Innovative Modeling in Public Catering: Theory and Methods

Transition processes need a new paradigm. At each new stage of development, an industry has to reconsider its basic concepts and terms. Public catering is important from the national food safety perspectives, which makes innovative development a priority. To complete a paradigm shift, it requires new theoretical and methodological foundations. The article generalizes and structures new terms and concepts needed for a theoretical and methodological rationalization of modeling the innovative development in the public catering sector. The research featured concepts and terms that reflect the current theory and practice of public catering and adjacent spheres related to innovative development and its modeling. The review covered scientific articles and legal documents indexed in the Garant, Google Scholar, and eLIBRARY.RU databases in 2019–2024. Public catering represents a wide variety of small businesses, which complicates any attempts at unifying the development processes. The authors designed a three-level methodology for innovative development with a comprehensive and detailed description. The methodology includes theoretical, empirical, and technological levels, i.e., from principles, approaches, and concepts through methods, techniques, and tools to specifics, conditions, logic, and temporal structure. The article provides the theory and methodology needed to rationalize the modeling of innovative development in the sphere of public catering. The methodology supports the shift from classical to innovative management, with invariants that could be applied to individual cases.