The food safety culture in a large South African food service complex

Abstract

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to assess elements of food safety management and food safety culture within a prominent South African entertainment, hotel and food service complex. Design/methodology/approach-In this paper a qualitative case study approach was used. Following a comprehensive literature review, based on factors known to be important in developing a food safety culture, in combination with national and international food safety standards, an interview guide was constructed and utilised in a series of semi-structured interviews. The interviewees represented different management levels involved in food delivery but did not include board level managers. Findings-Many of the factors considered important in good food safety management, including the presence of a formal food safety policy and the creation and maintenance of a positive food safety culture, were absent. Although a formal system of internal hygiene auditing existed and food safety training was provided to food handlers they were not integrated into a comprehensive approach to food safety management. Food safety leadership, communication and support were considered deficient with little motivation for staff to practise good hygiene. Originality/value-Food safety culture is increasingly recognised as a contributory factor in foodborne disease outbreaks and is the focus of increasing research. However, although every food business has a unique food safety culture there are relatively few published papers concerning its analysis, application and use within specific businesses. This case study has identified food safety culture shortcomings within a large food service facility suggesting there was a potentially significant food safety risk and indicates ways in which food safety could be improved and the risk reduced. The results also suggest further work is needed in the subject of food safety culture and its potential for reducing foodborne disease.

Influence of food safety culture on food handler behaviour and food safety performance of food processing organisations

“…(World Health Organization, 2015), where a third of the global foodborne-related deaths occur (WHO, 2016). These economies face difficulties in the adoption of FSMS (Griffith et al, 2017;Macheka et al, 2013;Nanyunja et al, 2015) as well as in the assurance of food safety (Kussaga et al, 2013). In 2017-2018, a Listeriosis outbreak emanating from a meat processing company in South Africa resulted in 978 illnesses and 183 deaths, putting 15 countries at risk (World Health Organization, 2018), thus revealing deficiencies in the core control and assurance activities such as lack of preventive measures, monitoring systems to detect pathogens, verification activities, and lack of hygiene training (Boatemaa et al, 2019).…”

“…perceptions, decision-making, and actual execution of food safety and hygiene tasks, has been found to influence the food safety performance of an organisation (e.g. De Boeck et al, 2015;Griffith et al, 2017;Fatimah et al, 2014b;Nyarugwe et al, 2018). Recent studies have therefore stressed the importance of food safety culture (FS-culture) in food safety performance (De Boeck et al, 2018;De Boeck et al, 2019;Jespersen et al, 2017;Manning, 2018;Nayak & Taylor, 2018;Nyarugwe et al, 2016).…”

“…Moreover, food safety performance was included as Luning et al (2011) suggested food safety performance to not only depend on FSMS performance but also on the system's context with the assumption that product riskiness is a determinant of food safety performance. The food safety program was furthermore incorporated in the framework as a FSMS has been indicated as part of FS-culture assessments (De Boeck et al, 2016;Griffith et al, 2017;Nyarugwe et al, 2016).…”

“…Food handlers in most companies (7/9) perceived the food safety communication system as supportive (score 3) (Figure 4.2). Communication is crucial for organisational effectiveness as it enhances understanding of food safety information (De Boeck et al, 2015;Griffith et al, 2010a;Griffith et al, 2017). However, food handlers mentioned that there were no checks to verify whether the information was understood.…”

“…However, food handlers mentioned that there were no checks to verify whether the information was understood. Griffith et al (2017) found checks and assessments necessary to ensure effectiveness of communication, which could explain the inadequacies in observed tasks. Food handlers also perceived time as sufficient as companies maintained a good balance between production, and food safety and hygiene activities ( Figure 4.2).…”