Work Conditions, Social Incorporations, and Foodborne Diseases Risk: Reflections About the (Non)Compliance of Food Safety Practices

Abstract

The number of foodborne diseases has increased in all continents, and efforts must be made to control this urgent and expressive public health problem. This article aims to present and discuss situations related to the compliance and noncompliance of food safety practices (FSPs) in light of Bourdieu's social theory. This qualitative study was conducted in commercial restaurants in two cities in São Paulo, Brazil. Participant observation was used in the restaurants, and notes referring to the kitchen workers and their bosses’ work processes were registered in field journals. Thematic type content analysis was used to determine the meaning cores of field journals. It was found that aspects inherent to convenience and haste at work, deficient infrastructure, lack of employees, negative boss examples, exposure to noise, and body pain experienced by workers can contribute to noncompliance of FSPs and consolidate in the habitus and practical sense some dispositions that can increase the risk of foodborne diseases. This study highlights the necessity of creating environments that address food safety, which means being able to perform a service properly.

Job Crafting and Burnout as Predictors of Food Safety Behaviors in the Foodservice Industry

“…In addition, one of the dimensions of burnout, depersonalization [ 36 ] , can lead to detachment from customers, colleagues, and the work itself as a whole [ 95 ] , leading the employees to stop performing some critical activities because they feel it is no longer worth investing energy in them. In this case, food safety can be easily overlooked because it is not easily perceived by customers [ 96 ] and is not a priority for foodservice workers [ 18 ] . For example, a Chinese study on 453 restaurant chefs found a significant association between burnout and improper hand hygiene [ 97 ].…”

“…However, food safety behavior is a complex phenomenon. Food safety compliance is mainly seen as an additional requirement rather than a natural part of food handling, so it tends to be reactive rather than proactive [ 18 ]. In this case, burnout and work engagement may also play an essential role in food safety behavior.…”

“…Therefore, new strategies have been developed to understand safe food-handling practices. It is known that other factors also play an essential role [ 12 ], for example, organizational factors such as food safety culture [ 13 , 14 , 15 ], stress [ 16 ], burnout, job motivation, job satisfaction [ 17 ], and working conditions [ 18 ].…”

Safety management and safety outcomes in oil and gas industry in Malaysia: Safety compliance as a mediator

“…49 In this study, we investigate the beliefs of employees for the priority of safety and expectations from the organization to perform the job safely. 50 Based on the above theoretical and empirical discussion, we propose the following hypotheses.…”

How to Build Food Safety Resilience in Commercial Restaurants?

“…Disharmonic or non-motivating environments dehumanise workers and cause precarious working conditions since job satisfaction is insufficient, and they have poor infrastructure (i.e. lack of equipment, utensils, space to work, thermal comfort, insufficient number of employees and high noise levels), which can lead to pain and occupational diseases [36,37]. Furthermore, it is possible to find workers hurrying to meet the schedule for finishing the meals because of the lack of structure, which makes them more susceptible to errors, work accidents and the non-performance of steps essential to food safety.…”