Determination of the food safety awareness level of companies operating in the food sector in Iğdır

The thesis study was conducted by using face to face questionnaire method with the owners or managers of 140 randomly selected enterprises producing or serving food in Igdır province. While 60% of the respondents own the workplace, 40% are responsible administrator for the business. The youngest of the operators is 23 years old and the oldest is 62 years old and the average age is 37.86. 51.4% of the operators have high school education, 26.4% have secondary school education and 13.6% have primary school education. 92.9% of the enterprises are small enterprises. 47.9% of the businesses are restaurants, 19.3% are bakeries, 13.6% are pastry shops, 12.1% are butchers, 5% are delicatessens and 2.1% are agricultural. While 40.7% of the operators report the level of knowledge about food safety, which is defined as the fact that the food products we consume are not harmful to human health, 30% of the operators report it as low, ISO 22000 (HACCP), ISO 9000 Quality Management System, ISO14000 Environmental Management System reported that their knowledge of Good Hygiene Practices (GHP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) was not known at all. When the definition of ISO 22000 certificate has been asked; 87.3% of the operators have misidentified. 82.9% of the operators reported that they need training on food safety systems. The operators were informed about the quality assurance system documents; it is important that a product is produced in accordance with certain standards, that the products with the same type of price difference can be trusted more with the quality certified product and that the products with quality certificate will be of higher quality. Operators can benefit from quality assurance systems; They stated that they found it important in terms of increasing the market share of the company, increasing efficiency and improving the quality of products and services. 96.4% of the enterprises that responded to the survey questions stated that they did not have any documents. The thesis study shows that food companies operating in Igdır province need to raise awareness and guidance on food safety.