SYNOPSIS

ON
“MAINTAINING FOOD QUALITY & STANDARDS
IN QSR’S & A CASE STUDY OF SUBWAY”
RESEARCH SUBMITTED TO THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR HOTEL
MANAGEMENT & CATERING TECHNOLOGY, NOIDA
& INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, NEW DELHI

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

BY
PRASHANT VAJPAI
DIVYANSHU MISHRA

INSTITUTE OF HOTEL MANAGEMENT, CATERING & NUTRITION,

Subway is an American

privately held fast food

restaurant franchise that

primarily sells submarine

sandwiches (subs) and salads.

Subway is one of the fastest-growing franchises in the world and, as of June 2017, had

approximately 42,000 stores located in more than 100 countries. More than half of the

stores are located in the United States. It is the largest single-brand restaurant chain, and

the largest restaurant operator, in the world.

As of 2017, the Subway Group of companies was organized as follows:

 Subway IP Inc. is the owner of the intellectual property for the restaurant system.

 Franchise World Headquarters, LLC leads franchising operations. FWH

Technologies, LLC owns and licenses Subway's point of sale software.

 Franchisors include Doctor's Associates Inc. in the U.S.; Subway International

B.V.; Subway Franchise Systems of Canada, Ltd.; etc.

 Advertising affiliates include Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust, Ltd.;

Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust, B.V.; Subway Franchisee Canadian

Advertising Trust; etc.

Subway's international headquarters are in Milford, Connecticut, with five regional

centers supporting the company's international operations. The regional offices for

European franchises are located in Amsterdam (Netherlands); the Australian and New

Zealand locations are supported from Brisbane (Australia); the Asian locations are

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supported from offices in Beirut (Lebanon) and Singapore; and the Latin American

support center is in Miami.

SUBWAY was started 43 years ago in the summer of 1965 an enterprising 17 years old

young man, Fred Deluca . Subway is the market leader in the sub and sandwich shops

offering a healthier alternative to traditional fast foods. Subway’s annual sales exceeded $

6.3 billion, while countless awards and accolades have been bestowed its chain over the

past 43 years . Subway has more than 28,000 units worldwide whilst its rapid growth has

attracted many investments and brought it many competitors such as KFC and Burger

king . Recent initiatives attract customers beyond Subway traditionally health conscious

consumers should increase the company’s share of the fast food market.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW

Service quality has been regarded an antecedent of customer satisfaction (Kim,

Hertzman, & Hwanng, 2010), which in turn results in customer retention

(Boonlertvanich, 2011). Hence, investigating all these constructs can assist companies not

only to meet or exceed their customers' expectations, but also to affect their intentional

behaviour. Many studies have been conducted examining service quality, food quality

and customer satisfaction constructs in different settings in different countries, for

example the healthcare industry (Yeşilada & Direktör, 2010), the automobile repair

services sector (Izogo & Ogba, 2015), the hotel industry (Dedeoğlu & Demirer, 2015),

retail settings (Anselmsson & Johansson, 2014; Omar, Shaharudin, Jusoff, & Ali, 2011),

tourism industry (Debata, Patnaik, Mahapatra, & Sree, 2015; Al-Tit & Nakhleh, 2014),

the gaming industry (Wu, 2014), the telecoms and cellular sector (Ahmed et al., 2010;

Ali, Rehman, Yilmaz, Nazir, & Ali, 2010; Omotayo & Joachim, 2008), public transport

(Kumar, 2012), the banking sector (Malik, 2012) and hair care services (Jeon, Dant, &

Gleiberman, 2014), as well as the food industry (Marinelli, Simeone, & Scarpato, 2015;

Wang, 2015; Kafetzopoulos, Gotzamani, & Psomas, 2014; Bujisic, Hutchinson, & Parsa,

2014; Jang & Ha, 2014; Wettstein, Hanf, & Burggraf, 2011). The results of these studies

have confirmed the significance of relationships between these constructs. However, little

attention has been paid to investigating how to improve customer satisfaction by

enhancing service quality and food quality, thus increasing customer in the food industry,

particularly in Subway in Lucknow, India.

