Total Quality Management to Reduce Food Waste and Boost Profitability

This research report investigates the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) to reduce food waste and increase profitability within the hospitality industry, using Hilton Hotel as a case study. The report begins with an introduction to TQM and its key elements, emphasizing customer focus, employee involvement, and continuous improvement. It then explores the causes of food waste, including overbuying, overproduction, and spoilage, and how TQM can address these issues through process improvement and fact-based decision-making. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, utilizing both primary and secondary data sources, including a survey of employees in Hilton Hotel's food and beverage department. The report outlines the research questions, methodology, and data collection methods, including a time plan and required resources. The findings are expected to demonstrate how TQM can optimize processes, reduce waste, and ultimately enhance the profitability of hospitality organizations.

Research Project

Table of Contents
Rationale/ Background.....................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Aim..................................................................................................................................................4
Objective..........................................................................................................................................4
Research Questions..........................................................................................................................5
Research Approach..........................................................................................................................5
Research Method.............................................................................................................................5
Sources of Data................................................................................................................................6
Population and Sampling.................................................................................................................6
Data Collection methods..................................................................................................................6
Time plan and Resources required...................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

Research Title: Total Quality Management to reduce food waste and increase profitability
Rationale/ Background
Hospitality industry is one of the important contributor in overall food waste because
food and beverages being important part of their operations and functioning.
As per Pambreni and et.al., 2019 Total Quality Management (TQM) is a term that a
process of detecting and reducing and eliminating errors in manufacturing and streamlining
supply chain management. Total Quality Management is done by organisations to achieve long
term success for organisation and in this continuous improvement and customer satisfaction are
given strong emphasis. Total Quality Management approach also involve participation of all
employees of organisation in the efforts for improving quality of product, process and of
organisational culture. Key elements of TQM are customer focus, total employee involvement,
process centred, integrated system, continuous improvement, fact based decision-making and
effective communication. This means that TQM is process centred that means that process that
consist of series and steps in which input is taken form suppliers and is transformed into outputs
for customers. TQM focuses on improving quality of process. Decisions in TQM are taken on
the basis of facts rather than vague assumptions and continuous improvement that drive
organisation to be analytical and creative.
As stated by Raak and et.al., 2017 reasons for food waste includes overbuying,
overproduction and spoilage. Overbuying involves inaccurate forecasting of demand from
consumers and this lead to buy products that are not required and in food items there are
products that cannot be kept for too long and they became waste. Overproduction is also a result
of inaccurate demand forecasting, however overbuying and overproduction are different because
in overbuying, products are purchased more than required, in overproduction products are
produced more than required. Overproduction leads to wastage of food that is not required by
consumers. Overproduction is a bigger concern regarding food waste because in overproduction
all those resources used for production of food also get wasted along with food. Spoilage is a
situation in which food that is fit for being consumed or can be eaten gets spoiled and it becomes
a food waste.
According to Hermsdorf, Rombach and Bitsch, 2017 TQM is an approach in which
processes are continuously improved and improved processes lead to reduction of food waste
that becomes waste because of inefficient processes. Process improvement includes all processes

that are undertaken in organisation for producing food. Total Quality Management also involve
fact based decision-making and because of this decision-making of people involved in
organisational processes such as manufacturing of food and demand for food products improves.
This lead to reduction in food waste, this means that when organisation make decision on the
basis of fact about potential demand, it leads to reduction in waste because of excessive
production. Total Quality management also contribute in increasing profitability of the
organisation and there are several ways in which profitability gets improved. This means that
cost of organisation get reduced and this increase profitability. Cost get reduced because of
elimination of practices like reduction in scrap, and no need of rework. Avoidance of over-
production is also useful for reducing cost and increase profitability through total quality
management.
INTRODUCTION
Total quality management is an approach of management in which organisations aim at
long term success of organisation through customer satisfaction. Along with customer
satisfaction continuous improvement is also a part of total quality management approach. In this
approach of management all members of organisation actively participate in improving product,
process and culture of the organisation. Food waste refers to food that is fit for human
consumption but is not eaten. Food waste is food that is left and is later thrown away and its
usability get reduced. This research will discuss how Total Quality Management can be used to
reduce food waste management and increase profitability of the organisation. Hospitality
organisation involve activities of food and beverage manufacturing and sell and this is why they
make considerable contribution in overall food waste. This is why Hilton Hotel has been
considered in this research about food waste. This proposal includes
Aim
“To analyse use of total quality management to reduce food waste and increase profitability,
Hilton Hotel a case example”.
Objective
 To study concept of total quality management at Hilton Hotel
 To analyse reasons for food waste
 To analyse use of Total Quality Management to reduce food waste and increase
profitability

