Regional features of the economic activity development in the Russian food services market: Method of analysis and comparative analysis with European countries

© Serials Publications Pvt. Ltd.Being the brightest representative of the non-tradable sector of the economy, the food services sector received the most significant impetuses to the development and transformation of the model of business and implementation of operational processes in Russia. However, despite the immensity of such a development, it would be premature to say that it has finally formed and does not need further modernization in accordance with the evolving market conditions, both within and beyond the market. Understandings, and certainly the development of science-based regulations, specific practical tools contributing to its development, require the full-scale and comprehensive analysis, including relying on the study of fundamental, theoretical and categorical bases of formation and development of the market under consideration in terms of dialectical views and concepts. The article presents the conceptual approaches to the assessment and analysis of development performance of the Russian food services regional system as compared to European values, based on the determination and justification of the convergence criteria of the food services system development in the Russian Federation and the European Union, which on the one hand sets the overall target and possible criterion for the industry development, but on the other hand determines a common set of unknowns forming part of the linear programming problem, where the reference level of the food services system serves as a target function. The results of this study allow identifying the mechanisms of growth of the economy sector under consideration in accordance with the identified development characteristics, corresponding to the regions grouped under the key parameters of the food services market functioning performance