An assessment of food safety knowledge and practices of catering employees

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the food safety knowledge and practices of catering employees in one city in the Southwestern United States.Design/methodology/approachThe researchers administered a 20‐question food safety survey to catering employees and observed their actions while performing catering duties.FindingsThe paper finds that employees earned a mean score of 71.5 per cent on the 20‐question survey. They were most knowledgeable about personal hygiene, but did not practise proper hygiene during the catering functions. The most common food safety violations were not wearing gloves when required, not washing hands, not checking food temperatures, and not properly covering foods in warming and/or refrigeration units.Research limitations/implicationsLack of interest and concern about bad publicity prevented many caterers from participating in the study. The presence of observers during a catering event could have affected employees' performance.Practical implicationsThe results showed need for improvement in both knowledge and practice of food safety and sanitation and significant differences in knowledge between English‐ and Spanish‐speaking respondents and employees of independent versus corporate operations.Originality/valueThe paper reveals that the US Food and Drug Administration has a goal of reducing the five risk factors of food‐borne illness by 25 percent by 2010. Catering operations face great challenges in minimizing these risks.