As we continue to observe Tourism Awareness Month 2020 under the theme “Destination Guyana: Recover, rebuild – Getting ready to bounce back”, many stakeholders within the sector find themselves strategizing to find best solutions to maintain and even improve the products and services they provide. Some are recommitting their focus towards enhancing service quality and delivery during the current pandemic. These include restaurants and other food establishments, which are preparing to launch into Guyana Restaurant Week, November 20-29 2020.
For many establishments, the implementation of the relevant standards may provide a sustainable approach to supporting business growth and longevity. Restaurateurs, particularly, can implement the requirements of an available National Standard to readily meet their customers’ needs.
Available at the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS), the Code of Practice for Quality Management in the Restaurant Services (GCP 17:2003) is a standard which can be used to guide the preparation of wholesome foods and the delivery of safe and reliable services.
According to its scope, the code of practice specifies the managerial requirements necessary to ensure the efficient running of any restaurant establishment, which seeks to ensure quality in the sight of its customers. As such, restaurants implementing this standard should be able to consistently provide satisfactory services, have high productivity and be more competitive.
The standard requires restaurants and such food establishments to establish a quality system, which should mainly focus on marketing to understand the wants and expectations of customers. The system will also help them to develop workable designs for the preparation of food and service delivery.
The Code of Practice also addresses many other requirements, which can prevent service inefficiency and unreliability, and the provision of foods that are undesirable and unsafe for consumption. These requirements relate to personnel, material resources, internal and external communication, system of checking, contractual arrangements, advertising, and design and development of new products.
Additionally, conformance to the requirements of the Code will improve quality control, documentation and data control, purchasing, process control, corrective and preventative actions and handling, storage, packaging and delivery of foods prepared.
Finally, implementing the Code of practice for restaurant services can be a timely response to the challenges many local food establishment are currently facing. Using the document to streamline and improve many of the aforementioned processes within establishments could result in customer preference for the offerings of conforming businesses. Hence, with increased preference and demand, conforming food establishments will rake in more revenue crucial for growth and sustainability.
For further information on this subject, please contact the GNBS on Telephone Numbers: 219-0064-66, WhatsApp 692-GNBS (4627) or follow us on Facebook #GNBSGY
