Determining the food safety knowledge level of the kitchen staff working for 4 and 5 star hotel kitchens

This study is planned and conducted with the aim of determining the food safety knowledge level of the kitchen staff working for 4 and 5 star hotel kitchens. In the study 377 kitchen staff from 6 four-star and 13 five-star totally 19 hotels in Antalya, Trabzon, Çanakkale, Gaziantep and Çeşme in Izmir province were surveyed. Chi square test was applied to check whether there is a relation between answers given to the questions about food safety and star numbers of the hotels. One way ANOVA was applied to determine the average of the scores of achievement test among mentioned groups. Finally to compare the average of achievement test scores with respect to the star numbers of the hotels, t-test was used.39.3 % of the workers are the age between 26 and 35. 91.2% of them are male and 43.5% of them are high-school drop outs. Most of them are department chef (22.5%) and demi-chef (22.5%). Almost half of the workers (46.7%) work 10 hours a day. 98.7% of them had health control before they were hired, 96.0% of them had health control regularly after being hired. 90.8% of them wash their hands upon each entrance to the kitchen and each time they start a job, 88.3% of them had an inset training. When their achievement test score averages compared with educational status, it is determined that there is a significant difference between values (p<0.05). The achievement test average of five-star hotel staff was determined as 76.84 and 75.81 for four-star hotel staff. Executive chefs have the highest average (81.60). No workers got a score of very-well level.Keywords: hotel kitchens, kitchen staff, HACCP, food safety