Hospitality students', faculty's and managers' perspective of foodservice trends

Purpose and method of study. This study surveyed the perspectives of a random sample of hospitality faculty (N = 30), their students (N = 638) in quantity foods classes, and a random sample of food and beverage managers (N = 350), regarding six foodservice trends. Data from 488 (48.4%) completed questionnaires were analysed using frequencies, percentages, t-test, Chi-square, analysis of variance, and Duncan's multiple range tests. Faculty responses (14 out of 30) were excluded from statistical analysis.;Findings and conclusions. Respondents were mostly Caucasian and female. Faculty have advanced degrees, while managers have either a high school, associate or bachelor's degrees. Most of the students were juniors or seniors, 20--25 years old, with work experiences primarily in food production. Professionals were predominantly 46 years and older and have managerial as well as production and service experiences. Knowledge scores were highest on the customer service and quality standards trends, and lowest on the biotechnology and technology trends. Respondents were knowledgeable about menus, and merchandising to diverse customers, but lacked nutritional knowledge for application. Similarly, respondents strongly agreed or agreed on attitudes statements regarding customer service, quality standards, and healthy nutritious menus, but the attitudes were near neutral in merchandising to the diverse customer, biotechnology, and technology trends based on a Likert-type scale. One significant association (p ≤ 0.05) was found between the students' healthy nutritious menus knowledge scores and their work experiences in production. There were no other significant associations between knowledge and attitude scores of the respondents and their personal and institutional variables. There were also no significant associations between faculty, managers and students in their ranking of the six foodservice trends' importance to the industry, or between the respondents' knowledge and attitude scores and their ranking of the trends. By forecasting trends, hospitality professionals can be responsive to the needs of consumers and the marketplace. Trend futurecasting can determine probable and logical outcomes and arrive at future goals by the hospitality industry for the next millennium.