 To recommend ways in which Total Quality Management can be used for reducing food
waste at Hilton Hotel
Research Questions
 What is total quality management?
 What are reasons for food waste?
 What is use of total quality management in reducing food waste and increase
profitability?
 How total quality management can be used for reducing food waste?
Research Approach
Research approach refers to plan and procedures that is considered for research. Research
approach spans from broad assumptions to detailed methods of collection of data, analysis and
interpretation. Research approach is of three types that Qualitative research, quantitative research
and mixed research (Cvetkoska and Savić, 2017). Qualitative research is one in which research is
carried out in form of words and interpretation and quantitative research is one in which data is
in form of numbers and statistics. Mixed research approach is one in which both qualitative and
quantitative research is considered. For this research mixed research approach will be
considered. This is because data will be collected in form of number and statistics and will be
interpreted in qualitative form.
Research Method
Research method is concerned with how the research will be conducted and this involve
both primary and secondary research. Primary research is one in which data and information for
the research is conducted from the first source, from where research has not been conducted
earlier. Secondary research is one in which research data and information is collected from
sources where research has been conducted earlier (Langmann and Pick, 2018). Secondary
research is done through books, journal and papers (published and unpublished) written earlier.
Both the types of research methods will be used for this research.
Sources of Data
Sources of data refers to those sources from where data for research is collected. This
research will be done through both primary and secondary sources. This is because secondary
sources for research helps in creating foundation for research through primary research and also

help researcher in understanding concept and background for research (Dias and et.al., 2019).
Primary sources for this research involves employees of food and beverage department Hilton
Hotel. In which an online survey will be conducted through questionnaire and secondary sources
for research will involve use of existing literature for research data and information.
Population and Sampling
Sampling is concerned with process of selecting people who are respondents or used as a
sample in research. Sample population in research represent overall population and there are
mainly two approaches of sampling probability sampling and non-probability sampling.
Probability sampling involves that everyone in the population have equal probability of being
selected as sample. Non-probability sampling does not have equal probability of everyone to be
selected as sample (Otzen and Manterola, 2017). For this research, researcher will use non-
probability sampling in which purposive or judgemental sampling. In this sampling researcher
select sample on the basis of purpose of research. This is because purposive sampling ensures
that sample and people considered for research sample are able to provide data and information
that is required for research and that is relevant to research. This means that information
provided by them is more reliable because they are linked with subject and area of research and
this is why they possess required knowledge and skills and also have experience.
Sample size for this research is 20 employees from food and beverages department.
Data Collection methods
Data collection methods refers to ways in which data is collected by researcher. There are
several ways through which data can be collected such as interview, observation, survey.
Interview involves conversation with people from whom data is being collected and observation
is concerned with simply observing sample for research. Data collection method to be used for
this research is Questionnaire. It is a set of questions that are designed for gathering information
about research and research subject. Questionnaire involves both type of questions open-ended
and closed-ended questions (Nguyen, 2019). Open-ended questions are those where respondent
elaborates their answer. In closed-ended questions, questions are answered in simply Yes or No.
Questionnaire for this report will include both open-ended and closed-ended questions.
Questionnaire method is highly appropriate because this method is simple and easy to use while
collecting data. In this time and efforts required by researcher are also less and collection and
analysis of data is also simple and easy in this method of collection of data.

Time plan and Resources required
Activity Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7
Developi
ng
research
aim and
objective
s
Preparin
g
research
proposal
Collectio
n
of data
Analysis
of data
Developi
ng
conclusi
on and
recomm
endation
Submissi
on
Resources required

Resources required for this research include books, journals, magazines and electronic
sources such as computer and internet (Abbott and Liu, 2020).

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abbott, M. and Liu, H.H., 2020. 10. Resources Required to Implement and Maintain the C2C
Program. Mental Health Task-Shifting in Community-Based Organizations. p.225.
Cvetkoska, V. and Savić, G., 2017. Efficiency of bank branches: empirical evidence from a two-
phase research approach. Economic research-Ekonomska istraživanja. 30(1). pp.318-
333.
Dias, F.F and et.al., 2019. Fusing multiple sources of data to understand ride-hailing
use. Transportation Research Record. 2673(6). pp.214-224.
Hermsdorf, D., Rombach, M. and Bitsch, V., 2017. Food waste reduction practices in German
food retail. British Food Journal.
Langmann, S. and Pick, D., 2018. Photography as a social research method.
Nguyen, M., 2019. Data collection methods in L2 pragmatics research. The Routledge handbook
of second language acquisition and pragmatics. pp.195-211.
Otzen, T. and Manterola, C., 2017. Sampling techniques on a population study. Int. J.
Morphol. 35(1). pp.227-232.
Pambreni, Y and et.al., 2019. The influence of total quality management toward organization
performance. Management Science Letters. 9(9). pp.1397-1406.
Raak, N and et.al., 2017. Processing-and product-related causes for food waste and implications
for the food supply chain. Waste management. 61. pp.461-472.