Food isn’t just fuel.
That’s one of the quiet mistakes made in catering strategy. We talk about menus, costs, calories, allergens, procurement, speed of service and waste. All necessary. All measurable. All are capable of making a spreadsheet feel important.
But eating is psychological before it’s operational. It carries narrative weight. It tells stories and creates memories.
Food tells people where they are, what kind of place they’ve entered, and whether anyone has thought properly about them. It can say welcome, care, comfort, tradition, generosity, control, status, belonging, or, in darker moments, mild institutional defeat under cling film.
In schools, food can feel like home or a compromise. In workplaces, it can support wellbeing, collaboration and culture, or become just another beige transaction between meetings. In museums and cultural venues, it can extend the visitor experience, add distinctiveness and give people time to reflect and talk, or it can break the spell with the emotional force of a railway station sandwich.
The menu, the room, the service, the queue, the sourcing, the acoustics and the timing all form part of the story.
And that story has commercial consequences. It affects uptake, dwell time, satisfaction, reputation and whether people come back.
That’s why food strategy needs to go beyond “what can we serve?” A much better question is: what does this food need to make people feel, understand and do?
At MYA, we design catering strategies that recognise food as both an operational system and a human experience.
Because people don’t simply consume food.
They read it.