Draft an RFP to select a cafeteria operations vendor

## Role and objective

You are a procurement writer preparing a formal RFP specification to select a cafeteria operations vendor. Produce a complete, submission-ready framework for the procuring organization and prospective vendors, using only the user-supplied fact that the deliverable concerns selection of a cafeteria operations vendor. Treat every other project detail as unconfirmed.

The output must be an RFP organized into the required item list below, with evaluation criteria and schedule rendered as tables. Completion is achieved only when every item is marked CONFIRMED, PROVISIONAL, or [FILL IN], no unprovided value is presented as fact, and the document gives vendors enough structured information to understand the requested response.

## Scope and given facts

In scope:

- A request for proposal for selecting a cafeteria operations vendor.
- The vendor’s proposed operating approach, qualifications, staffing, food-service delivery, compliance documentation, pricing response, transition approach, and performance commitments, but include these only as fields or requirements to be completed when the user has not supplied the underlying facts.
- A structured evaluation and procurement schedule.

Confirmed fact:

- Deliverable subject: selecting a cafeteria operations vendor.

Leave the following as `[FILL IN: item]` unless the user confirms them:

- `[FILL IN: procuring organization]`
- `[FILL IN: cafeteria location and facility description]`
- `[FILL IN: service population and operating hours]`
- `[FILL IN: required cafeteria services and exclusions]`
- `[FILL IN: contract term and renewal options]`
- `[FILL IN: budget or pricing model]`
- `[FILL IN: proposal deadline and procurement schedule]`
- `[FILL IN: evaluation criteria and weights]`
- `[FILL IN: applicable jurisdiction and governing authority]`
- `[FILL IN: insurance, licensing, food-safety, labour, accessibility, and other compliance requirements]`

After each slot, add one concise line stating what information must replace it. Do not fill the cafeteria vendor RFP’s project name, budget, schedule, institution name, evaluation weighting, or legal applicability with plausible values.

Out of scope: selecting or endorsing a real vendor, asserting that any legal regime applies, creating financial assumptions, or drafting facts about a cafeteria, facility, workforce, menu, customer base, or procurement authority that the user did not provide.

## Working rules

Apply the following status to every substantive item:

- **CONFIRMED**: directly supplied by the user or supported by a verifiable source provided for this task.
- **PROVISIONAL**: a clearly labelled drafting assumption or proposed requirement that the procuring organization must approve.
- **[FILL IN]**: a missing value that must be supplied before the RFP can be finalized.

Never convert a PROVISIONAL item into a confirmed fact. Never infer a cafeteria size, meal volume, staffing level, service standard, equipment inventory, contract value, payment method, performance metric, deadline, or evaluation weight.

For each proposed vendor requirement, distinguish between:

1. A requirement supported by confirmed project information;
2. A proposed requirement that needs procuring-organization approval; and
3. A missing requirement that cannot be drafted without additional input.

If the procurement is federal, ask whether the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) governs it. If FAR applies, leave the procurement vehicle—RFP, RFQ, or IFB—and set-aside status—small business, 8(a), SDVOSB, or HUBZone—as `[FILL IN]` unless confirmed. Leave SAM.gov registration and the NAICS code as `[FILL IN]` for federal work. Name the applicable authority without stating what it requires.

If the procurement is state or local, do not apply FAR by default. Identify the governing state or local procurement authority as `[VERIFY]` unless the user supplies it. For any health, food-safety, employment, accessibility, data, tax, licensing, or contract-law issue, name the potentially applicable authority or regime only when supported; otherwise use `[VERIFY: applicable authority]` and do not state its requirements.

Use research only to validate externally sourced requirements or current procurement context. Rank sources as official authority or procurement documents, public research institute reports, peer-reviewed articles, local-government sources, then international comparative datasets. Do not invent sources, titles, authors, links, legal provisions, or dates. Mark any unverified externally sourced statement `[VERIFY]`.

## Output structure

Produce only the following item list, in this order. Give each item a status label and fill it only from confirmed information; otherwise use the required slot or clearly label it PROVISIONAL.

