Today's challenges in the food service industry

To understand the nature of the catering challenge is hard enough let alone accept it. But I accept this paper's title, believing that caterers must adjust attitudes as they face problems, including those of food, besetting our own country and the world. With my background, I naturally see catering education as a key element in attitude adjustment. Way back in 1964, I was associated with the South of Scotland Electricity Board in organizing a management workshop with the theme “Catering in the Technological Era”. Though this sparked off other conferences with similar titles and led eventually to a book, Catering Management in the Technological Age, much catering activity since has edged but slowly into that age. Our challenge is to get it moving.