Consequently, the aim of this study is threefold. First, the study investigates the impact of

service quality and food quality on customer satisfaction within limited service

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restaurants in Jordan. Second, the study explores the influence of service quality on

customer retention. Third, the paper examines whether or not customer satisfaction

mediates the relationship between service quality and customer retention. This study is

expected to assist limited service restaurants in Jordan to enhance customer retention by

meeting or exceeding customers’ expectations concerning the strength of service and

food quality. It contributes to the literature on service and food quality, customer

satisfaction and customer retention by surveying the restaurant-related attributes of

service and food quality in a non-western setting.

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 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

 To study about the quick service restaurants (QSRs).

 To know about the maintaining food quality at QSR.

 To study about the Subway.

 Study about the food quality maintenance at Subway.

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 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

a) RESEARCH DESIGN:

A research design is the master plan or model for the conduct of formal investigation and

survey. It is a specification of methods and procedures for acquiring the information

needs for solving the problem. It decides the source of information and methods for

gathering the data. A questionnaire and other forms are tested to use the collection of

data. A sampling design is to be selected.

Good research design ensures that the information obtained is relevant to the research

question and that it was collected by objectives. Since research design is simply the

framework of plan for a study, it should be used as a guide in collecting and analyzing the

data. It is a blueprint that is followed in completing the research study.

The major objective of the descriptive research is to describe something – usually market

features or functions. It requires a clear specification of the who, what, when, where,

why, & the way (the 6 Ws) of the research. Our 6 Ws are:

 Who: Who should be considered for the research?

commodity?
 When: When should the information be obtained from the respondent?
 Where: Where the respondents should be contacted to obtain the required

Information?
 Why: Why are we obtaining the information from the respondents?
 Way: In what way we are going to obtain the information from the respondents?

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b) SAMPLING TECHNIQUES
The samples were selected through

Purposive Sampling: The first phase of selecting the sample was done by this method as

the sample was specified.

Stratified sampling: This type of sampling is done by dividing the heterogeneous

sample into different groups called strata. Here one stratum is the consumer and staff of

Subway in Lucknow.

SAMPLE SIZE: Total sample comprised of 50 employees of Subway.

PERIOD OF STUDY: 6 weeks

c) SOURCES OF DATA COLLECTION:

In this research, I have used two types of data.

 Primary Source.
 Secondary Source.

Primary source includes:-

 Discussion with Subway employees

 Discussion with experts

 Discussion with customers.

 Data collected from questionnaire.

Secondary source includes:-

 Various books related to Food Quality.

 Books related to story of quick service restaurants

 Web sites were used as the vital information source

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d) TYPE OF DATA COLLECTION

The present study was designed to assess the case study of Subway, Lucknow.

i. LOCALE OF STUDY: The study was carried out with Subway, Lucknow

employees.
ii. CRITERIA FOR SELECTION: The following criteria were observed for the

selection of the respondents-

 Heterogeneous of sample: the respondents belong to different socioeconomic

background that is in case of people belonging to different group.

 Easy accessibility- due to similarity of the work area of half of the total

population.

iii. PRIMARY DATA:

Questionnaire method was chosen for fulfillment of basic objective. The primary

sources were Subway, Lucknow employees.

iv. SECONDARY DATA:

 Internet

 Magazine and Newspapers.

 Dealer price with other companies

e) STATISTICAL TOOL USED:-

There are number of tools that could be used for collecting data depending on the nature

of study. Questionnaire- cum- interview method was employed for collection of data.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 McDonald, M. (2003) Marketing Plans, 5 th ed.., Kent: Butterworth-Heinemann

publications.

 CIM (2005) Marketing Environment, 4 th ed.., London: BPP professional

education.

 Swift, I. (2005) Marketing, 4 th ed.., London: Holder & Stoughton.

 Lancaster, G and Reynolds, P (2003) Marketing made simple, 2 nd ed.., Oxford:

Made simple.

 Subway (2009) ‘Mission and values’, web page accessed on 02/08/2009 from

http;//www.subway.co.uk.

 European Franchising (2009) ‘Subway’, webpage accessed on 27/07/2009 from

http;//www.europeanfranchising.net

 Subway (2009) ‘student educator’, webpage accessed 20/07/2009 from

http;//www.subway.co.uk

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