Mystery Shoppers

Featured Article June '09

Filling your Canteen

Hospitality Assured is the Institute of Hospitality’s scheme to mark out certain levels of quality in caterers. In particular, it’s become useful for universities to signify a seriousness about catering.

Over the past month or so we’ve been looking into Hospitality Assured and have talked about it with both members and non-members.

The reason that insitutions don’t have the mark, is simple. As Alison Aucott of Manchester University put it, ‘the costs outweigh the benefits’. The time and money required to attain HA status was simply not felt to be worth it, especially for smaller institutions.

Henry Hulme of Newman University College and previously Birmingham City Council did acknowledge, however, that ‘it certainly tests out the nuts and bolts of the organisation and refines the working practices and procedures’.

The other major concern, raised by Nick White from Cambridge is that HA suffers from a fundamental flaw: ‘the basic concept of auditing against standards will always fail to capture the qualitative nature of our business.’

This is, of course, true. Though one must establish standards, they are nigh-on impossible to judge objectively. The best that can be achieved, in practice, is a sampling of subjective opinions of both your own venue and your competitors. Quality in such businesses is like a mosaic: a million little pieces that, from a distance, forms a whole picture.

It was this aspect that Tony Davies of Brunel University highlighted. HA does not provide an objective ideal that is, ultimately, unattainable. Rather groups with the mark are ‘measured against other organisations in our industry’. He also comments that there is a clear benefit in ‘having a yearly examination of the business procedures and processes and examining the service we offer … this keeps us on track.’ He added that the accreditation ‘gives our staff confidence’.

This was echoed by Nick Leach of Portsmouth University who said that ‘it was a great morale boost for the staff.’ He continued to say that ‘although you know you are doing a good job, sometimes you never stop to check or turn around to see how your customer sees you and your service. Hospitality Assured help you to do that.’

The scheme has limited recognition among every-day consumers or, in universities, students. However it is widely recognised within the industry and for businesses looking to attract conferences or other similar special events it can be a great help.

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