Determining hygiene and safety practices of students during culinary studies skills practicals in a university of technology

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Foodborne diseases (FBDs) are a major public health concern and a significant cause of global morbidity and mortality. FBDs include a wide range of illnesses resulting from consumption of foodstuffs contaminated with toxic microorganisms or chemicals. Elimination of diseases is a key anchor of achieving long-term health outcomes and ensuring accessible and equitable health for millions of South Africans. The study was conducted to determine hygiene and safety practices of students during culinary studies skills practicals in a university of technology as they will play a major role in prevention of FBDs in future. AIMS: The main objective of this study was to determine the hygiene and safety practices of University of Technology (UOT) foodservice management students from first- to third-year level in the culinary studies skills practical classes, in order to design hygiene and safety assessment rubric for culinary studies skills practical classes. METHODOLOGY: Quantitative observation design method was followed. The researcher developed and pre-tested a checklist to collect the data. Data was captured on Microsoft Excel and analysed on the latest version of SPSS. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test results in and between the groups. The results were described using frequency counts and percentages. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Generally, students observed during the conduct of this study achieved high scores across all these categories. However, low scores were also observed in certain areas such as mopping and sweeping simultaniously (dry cleaning), wearing of necktie, sanitising displaying appropriate signage while conducting cleaning operations of the cullinary skills class. CONCLUSIONS: The study has concluded that the foodservice management students at the UOT have in general maintained food safety standards. Further, the COVID 19 pandemic provided a good context for the study and highlighted the importance of general hygiene and food hygiene in particular. RECOMMENDATIONS: A high priority should be given to individual, institutional and environmental factors hindering food safety at the UOT. UOT must build a sustainable Food safety culture (FSC) to support its various food safety initiatives, and further research should be done regarding students’ attitudes towards food safety cultural belief systems.