Chefs' Awareness towards Food Storage Hierarchy in Egyptian Restaurants

Abstract

This research aims to measure the awareness of chefs towards the hierarchy of food storage and analyze the differences between their awareness based on their demographic data. Literature review includes some topics about food storage in the restaurant such as dry storage, chemical storage, refrigerator storage, and freezer storage, food contamination during food storage, preventing cross-contamination during storage, food contaminations and their impact on health, food hierarchy chart in a restaurant, and chefs' awareness towards food hierarchy. For achieving the research aim, an electronic questionnaire (as a test) was designed and distributed to a random sample of chefs in Egyptian restaurants, which 447 responses were received and valid to analyze by SPSS V.25. Results indicated that investigated chefs haven't enough awareness of food hierarchy storage. Some chefs store food in the wrong arrangement that leads to rapid spoilage or cross-contamination. Based on the results, some recommendations have been proposed to increase the awareness of chefs towards food hierarchy storage. One of the most important recommendations was putting guidelines and instructions in clear places within each store that directs chefs on how to arrange food properly.