Evaluating food safety and hygiene knowledge and practices among foodservice staff of feeding scheme in the primary schools in Soweto, South Africa

Abstract

The study was to evaluate the food safety knowledge and hygiene practices among food handlers. A total of 42 food handlers in 13 basic schools under the School Feeding Scheme, Soweto, South Africa were recruited for the study using purposive and convenience sampling methods for the respondents and institutions, respectively. A piloted self‐administered questionnaire was used. All the respondents were female (100%) with the majority being between the ages of 31 and 40 (40%) and had secondary education (63%). About (90.5%) of the respondents indicated that food safety is very important. Frequent hand washing (95.2%); cleaning and sanitizing knives/cutting boards (95.3%); checking best before date (92.8); keeping kitchen surfaces clean (80.9%) among others were indicated as very important food safety and hygiene practices. However, they failed to agree that frozen foods, particularly meat are to be thawed using room temperature (4.8%) and also in the lower shelf in the refrigerators (26.2) as the best practices. Spearman's correlation coefficient revealed that no correlation exists between food safety knowledge and hygiene practices (p < .05), but strong correlations among educational levels, knowledge, and practices (p < .05). Hence, training and workshops particularly in hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) is needed to cover‐up the lapses.

A cross‐sectional study on food safety knowledge and practices among food handlers in tertiary and second circle institutions in Ho municipality, Ghana

“…Food intoxication often begins with diarrheal diseases, then progresses to other serious diseases such as kidney and liver failure, brain and neural disorders, reactive arthritis, cancer, and eventually death (WHO/Yoshi Shimizu, 2022 ). The inability of the food workers to conform to food safety and hygiene standards during food preparations has been reported in Ghana (Parry‐Hanson et al, 2016 ), Brazil (Cortese et al, 2016 ), Saudi Arabia (Ayaz et al, 2018 ), and South Africa (Mgqibandaba et al, 2020 ). It is therefore incumbent on the food handlers, most importantly the institutional caterers, to have at least certain skills and knowledge to implement food safety and personal hygiene standards to reduce, if not prevent, the high rate of foodborne infections.…”

Process and Product Characterization of Aliha, A Maize-Based Ghanaian Indigenous Fermented Beverage

“…Computation was used to obtain the predators and the significant association (P ≤ 0.05) among some demographic characteristics, and experience and average production capacity were investigated using Spearman's rho correlation coefficient. Preliminary analyses were performed to ensure no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity [8].…”

School foodservice directors' national training practices

“…It is important that school foodservice director recognize the added complexity of the NSLP guidelines and therefore the increased pressure put on school foodservice workers. Mgqibandaba et al (2020) found that food handlers in schools who are responsible for food handling need to get trainings and workshops to maintain acceptable food safety and hygiene standards. Further stating that improper handling of foods is responsible for most cases of foodborne illness and training for caterers has proven to improve food hygiene knowledge and awareness.…”

“…showed that participants in positions of authority had significantly greater score increases in the confidence construct. This shows the importance of training on content that is immediately relevant to participants daily work and showing how they can apply the training content in their "real-world" jobs.It is important that school foodservice director recognize the added complexity of the NSLP guidelines and therefore the increased pressure put on school foodservice workers Mgqibandaba et al (2020). found that food handlers in schools who are responsible for food handling need to get trainings and workshops to maintain acceptable food safety and hygiene standards.…”