential buyers to introduce the products. As Theodore Levitt (1990) said "Selling focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing on the needs of the buyer."
BS EN ISO 9000
The ISO 9000 series of international standards is the internationally accepted system rating quality management and quality assurance. The standards provide guidelines that organisations should implement in order to provide the assurance that the products or services they provide will be of constant quality. The customer can count on the same basic product/service. These standards are applied to all the products and services. Like other standards, there are updates and revisions to further enhance their effectiveness.
Cranswick (1996) established the 20 sections of ISO 9000 cover :
| Management responsibility | Inspection and test status |
| Quality system | Control of non-conforming product or service |
| Design Control | Preventive and corrective action |
| Document and data control | Handling, storage, packaging and delivery |
| Purchasing | Quality records |
| Control of customer-supplied | Internal Quality audits |
| Product identification and traceability | Training |
| Process control | Training |
| Inspection and testing | Service |
| Control of inspection, measuring and test equipment | Statistical techniques |
However, Cranswick (1996) wrote about drawbacks and benefits of ISO 9000
| Pros | Cons |
| Sets standards | Can be expensive to implement and maintain |
| Formalises a system to aid employee understanding | May require large amounts of paperwork |
| Empowers and gives responsibility to employees | Stifles creativity |
| Encourages an attitude/culture of improvement-may be use as tool of TQM | No guarantee of high quality |
| Marketing tool | Written for large companies |
| Required by current customers | Written for manufacturers |
| Required by potential customers | Full of jargon |
| Used to enforce management policy and best practice | No guarantee of new customers |
| A paper system is easily audited, a tangible system | Can increase costs |
Weighing up the "pros" and "cons" in the case of Peak Cuisine, I would recommend the implementation of ISO 9000 in Peak Cuisine because it needs quality management and quality assurance. Peak Cuisine needs to increase customer confidence providing quality products.
To implement ISO 9000 it will be necessary for Peak Cuisine to expend extra time and money. But it is proven that quality investments can be cheaper than the financial penalty and market loss that may incur through "non -quality". Indeed, Peak Cuisine with an ISO 9000 certification will have a marketing advantage that can position it as a leader increasing its credibility with potential customers.
In the same way, the company through the design processes will save and eliminate hidden costs and waste. Likewise, another benefit will be to get improved teamwork and financial savings resulting from higher quality products.
To implement ISO 9000 in Peak Cuisine the following steps would be necessary:
LONG TERM MEASURES
Total quality management
The next step to achieve by Peak Cuisine to assure this future, can be to implement a Total Quality Management Program.
As Waller (1996) wrote "Quality management is concerned with the systematic planning and management of all operational activities, techniques, processes and procedures. The principal benefits of quality management will be the development of product and services guarantees and commitment to customers. The attention of all employees, supervisors and managers will be focused on customers and key service requirements, providing a competitive advantage in the market place".
East (1993) states "With TQM customer orientation through continuous improvement becomes a "taken for granted" assumption shared by everyone in the organisation. The key to achieving this state is to develop an organisational culture totally dedicated to the customer, whether they be external or internal. For organisations which adopt TQM, the distinction between employee and customer is no longer valid - total quality means managing and serving the employee as well as the customer."
Van der Wiele (1997) identified in progression four fairly discrete stages towards TQM, which the first two stages are based on detection and the latter two on prevention.
and in the same way, he said "The ultimate objective of a quality management system is to assist the organisation in its quest for financial health. It achieves this aim through proceeding organisational activities to increase uniformity and conformity in repeated tasks".
Kia Liang Tan (1997) quoted Daft (1983) Deming (1981) and Salazar (1994) to say: "TQM cannot survive without the support of a holistic, humanistic management system that decentralises the organisation and empowers employees. Many organisations failed to implement techniques such as charts and just -in- time techniques, without adopting the TQM philosophy of empowerment team workforce and vice-versa."
Moreover, Mogendorff (1994) states " Developing the appropriate organisational culture and concomitant leadership style are fundamental to the development of TQM in line with the requirements of the effective introduction and reinforcement of any major organisational change. Because of this it can take up to five years to get the system up and running and many organisations give up before they have achieved their goal.
The main obstacles for TQM implementation can be :
Moores (1996) wrote "Organisations which would claim to be operating total quality management will share some features such an emphasis on quality assurance rather than on quality control. The efforts of all employees will be harnessed to the philosophy and will be committed to striving for excellence."
Following Wilkinson and Witcher (1992) Peak Cuisine to implement TQM should have:
Conclusion
If Peak Cuisine wants to survive making profits it needs an urgent and deep transformation in its organisation and its production. With the adoption of the mentioned for short, medium and long term measures. Peak Cuisine can have a high chance to grow becoming a reliable organisation. Concepts should be in the mind of all the workers from top to bottom such as innovation, imagination, originality and improving menu presentation, benchmarking, investment in proper utilities, staff with the appropriate skills, motivated and responsible, good raw materials, gastronomy, tasty food, food safety, control, good service, reasonable price which allow to get enough profit.
The implementation of the system HAACP and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) is essential to achieve quality and food safety in the production. But this quality and food safety must be accompanied by innovation, imagination and renovation.
Every single step in the product's process should be checked, from the beginning to the end. Staff should be trained in the HACCP system and afterwards Quality Assurance GMP if the Company decides to adopt it, in Total Quality Management.
To appoint a consultant chef can bring new ideas the company. The ready meals products, both lines, chilled and frozen, must be tasty, colourful and as far is possible, well presented.
As Diwan (1999) states "A Total Quality organisation must have four principal objectives :
1 Continuous improvement
2 Continuous and relentless cost reduction
3 Making their organisation the best in its business".
The task to distribute the finished product to the different outlets, should be done by haulier companies which assure through the appropriate records that the temperature controls are the ones demanded by Peak Cuisine.
The Company should be sure that its products have the quality and food safety required by law and such that its clients and customers deserve. This can be established when it has carried out sampling and bacteriological analysis on each production step. After this the Department of Marketing can start the campaign re-launching the company with brand new labels and new and renovated products.
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