Food Safety Awareness and Practices of Food Handlers in Cafes and Restaurants of Ambo, Guder and Ginchi Towns of West Shoa Zone, Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia

Teshale Jifara Mengeda

doi:10.7176/jbah/10-13-04

Abstract

Good food safety awareness and practices play a great role for handlers in food production, and to guarantee foods served are safe for consumption. Aware or unintended contamination of such food places consumers at risk of suffering from food-borne infections. As a result the study was carried out to document the food safety awareness, food safety practices and attitudes of the manager in food businesses in Ambo, Guder and Ginchi towns of West Shoa of Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia. The study targeted 120 food handlers and managers in the cafes and restaurants. The study involved an interview, followed by visual observation of the food handlers, equipment, homes and environment of the café and restaurants for confirmation. SPSS version 20 and descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the survey data collected from respondents. Majority of respondents were between the ages of 16 - 26years (54.2%) with tertiary or post-secondary education. The study revealed that food safety awareness and attitudes of the managers were satisfactory; however its practice was sensational. The study concluded that the food safety awareness, food safety practices and attitudes of the manager did not result an efficient food safety practices. It is recommended that training of food handlers for the control of environmental and technical sources of contamination is mandatory to secure food safety. Keywords: Awareness; Practices; Attitudes; Food handlers; Food safety DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/10-13-04 Publication date: July 31 st 2020

Highlights

Food borne illness is a serious and underreported public healthy and financial costs
The population in developing counties is more prone to suffer from food borne illnesses because of multiple reasons, including lack of access to clean water for food preparation; inappropriate transportation and storage of foods; and lack of awareness regarding safe and hygienic food practices (WHO, 2014)
Primary data were collected from food handlers, cafe managers and restaurant managers using semi-structured questionnaire, observation and interview.Secondary data sources were Hotel and Tourism offices of Guder, Ambo and Ginch towns, different and relevant published reports, bulletins, and websites to generate relevant data on food safety awariness and practices

Summary

Introduction

Food borne illness is a serious and underreported public healthy and financial costs. Food borne disease are a major healthy burden leading to high morbidity and mortality. The most common clinical symptoms of food born illnesses are diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, headache and nausea (Addis and Sisay, 2015). The global burden of infectious diarrhea involves 3-5 billion cases and nearly 1.8 million deaths annually, mainly in young children, caused by contaminated food and water. Developing countries are more vurnerable to food borne infection and intoxification. The population in developing counties is more prone to suffer from food borne illnesses because of multiple reasons, including lack of access to clean water for food preparation; inappropriate transportation and storage of foods; and lack of awareness regarding safe and hygienic food practices (WHO, 2014). Majority of the developing countries have limited capacity to implement rules and regulations regarding food safety. There is lack of effective surveillance and monotoring systems for food borne illness, inspection systems for food safety and educational programms regarding awaress of food hygiene (WHO, 2014)

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