Foodservice benchmarking: practices, attitudes, and beliefs of foodservice directors

To identify foodservice directors' use of performance measures and to determine their current practices of, and attitudes and beliefs about, benchmarking.

A survey was conducted using a researcher-developed questionnaire that had been validated in a pilot-test. The questionnaire was mailed to 600 randomly selected foodservice directors; 247 (41%) responses were analyzed.

Subjects were foodservice directors in the United States from 4 categories of foodservice operations: college/university, correctional, health care, and school.

Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi 2 tests to investigate associations between variables of interest.

The most common performance measures used by foodservice directors were food cost percentage, cost per unit or area of service, and meals per labor hour. Internal benchmarking had been used by 71% of the respondents, external benchmarking by 60%, and functional/generic by 25%. Seventy-seven percent of the respondents thought benchmarking had some or great importance in their jobs. Category of foodservice operation was associated with type of benchmarking partner and was related to certain performance measures. Sixty-one percent of respondents reported needing knowledge and skills about benchmarking.

Foodservice directors, regardless of category of foodservice operation, perceive benchmarking as a useful management tool to improve processes, products and services. Foodservice directors can use benchmarking to compare their financial performance with that of other organizations and learn how to improve their facility by examining best-practice processes of successful organizations.