Food Hygiene at On-Site Premises in Perak and Selangor: Are We Ready for Self-Regulatory Practices?

Abstract

Safe and hygienic food add value to food intake and prevent undesirable health conditions. Food handlers who are at the forefront of the food service process must monitor and measure the standards of their food hygiene and its preparation and cooking practices. This study investigates how ready food handlers at on-site premises are for self-regulatory practices. Food surface contacts were chosen for investigation via purposive sampling and swab analysis to unravel hidden messages about the level of hygiene standards in the foodservice operation. The findings reveal the existence of contamination across the majority of the selected contact surfaces that could affect the consumers’ well-being and quality of life.Keywords: consumer well-being; food hygiene; food surface contact; food handler; the on-site premise eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2019. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v4i10.1568