Assessing Food Safety Culture: A Comparative Study Between Independent and Chain Ethnic Restaurants

Document Type

Conference Paper

Publication Date

4-23-2020

Department

Health and Sport Science

Abstract

View presentation from 13:30 to 29:00 on linked video.

Ethnic food has become mainstream in the diet of most Americans. Previous research provided a consistent evidence that independent ethnic restaurants had more critical food safety violations than chain ethnic restaurants. Food safety culture represents the shared and prevailing values, beliefs, and attitudes that govern food safety behaviors within an organization. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the food safety culture in ethnic restaurants. Specific objectives were to 1. Assess the current food safety culture within ethnic restaurants, 2. Compare employees in independent versus chain ethnic restaurants based on their demographics and their perception of food safety culture, and 3. Identify if there are differences between employees’ perception of food safety culture in relation to the operational characteristics in independent versus chain ethnic restaurants.

A questionnaire was designed based on previous literature and was used to collect data. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to target 300 food handlers for data collection in independent and chain Chinese and Mexican restaurants in Dayton and within 60 miles’ radius. The questionnaire was translated by professional translators to Chinese and Spanish and then back-translated to English to ensure consistency and the correct wording was used. The data was analyzed using SPSS (version 25). A total of 300 questionnaires were distributed on-site and 210 participants from 36 independent Chinese and Mexican restaurants and 36 chain Chinese and Mexican restaurants participated with a range of one to five participants from each restaurant. Due to incomplete responses, only 208 questionnaires were usable.

The overall response rate was 69.3%. The results of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated that there were no significant differences between food handlers in independent and chain Chinese and Mexican restaurants on their perception of food safety culture (V= 0.04, F (5, 201) = 1.57, p= 0.16. However, separate univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the outcome variable revealed significant differences between food handlers in both operations regarding leadership F (1, 205) = 0.18, p= 0.01, commitment f (1, 205) = 0.04, p= 0.01, communication F (1, 205) = 0.51, p= 0.01, environment, training, and resources F (1, 205) = 0.96, p= 0.01, and management style F (1, 205) = 2.5, p= 0.01.

Disciplines

Education

Comments

Presentation: 8:40 a.m. Friday, April 24, 2020

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