Classifying food and beverage operations

For various purposes, food and beverage operations can be categorized in a variety of ways. It will now be possible to compare national economic statistics throughout the entire EU thanks to the SIC plan outlined above, which will enable the systematic collecting and analysis of such data. Companies like Keynote, a reputable market intelligence firm, focus only on commercial operations in restaurants, fast food chains, contract food services, hotels, and public houses. Keynote prepares extremely detailed reports on a variety of industries, including the hospitality and food and beverage operations. People 1st, the Sector Skills Council for the Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism industries, which places an emphasis on personnel and their skill development to meet business needs, divided the sector into 14 categories, including providers of contracted food services.

Events, gaming, vacation resorts, hospitality services, hostels, hotels, nightclubs, restaurants, self-catering lodging, tourist attractions, travel services, and membership clubs (People 1st, 2007). This is a much more comprehensive definition of the sector, and by including individuals who are employed "in house" (as opposed to by a contract caterer) to provide hospitality in the fields of travel, retail, education, healthcare, offshore locations, corporate hospitality, government and local authority provision (such as care homes and prisons), as well as leisure venues and events, they reach a much larger audience than the "commercial" only definitions. Although these various definitions and categorizations are intriguing and helpful, they do not offer any profound managerial insight.

From this vantage point, a number of distinctions between the various types of restaurants and bars are possible. First, there is a distinction between companies that exist only to make a profit and those that receive subsidies. A second differentiation focuses on the type of market it serves. In some places, like a hospital, a prison, or a cruise ship, the market is only available to certain demographics. The outlet is open to the general public in other cases.

A third contrast is made between establishments where catering is the primary business activity, such as in a privately owned restaurant, and those where it is a subsidiary operation, such as in the case of travel catering or school lunch catering. Outlets that are privately owned and those that are owned by the government differ from one another inherently. In general, there is some overlap between the categories.

This classification is used in this context for two reasons. First off, it covers a huge variety of food and beverage establishments, more so than many official definitions and

the classifications used in the hospitality sector. The second justification for choosing this classification is that it is founded on distinctions that significantly affect the majority of features of how the catering activity is run. For instance, there are distinctions between commercial and subsidized catering that go beyond just objectives to include disparities in the markets served, the organization's engaged, and their marketing and economic strategies.