
How do you find the most efficient dining halls in your state?
That’s the question posed by a new report, “Dining Hall Efficiency: An In-Depth Look”, released by the National Association of Dining and Hospitality Companies (NADHC), a business lobby group that promotes the health and safety of food and beverage service establishments.
The report, which was based on data from more than 500 U.S. dining halls, ranked restaurants based on “systematic quality improvement measures” that include “staff training, food quality and customer service, food safety, and quality control.”NADHC also reviewed how many of the country’s “best-in-class” dining halls were built.
It found that “most of the nation’s dining halls and banquet halls” were built by one company, and those in “sub-prime” and “prime” conditions have a lower “quality improvement” score than those in more competitive environments.
The study was released on the eve of the annual National Restaurant Association (NRA) meeting in Las Vegas.
The meeting is one of the largest gatherings of the industry, and the association typically releases the report each year.
The association says that while there’s no need to change restaurant regulations, many “have not done their due diligence” and that the “challenges” they face will not be eliminated overnight.
The National Restaurant Alliance, the association’s trade group, said the report “shows that there are important challenges ahead” for the industry as it strives to maintain its current and future standards.
But the association also pointed out that many of these issues are likely to be addressed as part of a nationwide restaurant safety strategy that is expected to be launched this fall.
“While the focus on food safety is important, the need to enhance efficiency is equally important,” said Dan Borenstein, the NRA’s chief executive.
“We know that the most effective restaurants are those that are well-managed, and we can’t allow the food industry to be left behind.”
The report found that a large number of “prime and sub-prime quality” restaurants are in states with “high poverty rates,” meaning low incomes.
These restaurants “receive the most money in state funding, and this means that their employees have little or no job security,” according to the report.
These are areas of the restaurant industry that the NVA says are “most at risk” of having foodborne illnesses.
The USDA has long recognized that poor, minority, and rural communities in particular face a “food safety challenge,” and the report notes that the number of such restaurants has “increased significantly over the past five years.”
It also said that “many of these restaurants are also located in regions with limited access to health care and food service facilities.”
These include rural areas in states such as Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.