Is Pizza a vegetable?

[Ser Clegane]

I think a lot of the problems with canteen food are connected to a "don't care" attitude of those who are in charge. Some dishes are more suitable for high volumes some aren't - obviously the selection also depends on the facilities (can you cook simple stuff in the same building, do you have to keep prepared food warm for a longer time).
Quality depends very much on the people in charge. The university in my home town had canteens scattered all over the place - even among those that were comparable in size the quality of the food varied massively. The canteen at the chemical faculty that I mostly went to was a great example for the level of quality and variety you can offer at such a place.

[Fragony]

Huge company if 100 people eat at the same time, small school has hundreds of students, and the biggies cater hundreds if not thousands of schools.

[Ser Clegane]

Huge company if 100 people eat at the same time, small school has hundreds of students, and the biggies cater hundreds if not thousands of schools.

Not sure what you are trying to say with this statement.

a) 100 people eating at the same time is not a huge company
b) companies also work with external caterers
c) sheer size does not automatically result in being more competitive (General Motors comes to mind)

[Fragony]

Not sure what you are trying to say with this statement.

a) 100 people eating at the same time is not a huge company
b) companies also work with external caterers
c) sheer size does not automatically result in being more competitive (General Motors comes to mind)

For our small local hospital with 500 patients you need 40 people in the kitchen 16 hours a day (two shifts) and not a minute is lost. Each of them costs roughly 20 euro an hour. Add the goods and storage, transportation, it can't be done for the same price

[Ser Clegane]

Sorry - but what is exactly the argument that you are making?

Is the way the hospital is currently doing it not cost competitive?
If that is the case, at which point of the process would the "big boy" be more competitive and why?
If a "big boy" would be more competitive, why is the hospital not switching?

BTW, I am not sure to which extent a hospital canteen (that is obviously not just preparing lunch and where meals are not just served centrally in the cafeteria) is comparable to a school or a canteen of a company

[Fragony]

Sorry - but what is exactly the argument you are making?

That you simply can't do it cheaper. It's all a good idea mind you, but it will be more expensive.

Hospital was just an example of how labour intensive preparing large amounts of food is, perhaps a poor one

[Husar]

That you simply can't do it cheaper. It's all a good idea mind you, but it will be more expensive.

With the same quality? Cheaper isn't always preferable.

Hospital was just an example of how labour intensive preparing large amounts of food is, perhaps a poor one

As Ser said, they're creating more variety and serve longer than a canteen or school cafeteria usually do, of course that requires more people, but it also raises the quality of the service, which may be important in a hospital. And for some people this quality should be a requirement in schools as well, it sort of has to be mass produced anyway if you want to serve hundreds or thousands of people in a short timeframe but mass production isn't always the same. Using a bigger pot to make your soup fresh on the spot is not the same as filling it into tin cans for long storage etc. Yet I'd call both mass-produced.

[classical_hero]

That you simply can't do it cheaper. It's all a good idea mind you, but it will be more expensive.

Hospital was just an example of how labour intensive preparing large amounts of food is, perhaps a poor one

Back what you are saying with fact, not just your hearsay. You keep saying things without providing any evidence for it. Where is the evidence that it is cheaper to go that route? It might be in America due to all the subsidies they have for big corporations, but the cost of eating poorly is far higher than the cost of having fresh food.

Also my mum worked at my school's canteen an they were able to provide healthy meals and often at the end of the year, when they had to get rid of the food so we would get much of the food. That was one of the perks of having a mother who worked in a school canteen. There certainly was no extra cost to making something healthy, but we are not America and there are not too many subsidies in our system.