Food Protection Trends - May/June 2014 - 139

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE

Catherine Strohbehn,1*
Mack Shelley,1 Susan Arendt,1
Ana-Paula Correia,1 Janell Meyer,1
Ungku Fatimah Ungku Zainal Abidin 2
and Jinhyun Jun1

Food Protection Trends, Vol 34, No. 3, p. 139-150
Copyright©2014, International Association for Food Protection
6200 Aurora Ave., Suite 200W, Des Moines, IA 50322-2864

Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-1121, USA

1

Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang,
Selangor, Malaysia

2

Retail Foodservice Employees' Perceptions
of Barriers and Motivational Factors
That Influence Performance of Safe Food
Behaviors
ABSTRACT

T

his study identified the barriers and motivational
factors that influence nonsupervisory foodservice
employees' decisions to perform safe food
handling behaviors. Responses to a bilingual
questionnaire were received from 1,103 employees
working in four types of retail foodservice.
Respondents rated 8 of 16 listed barriers as important
obstacles in keeping them from handling food safely,
including "the work pace" (mean = 4.28 on a 5-point
scale, where 1 = Not Important and 5 = Very Important)
and "lack of good habits" (mean = 4.19). Using the same
scale, respondents assessed importance of 27 listed
items that encourage them to follow safe practices. Of
the 27 items, 23 were rated at a mean of 4.0 or higher.
The item rated highest was "Keeping customers safe
from food-related diseases," (mean of 4.91), and the item
rated lowest (mean of 3.39) was "An unsupportive work
group." Results show employees know what behaviors are
considered proper to ensure the safety of food; however,
real barriers exist, such as time pressures and habits that

are not compatible with safe food practices, suggesting
that improved organization and routinization of safe food
handling practices in a work culture that values food safety
would reduce the risk of foodborne illness.

INTRODUCTION
he safety of food consumed outside the home is highly
dependent on the food handling and cleaning practices
of those who prepare, cook, and serve food. Food safety
research has emphasized the importance of having an
educated and trained workforce, but training and knowledge
alone do not assure safe food handling by employees (17, 19,
27, 33, 34).

T

Diversity of foodservice workforce
The United States (U.S.) workforce in retail foodservices
is diverse. From restaurants to school lunch programs,
employees in each segment have their own unique
demographic characteristics. Industry data reported
by the National Restaurant Association (NRA) (25)
found that more than half (54%) of the nonsupervisory/

Author for correspondence: Phone: +1 515.294.3527; Fax: +1 515.294.6364; E-mail: cstrohbehn@iastate.edu

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Food Protection Trends

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