Knowledge, attitude and practices regarding food additives of food SMEs in Mauritius

Abstract

A Knowledge-Attitude-Practice (KAP) survey was conducted amongst operational food Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Mauritius and (1) Pearson's Rank Correlation Coefficient was used to determine association between knowledge and attitude (K-A), knowledge and practices (K-P) and attitude and practices (A-P); (2) Chi-square test was used to test for differences of knowledge, attitude and practices with selected demographic factors (gender, level of education, number of years of experience and age group) of respondents; (3) Chi-square test was also used to test for difference of knowledge between the two independent groups; respondents who did not make use of additives and respondents who made use of additives; (4) Independent two samples t-test was used to compare the means (µ) for attitude subscale; and (5) Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to determine the suitability of KAP framework/model. The field study revealed that out of 1020 registered enterprises, only 363 were in operation (35.6%) and in addition to other KAP studies, a database was developed. The database provides information on the number of enterprises per region manufacturing each category of food. Forty-two of the SMEs surveyed made use of food additives out of which 29% had poor knowledge, 4.5% had negative attitude whilst 36% had poor practices. Medium positive correlation was found between (K-A) (0.59), between (K-P) (0.54) and (A-P) (0.46). Education level and age group affect knowledge of respondents (p < 0.05). Statistical analysis showed that there was a significant difference in knowledge between respondents who made use of additives and those who did not use additives (χ2 = 3.02, p = 0.004), however, no difference was observed for the attitude subscale (p-value = 0.641). SEM showed evidence for model fit (RMSEA of 0.04, GFI of 0.81 and TLI of 0.98, CFI of 0.98).