The pioneers in reserving space in the structure for an autonomous body responsible for the entire catering sector - including the dining room, cafeteria and bar - were the most important American hotels, which were the first to find the need to differentiate the management of the catering department. from that of the rooms department. This need is felt all over the world today due to the impossibility of finding managers capable of managing both departments with the same level of professionalism.
In the organization chart of the hotel company the management food and beverage it reports directly to the general management and its manager supervises all activities related to catering ranging from the procurement of foodstuffs, to the qualitative and quantitative control of production, to the distribution of meals and drinks.
Food and beverage manager: what they do
The main activities of the food and beverage manager they range from budgeting to cost control, quality standards of products-services and kitchen equipment. This professional can also deal directly with the organization of non-ordinary events, such as buffets, meetings, conferences, themed dinners.
From small meetings to large receptions, the food and beverage manager must be able to formulate personalized and tailor-made services. In this sense he takes care of the preparation of the buffet for every convivial occasion, supervising the menus, the preparation of the dishes and carrying out inspections on the place where the meeting will take place. It collaborates with the general management for the definition of specific objectives, operating in the choice of strategies, tactics and methods to be adopted to achieve them. Defines, proposes and executes the budget of the catering function, in agreement with the director and the marketing manager, if present.
Prepare procurement plans and define the qualitative and quantitative level of minimum stocks. Within a hotel, he coordinates the work with the heads of the kitchen, bar, restaurant and takes care of the execution of the room service, verifies the degree of customer satisfaction and prepares any corrections to improve the efficiency of the service. In line with the training policies defined by the human resources manager, he takes care of the training of the personnel assigned to him.
Necessary skills
The food and beverage manager must be able to carry out the economic management of the catering activities of hotel and / or restaurant facilities, therefore it is necessary that he knows how to estimate direct and indirect costs, define sales prices, keep under control the cost of raw materials used in the production of food and beverages, maintaining relations with suppliers, coordinating cash management, analyzing turnover data and budget deviations, preparing periodic reports. It is important to know the supplier market, the catering offer of the territory, elements of hotel accounting, business management, supplier contracts and the regulation of catering services, with specific attention to budgeting and price definition. Finally, he must be able to apply bid evaluation criteria and techniques for managing commercial relations with suppliers, to apply control and management techniques and to use accounting software.
