Food safety knowledge of food handlers working in hotels in Turkey

The objective of this study was to determine food safety knowledge level of kitchen staff in hotels operating in different cities of Turkey. The sub-objectives were to determine knowledge levels on different areas such as health problems which may cause food-related diseases in kitchen staff, symptoms of food-sourced diseases, staff hygiene, cross contamination, food hygiene, HACCP and food allergy and to compare the descriptive characteristics of participants. 378 kitchen staff working in 4 and 5 star hotels in the cities of Ankara, Diyarbakır, Hatay, İstanbul, Muğla and Nevşehir constituted the sampling of the research. In the analyses made with questionnaire method, the differences among the groups were presented by applying T-Test and One Way ANOVA (Tukey Test). Food safety knowledge level of kitchen staff participating in the study was at average level (53.70) (x̄= 34.91). A statistical difference was detected among the groups when the food safety knowledge levels of the kitchen staff were evaluated based on the cities where they work, genders, age ranges, establishment types, sectoral experiences, food safety training conditions, up-to-date information following conditions, finding themselves/establishments adequate (p<0.05). In the study, knowledge levels were examined on seven food safety areas. It was detected that kitchen staff had an average knowledge level on areas such as health problems which may cause food-sourced disease, food-sourced disease symptoms (52), staff hygiene (53.6), cross contamination (61.13), food hygiene (53.91), HACCP (51) and food allergy (50.89). Although most of the kitchen staff (82.28%) reported that they had food safety training, their average knowledge level made us consider that the trainings should be examined. Accordingly, food safety trainings provided in Turkey were pointed out and some suggestions were made.