Abstract
The World Health Organization states that everyone should play a role in contributing to food hygiene. In this article, we introduce the first online consumer-based platform for restaurant hygiene reviews, a platform that may provide a transparent channel for consumers to play their role in food hygiene. While public purchase decisions may be significantly affected by online consumer reviews, currently there are no dedicated websites for consumers to add restaurant hygiene reviews (RHRs), which is an expression coined in this article. The new platform helps consumers post food hygiene reviews by answering a series of questions while visiting any restaurant, and it also gives them an option to report food hygiene violations to the authorities. This website may help future research if the data collected is analyzed to understand trends in food hygiene violations noticed by the public; we also plan to have annual awards for the best restaurant in food hygiene based on consumer reviews. The questionnaire provided will also contribute to consumer food hygiene education. This platform is expected to bring food hygiene into the context of daily life and add to pressure on the restaurant industry to follow food hygiene requirements, thereby leading to a positive impact on environmental health.
Highlights
While public purchase decisions may be significantly affected by online consumer reviews, currently there are no dedicated websites for consumers to add restaurant hygiene reviews (RHRs), which is an expression coined in this article
All the questions above led us to the new idea of developing the first online platform for public use specialized in restaurant hygiene reviews (RHRs) by consumers in the Philippines; we call it Eat Safe
By reviewing evidence on the importance of online customer reviews (OCRs) and/or electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) on consumers’ purchasing decisions, we found that OCRs are a sizable source of product and service information for customers on the internet (Kostyra, Reiner, Natter, & Klapper, 2016), and that these reviews can have a significant effect on purchasing decisions by the public (Elwaldas, Lü, & Ali, 2016)
Summary
About 420,000 people die every year because of foodborne illness and one-third of those victims are children (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015); in 2015, the WHO made it clear in its report on the global burden of foodborne diseases that everyone must play a role and contribute to improving food safety. Knowing that laws and regulations alone can never provide full or absolute protection to the public (Wilcock, Pun, Khanona, & Aung, 2004), the authors pose the following questions: 1) What do consumers currently do to put pressure on the restaurant business for better food safety and hygiene?. Researchers may want to collect data which can only be obtained currently from government food inspectors, for example: 1) What food hygiene violation is most commonly reported by the public?. All the questions above led us to the new idea of developing the first online platform for public use specialized in restaurant hygiene reviews (RHRs) by consumers in the Philippines; we call it Eat Safe. Use of the platform is completely free of charge and can be accessed via any internet-enabled device using the link www.eatsafe.ph
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