Struggling with Cafeteria Vendor Changes: How Can We Ensure Consistent Food Quality?

Hi, in the last three years, we have changed cafeteria vendors three to four times. Initially, all vendors provided good food for a couple of months, but then the food quality declined. Employees started complaining about the quality and expressed boredom with the limited variety offered in the canteen. Changing vendors every time has now become a challenge. Can anyone help me with a permanent solution to this issue?

Thank you.

Please provide more information: What industry is your company in? How large is your workforce? Is the cafeteria exclusive to staff, or is it also open to the public? Do employees receive a subsidized rate for meals in the cafeteria? Do cafeteria vendors pay a monthly rental fee? What types of food are available?

Regards,
Autumn Jane

Dear [Email Removed For Privacy Reasons], every other workplace cafeteria has the same problem, and some basic considerations should be seen in order to keep the constant factor running:

- Ensuring that the dishes are kept clean, as sometimes food residues on the vessels may be a safety hazard, along with not much cleanliness bothering the employee.
- Having occasional mixes with all sorts of Indian cuisines may add variety to the essence of daily bread.
- You may also try altering the direction of the seating in the cafeteria weekly or fortnightly to ensure territorial perceptions are kept at bay.

These may be temporary solutions to ensure the ongoing process; permanence has not been a solution to cafeteria issues as concerned.

Like Sharmila Das mentioned, this is a common problem in most cafeterias. Some of the queries Autumn Jane raised are quite important to understand the level and scale of the problem you currently have and also to suggest ways to handle it.

For one, how many people/employees does your cafeteria serve on a daily basis? The more people served, the higher the chances of the problems you mentioned.

Next, do you have shifts? And does the cafeteria work in shifts to sync with the worker shifts?

Regarding the "boring variety which is offered in the canteen," is the daily menu decided by the canteen owner, or is any employee involved in the process? Most mid/large-sized companies have Canteen Committees that act as the liaison between the tastes of the employees and the intentions of the canteen owner. In such situations, the variety of the menu is usually well-handled with minimum complaints—though it goes without saying that there would still be some employees who will complain (after all, nothing can replace home-cooked food).

In many companies, these Canteen Committees are also involved in the quality maintenance of the food being prepared—not on a daily basis, but as a checkpoint. That way, the canteen owner knows there's someone keeping a watch.

However, regarding such committees, a word of caution: Ensure the committees are changed on a regular basis. If not, you will have a different set of problems while solving this. Canteen owners are known to favor committee members while ignoring the other regular employees—you know why.

If you can provide more inputs, more accurate and realistic suggestions can come from the members.

Regards,
TS

Dear Priya, This is in addition to what previous members have said. Where is your company located in Mumbai? Are there catering contractors in the nearby area? Go there and find out about the quality of the food. If the overall employees of that company are satisfied, then the catering contractor should satisfy your employees as well.

Benefits of Hiring Local Catering Contractors

The second benefit of hiring the contractor from the nearby area is that his cost will come down because he will get economies of scale.

Lastly, has it become a culture in your company to blame the food quality? If employees have become that fastidious, then let them arrange their own food. As such, Mumbai is famous for the services of Dabbawalas. You just pay the employees' food charges + Dabbawala charges.

Ok...

Regards, Dinesh V Divekar

I agree with TS regarding a rotating volunteer employee cafeteria committee. A pool of committee members comprising employees from each department should be recruited, and a 5-member panel reconstituted from the pool every 3 months. A member cannot participate on the committee for at least 3 cycles (9 months) unless there are insufficient volunteers.

Function of the Cafeteria Committee

The function of the Cafeteria Committee should be to offer menu suggestions to the owner, ensure that proper sanitation procedures are in place and utilized, address the quality of the food, and convey any relevant employee complaints.

Contract Specifications with the Vendor

The contract between the company and the vendor should be specific as to the quality of the food, the skill of the vendor's employees in preparing and presenting the food, as well as promoting sanitary conditions throughout the cafeteria. This includes the plates, glasses, utensils used by the employees, and the pots, pans, and other implements used by the vendor's staff, in addition to the proper storage of the food.

Vendor Rotation and Quality Incentives

You may also want to consider rotating the vendors every 2 months, explaining that after a year (6 vendors), one will be chosen as the permanent vendor. However, as an incentive to maintain the highest quality of food, service, and sanitation, any serious complaints will result in penalties to the vendor, such as a percentage reduction in the monthly billing. For example, a minor sanitation complaint, such as a dirty glass or unwashed plate, if verified, would result in a reduction of 0.001 of the monthly billing; while a major complaint, such as uncooked or improperly cooked food, would result in a 0.05 penalty if verified by a member of the Cafeteria Committee.

Just some thoughts to consider.

Regards,
PALADIN

Thank you, guys, for all your suggestions. Here are the details about the cafeteria and employees.

