France Première STHR (hospitality and catering) — 1re specialties
Chapters: 4
1. Hospitality economics and management
The service offer in hospitality · Digital tech in service production · Relations with guests · Relations with suppliers · Relations with employees · Relations with banks · Information system and accounting
- Hospitality Services: How Hotels and Restaurants Create Value – Hospitality means welcoming guests and meeting their needs for food, drink and rest. A service is made at the moment the guest, the staff and the physical setting meet: this is the servuction system. Guests differ (leisure, business, groups, guests with disabilities) and can be served in different styles (table, buffet, counter, room service). Staff work in teams with a clear hierarchy (restaurant and kitchen brigades, front desk, housekeeping) and pass information through documents. Quality has four faces: expected, designed, delivered and perceived; any gap between them leads to complaints.
- Digital Economy: Platforms, Reviews and Personal Data – The digital economy is the part of the economy that runs on the internet, phones and data. Its heart is the platform: an app or website that links buyers and sellers (or drivers and riders, hotels and guests) and takes a fee. Platforms grow through the network effect: more users on one side attract more on the other side. Customers choose using ratings and reviews, so every business needs a good digital identity (website, social pages, reviews). Platforms collect a lot of personal data, so consent and data-protection laws matter.
- Supply Chain and Procurement: Suppliers, Stock Control and JIT – A supply chain is every business and step that moves a product from raw materials to the final customer. Goods move forward; money and information (orders) move back. Procurement means buying the right inputs at the right price, quality and time. Businesses choose suppliers on price, quality, reliability and flexibility. To control stock they either keep a buffer stock (safe but costly) or use just-in-time (cheap to store but risky if a delivery is late). The re-order level = daily usage × lead time + buffer stock. Logistics gets goods to the right place on time; outsourcing hands a task to another firm.
- Employment Law: The Rules of Working for Someone – Employment law is the set of rules for the relationship between an employer and an employee. An employment contract exists when a person does work, for pay, under the employer's direction (subordination). Contracts may be permanent, fixed-term, temporary through an agency, part-time or telework; a civil-law or freelance contract is not employment. Employees have rights (at least the minimum wage, limited hours, rest and paid leave, a safe workplace, equal treatment, freedom from harassment) and duties (careful work, following lawful instructions, loyalty, safety rules). Employers can organise work and discipline, within the law. Pay is gross before tax and social insurance and net after; the employer's total cost is higher. Trade unions negotiate collective agreements. A contract ends by resignation, dismissal with a valid reason and fair procedure, mutual agreement or the end of a fixed term.
- How Economies Are Financed: Saving, Banks, Loans and Bonds – Some people have money left over (savings); others need more than they have (loans). Money moves from savers to borrowers in two ways: through a bank (indirect finance) or straight through shares and bonds (direct finance). The interest rate is the price of borrowing. When the state borrows a lot, less may remain for firms (crowding out).
- Value Added, Profit Allocation and the Accounting Information System – Value added = sales minus goods and services bought from other firms. It is shared between staff (wages), the state (taxes), lenders (interest) and owners (profit). Profit is then split into reserves, dividends and retained earnings. An accounting information system (often an ERP) records every deal once, from source document to ledger to statements, and keeps the data safe.
2. Service science and technology
The guest at the centre · Staff at the heart of the system · Physical setting for service · Products and services that create value
- Hospitality Services: How Hotels and Restaurants Create Value – Hospitality means welcoming guests and meeting their needs for food, drink and rest. A service is made at the moment the guest, the staff and the physical setting meet: this is the servuction system. Guests differ (leisure, business, groups, guests with disabilities) and can be served in different styles (table, buffet, counter, room service). Staff work in teams with a clear hierarchy (restaurant and kitchen brigades, front desk, housekeeping) and pass information through documents. Quality has four faces: expected, designed, delivered and perceived; any gap between them leads to complaints.
3. Culinary science and technology
The customer at the centre · Kitchen staff at the heart · Physical kitchen setting · Products that create value
- Hospitality Services: How Hotels and Restaurants Create Value – Hospitality means welcoming guests and meeting their needs for food, drink and rest. A service is made at the moment the guest, the staff and the physical setting meet: this is the servuction system. Guests differ (leisure, business, groups, guests with disabilities) and can be served in different styles (table, buffet, counter, room service). Staff work in teams with a clear hierarchy (restaurant and kitchen brigades, front desk, housekeeping) and pass information through documents. Quality has four faces: expected, designed, delivered and perceived; any gap between them leads to complaints.
- Culinary Techniques: Stocks, Sauces, Doughs and Creams – Good cooking starts before the stove: choose the right product (quality, label, level of processing), buy in season, follow a recipe card and portion sheet, then do preliminary preparations (washing, cutting, weighing) and base preparations (stocks, sauces, doughs, creams). At the end, judge the dish with your senses: look, smell, taste and texture.
4. Food and environment science
Comfort and health in establishments · Eating, taste and body needs · Culinary transformations · Preventing microbial contamination
- Environmental Health – Environmental health is about how our surroundings — air, water, food, soil, chemicals, noise, heat and the buildings we live in — affect our health. Harm reaches the body by four roads: breathing, drinking, eating and touching. Risk depends on the dose and how long we are exposed. Some poisons build up along food chains. The One Health idea says human, animal and environmental health are linked, so we protect all three together.
- Human Digestive System and Heterotrophic Nutrition – Heterotrophs take ready-made food from other living things. Humans are holozoic: we eat whole food and break it down in a long tube, the alimentary canal. Teeth, saliva, stomach acid, enzymes, bile and pancreatic juice cut big food molecules into small ones that villi in the small intestine absorb into blood.
- Food Science: The Chemistry of What We Eat – Food science studies what food is made of and how it changes from farm to plate. Food contains carbohydrates, proteins, fats, water, vitamins and minerals. Cooking changes them: heat unfolds proteins (denaturation), starch swells in water (gelatinisation), and dry heat browns food through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation. Microbes ferment food into bread, curd and pickles, but can also spoil it. Processing, preservation and safe temperatures keep food safe and nutritious for a growing world population.
- Food Safety and Hygiene – Food can carry tiny living things (bacteria, viruses, moulds) that make us ill. Four habits keep food safe: clean (hands, tools, surfaces), separate (raw away from ready-to-eat), cook (to at least 75 °C in the centre) and chill (keep cold food at 5 °C or below). Bacteria multiply fastest in the danger zone, 5–60 °C, and can double every 20 minutes. Food businesses use a hazard-control plan (HACCP) and cleaning routines to keep food safe.