Perceptions and Attitudes of Culinary Students Towards Food and Beverage Industry in Turkey

ABSTRACT

In this study, a multi-dimensional and multi-item attitude scale was developed. The paper describes the scale development process. The new scale was used to investigate culinary students’ perceptions and attitudes towards working in the food and beverage industry. Culinary students of public universities were surveyed and 1055 usable questionnaires were analyzed. The results showed that students attitude towards food and beverage industry and perception of this sector is nine-dimensional: commitment to the F&B industry, co-workers, physical working conditions, nature of work, industry-person congeniality, social status, satisfaction, pay, and managers. Findings indicate that participants have negative attitudes towards physical working conditions, co-workers, pay, and managers in the food and beverage industry. On the other hand, the nature of work, industry-person congeniality and social status dimensions have a positive influence on the perceptions of students towards the food and beverage industry. Features such as using their skills, using creativity in sector satisfied students emotionally while low education level of coworkers, stressful work environment, low wages, and poor working conditions created dissatisfaction for the students. Implications for the industry and culinary departments are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Culinary students
• culinary education
• students perceptions
• food and beverage industry