1. The employee strength is about 400-500, and the cafeteria serves food to at least 200 employees.
2. There are no shifts in the company.
3. Only three meal times are available - morning snack, lunch, and evening snack. Tea/coffee is available throughout the day.
4. The contractor comes from a nearby area, and the food is prepared in his kitchen. We do not have kitchen facilities here to prepare live food such as dosa, maggi, or toast sandwiches, etc.
5. We provide Indian food and sometimes Chinese too.
6. There are no subsidies on food rates; it's on an actual basis. We do not pay the contractor either; we have just provided him with a canteen place to serve food to our employees.
7. We are in the process of setting up a food committee too.

Regards, Priya

There are a few suggestions/options which you might also know. Of course, canteen problems are never solved to the satisfaction of everyone. However, as others opined, we could make some changes to the extent possible in addition to what others suggested:

Options:

1. You can either engage contract labor only for cooking and serving/cleaning by providing infrastructure facilities, utensils, provisions, water, power, etc. A remuneration package could be finalized on the basis of samples of food articles which the team could prepare as a daily menu.

2. Keep a panel of vendors, shortlisted based on the quote, quality, and quantity of food articles they could provide as samples at the time of assessment of competitive quotes.

3. You can order food articles from various vendors around your premises on a rotation basis who could prepare at their places and serve based on a standardized daily menu & timings which you could prepare as a chart and give it to those caterers, with quantity on a daily basis after collecting from staff for the day. No cooking in your premises except warming and serving, against food coupons. In this option, you have to bear the cost of residuals remaining unsold. (This is more or less like railways & airlines catering)

4. Follow the present system with suitable modifications in the contract for deficiencies, if any, in quality and quantity, which could be checked by your staff canteen committee on surprise or routine inspection with a rider that deficiencies would attract penalties.

Regards, Kumar.S.

Of course, canteen problems are never solved to the satisfaction of everyone. You cannot satisfy all employees all the time in an industrial canteen. In many companies, those employees who are not satisfied with the canteen food will bring their own food. However, changing the canteen contractor or people will not solve the problem. Some suggestions and experiences have already been contributed by members.

Regards,
J. L. Trivedi

Best Way to Solve the Problem

1. Create a Canteen Club to be managed entirely by the employees.

2. You can provide space, subsidy, water, electricity, etc., as required.

3. Make a Constitution through an election process, nominating a Chairman, Secretary, Treasurers, and Members. Every member will pay a nominal subscription to the Club per month.

4. Such a Club will ensure that they decide the menu, select the vendors, pricing, etc.

5. A Quality Control Committee, selected from the club, will ensure the quality of food and will be answerable to employees. Parameters of Quality Control can be documented, and monitoring & measurement processes can be outlined and implemented.

6. The ex-officio Chairman will be the HR Manager from the Management to ensure that the operations of the club are in line with the company's policies.

7. In this way, Management could spend their time productively.

8. A bank account in the name of the club should be obtained after registering the same under the Shop & Estt Act. All the money collected from employees and remittances made by the Management will go into the same account. Signatories for the cheque should be the Chairman (from Management), Secretary & Treasurer (from employees). Such accounts will be audited once a year by a qualified CA.

9. The objective of the club will be no-loss-no-profit.

10. Don't forget it is very difficult to satisfy a variety of tastes of diverse people.

I have done this and had a peaceful time at work. If you want to have the constitution of the club and understand how it is being maintained & run, you can get in touch with me for further guidance.

Regards,
S. Nagasubramanian
[Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons]

This problem is just human nature. Home-cooked food is always best. We can enjoy the taste of the same for years to come.

In the canteen/cafeteria, the food is cooked in large quantities and with the same taste every day; only the main dish is changed. Over a period of some months, most people get irritated with the taste. If you consider the case of a college canteen, the canteen vendor (usually Anna/Udupi) is changed due to students' requests periodically.

Hence, we can only do one thing: the continuation of the contract should not be done. There are a lot of vendors who are willing to work for a limited period, i.e., half-yearly/yearly or otherwise.

Regards,
Ramakant

While all the suggestions mentioned above are true, it will be an initiative by the company management to have a committee for staff welfare who will interact with the contractor and also provide regular feedback from the employees.

If the company has a policy to provide meals/snacks three times a day, then they also have to ensure that the quality is maintained and a variety is available to the employees.

Alternate Solution: Snacks Vending Machine

An alternate solution is to have a Snacks Vending Machine which provides different options for the employees.

Benefits

- The employees will have options; snacks will be available all the time.
- Quality is maintained as only branded namkeens, biscuits, cold drinks, juices, etc., are kept in the machine.
- Easy to use and operate by anyone.
- No headache to the company as all logistics and inventory are managed by the Vending Machine Operator.
- Most importantly, it will also keep both the Vending Machine contractor and the canteen contractor on their toes to provide better quality of service as there will be competition between them.

Regards,
Samir

Don't worry, I'm specialized in the catering industry, and let's meet up with your staff members or committee to try and find out what exactly they want. Maybe we can discuss and address all their problems; perhaps food is not the issue, but they may not be happy with some other aspects or policies of the company. I have been in the catering business for 25 years.

At your service,
Regards, Bharat Panchal
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