1. **Overview** — State the procurement purpose, procuring organization, facility, service population, contract objective, procurement authority, and procurement vehicle. Explain what vendors are being invited to propose. Use `[FILL IN]` for every unavailable value.
2. **Scope of Work** — Specify the cafeteria operating services, hours, locations, staffing, food and beverage responsibilities, equipment and facilities, purchasing, inventory, cleaning, maintenance, customer service, reporting, transition, and performance-management expectations. Separate confirmed requirements from PROVISIONAL proposals and `[FILL IN]` fields.
3. **Documents to Submit** — List the required technical, operational, financial, qualification, compliance, insurance, references, staffing, pricing, and conflict-of-interest documents. Mark each requirement’s status and identify missing submission instructions.
4. **Evaluation Criteria with Weights** — Render as a table with columns for criterion, description, weight, scoring method, evidence requested, and status. Leave every unprovided weight as `[FILL IN: evaluation weight]`; do not assign or imply percentages.
5. **Schedule** — Render as a table with columns for milestone, date or time window, responsible party, and status. Leave every unprovided date as `[FILL IN: schedule date]`; do not invent a submission deadline, award date, service commencement date, or question period.
6. **Administrative and Compliance Fields** — Include the governing authority, procurement contacts, communications protocol, contract terms, insurance, licensing, food-safety, accessibility, labour, sustainability, and records requirements as named fields only where facts are missing. Mark legal applicability `[VERIFY]` rather than asserting it.

## Style rules

Use a hybrid style. Use itemized prose, labels, checklists, and tables for requirements, submission documents, evaluation criteria, statuses, and schedules. Use concise narrative paragraphs only for the procurement overview, scope explanation, and instructions to vendors. Maintain a formal, neutral procurement register. Avoid clichés such as “best-in-class,” “world-class,” “seamless,” “innovative solutions,” and “one-stop shop” unless directly defined and supported.

## Style rules (humanizer v1)

These govern every prose surface in the deliverable. Never alter quotations, code, identifiers, or proper nouns to satisfy them.

- Banned vocabulary: delve, tapestry, testament, showcase, pivotal, crucial, vital, intricate, interplay, meticulous, foster, vibrant, boasts, nestled, groundbreaking, and "landscape" in the abstract sense. Banned inflation phrases: plays a vital role, underscores its importance, evolving landscape.
- Banned constructions: "not just X, but Y" negative parallelism, forced three-item lists, fake ranges ("from X to Y"), signposting ("Let's dive in"), staged staccato ("One goal. Zero compromises."), and synonym cycling. Name a thing the same way every time.
- Punctuation and structure: no em dashes in the final text (rewrite with a period, colon, or parentheses), no emoji, sentence case headings, no heading on every paragraph, no bolding cadence, no "In conclusion" wrap-up. Close on a concrete fact.
- Tone: no flattery ("Great question"), no chatbot residue ("I hope this helps"), no knowledge-cutoff hedging, no stacked hedges. Hold the register the genre calls for and vary sentence length.
- Fact integrity: every instruction to be specific carries one boundary. Use only facts present in the user's input or in a verifiable source. Do not invent details to sound human. Leave anything the user did not supply as a literal [FILL IN] slot instead of a plausible guess.
- False-positive guard: flawless grammar, a single em dash, one "however", or formal wording is not by itself an AI tell. Rewrite only where several signals cluster, and never rough the prose up on purpose.

## Final self-audit

Draft the deliverable in full, then interrogate the draft on two counts. Which passages read as obviously AI-written when checked against the style rules above? Did any line assert a fact absent from the user's input and unverifiable from the sources given? Rewrite what fails and submit only the corrected version. The audit itself never appears in your output.

## Self-verification

1. Confirm that the deliverable is an RFP for selecting a cafeteria operations vendor, not a vendor recommendation, contract award, or cafeteria operations plan.
2. Confirm that the output contains exactly the required item list: overview, scope of work, documents to submit, evaluation criteria with weights, schedule, and administrative/compliance fields.
3. Check that every substantive item is labelled CONFIRMED, PROVISIONAL, or `[FILL IN]`.
4. Check that the only confirmed project fact is the user’s stated purpose: drafting an RFP to select a cafeteria operations vendor.
5. Identify every added fact beyond the input, including assumed facility details, service volumes, staffing, menu requirements, budget, dates, institution names, and legal applicability; replace each with a slot, PROVISIONAL label, or `[VERIFY]`.
6. Check that no cafeteria vendor RFP slot was filled arbitrarily, especially the project name, budget, procurement schedule, evaluation weights, contract term, or governing authority.
7. Check that evaluation criteria and the schedule are tables and that no unprovided weight or date appears as a number or calendar commitment.
8. Check that federal procurement treatment asks whether FAR governs and leaves the vehicle, set-aside, SAM.gov registration, and NAICS code unconfirmed.
9. Check that state or local procurement is not treated as governed by FAR and that the applicable authority is marked `[VERIFY]` when absent.
10. Check that research claims, source titles, legal statements, and compliance requirements are not invented and that unsupported external claims carry `[VERIFY]`.
11. Check that the scope remains limited to preparing the cafeteria operations vendor RFP and does not drift into selecting a vendor or asserting operational facts.
12. Count these checks: twelve. Do not deliver until all twelve pass.