Purpose This paper presents an interpretive data analysis from a superordinate study that aimed to determine foodservice satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to determine inpatient hospital foodservice experiences. Design/methodology/approach The authors used secondary data obtained from 419 respondents: (225 (53.70 per cent) males, 178 (42.48 per cent) females and 16 (3.82 per cent) undisclosed) participants. A comparative, quantitative and cross-sectional approach was applied to provide insight into hospital foodservice experiences. The Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test, interpreted at 0.05 error rate, was used to compare male and female patient experiences. Findings Male patients had significantly higher rank-sum scores than female patients in almost all items (p<0.0001). The study revealed that hospital personnel, especially foodservice staff, had an unsatisfactory communication approach. Originality/value This is the first South African study that compares female and male inpatient foodservice perceptions. Hospital managers and stakeholders may need to consider patient’s gender, as a significant factor that is associated with patient experiences, when embarking on improving foodservice systems.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess patient perceptions regarding South African hospital foodservice quality. Design/methodology/approach In total, 419 questionnaires were administered to surgical and medical inpatients consuming a normal diet in six South African provinces. A number of 23 urban and 10 rural hospitals were sampled. Inpatients were surveyed for their opinions on hospital foodservice quality with a view to improving meals and food delivery processes. Findings Results revealed lower patient satisfaction with aspects relating to foodservice reliability. Among other issues, inpatients were not informed about meal times (overall median=0), had to wait longer than expected for their meals and were not informed about delays (overall median=2). Menu items were not explained to inpatients (overall median=0), and inpatients were not informed about nutritional values (overall median=0). Consequently, patients opined that they were not willing to use the hospital foodservice in future (overall median=2). Originality/value To identify South African healthcare issues that need improvement, it is necessary to establish where to act. These findings create awareness among authorities and hospital managers to consider patient perceptions when they review and try to improve public hospital foodservice quality, which could also assist in ensuring improvement in food consumption levels, thereby combating South African hospital malnutrition.

Quality has become a value that enables businesses to survive and continue existing. Henceforth, food industries need to entrench quality into their business performance. Foodservice quality is characterized as a service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs and service free of defects. Foodservice businesses are an integral part of social life, both biologically and socially, biologically as satisfying the nutrition requirements of the society and socially in terms of addressing socialization and esthetics-pleasure values. Therefore, by adopting quality approaches, food industry businesses may encourage customers’ preferences for those businesses that diligently offer these services. Managing food service quality is a complex and challenging task requiring commitment, discipline, and emergent effort from everyone involved in food production processes. The task also requires the necessary management and administration techniques to continuously improve all processes (including quality control from raw material to finished product). Food industries need to be organizationally structured, establish policies and quality programs, measure customer satisfaction, use more quality tools and methodologies, embrace knowledge, apply techniques, and food safety programs to manage food quality. This chapter aims to describe the ISO 22000 system—widely used for quality management in the food industry.