Food Protection Trends - January/February 2021 - 10

upcoming survey, determine their willingness to participate,
and confirm their mailing address and the e-mail address of
the person who could help facilitate and promote the survey.
Surveys were initially administered using an online platform
(SurveyMonkey) to reach SEFBs operating at shared-use
processing facilities in the targeted states. The online survey
was launched 1 October 2018. Contacts in the database (n
= 72) were sent an e-mail asking them to forward our survey
to their clients. The e-mail contained a letter describing
the project and survey and the link to the online survey. In
addition, the project advisory board contacts (n = 9) and
state contacts (n = 11) affiliated with the Northeast Center
to Advance Food Safety were sent an e-mail containing the
survey and asked to help distribute it to shared-use facilities
on their contact list. The original close date of the survey was
November 30, 2018.
The online survey was administered based on one of the
strategies outlined by the Dillman total design method (14).
This protocol included e-mailing a survey announcement
about 2 weeks before survey administration. The survey
was e-mailed 2 weeks later. The survey e-mail contained a
letter explaining the project and survey. A second reminder
e-mail was sent about 2 weeks later. The number of survey
responses was lower than desired; therefore, to increase the
number of survey responses, the project directors decided to
distribute the same survey as a paper version to shared-use
kitchen and incubator facilities for dissemination to their
members. In January 2019, the paper version of the survey
was distributed to the facilities listed in the database. For
the paper version of the survey, a box containing 10 to 15
survey packages was mailed to each facility in the database.
A total of 72 packages were mailed, with 4 packages returned
because of insufficient addresses. Each survey package
contained a letter describing the project and survey, along
with a self-addressed return envelope. The new close date for
the survey for both the online and the paper formats was the
end of February 2019. To maximize survey responses for both
the online and the paper formats, an incentive ($50 gift card)
was offered to 20 respondents via a lottery-type drawing for
surveys returned by the February 2019 deadline. Respondents
wishing to enter the lottery provided their name and contact
information on a form accompanying the paper survey, which
was immediately removed from the survey packet upon
receipt to protect anonymity. Respondents completing the
online survey were redirected from the survey, to protect their
anonymity, to a page where they could enter their contact
information. Respondents wishing to enter the lottery drawing
were consecutively numbered in the order received (i.e., 1, 2,
3, etc.). Using Microsoft Excel (2010), random numbers were
generated for 20 respondents to receive the incentive gift card.
Questionnaire
An initial question was asked to screen for those who were
food processors and would be required to follow the PCHF

Food Protection Trends January/February

Rule; online respondents were directed out of the survey,
and paper respondents were instructed that they did not
fit the study group and not to continue (e.g., caterer or
other retail food operator, seafood, meat or poultry, and
juice). The survey included five sections: demographic and
background information, food safety practices, knowledge
about food safety-related concepts and practices, attitudes
toward food safety practices related to food processing, and
confidence in conducting food safety practices and training
and resource needs.
The survey was designed and implemented following
previously published protocols (1, 11). The background
section was designed to gather information about the food
business, such as the number of years operating, number of
employees, type of food products manufactured, and where
products are sold. The food safety practices section was
designed to determine whether respondents had written
procedures for key practices, to learn which practices were
being implemented, and to assess their level of confidence
in conducting practices as they related to their product
or products. The 32 knowledge questions were designed
to assess baseline knowledge in three categories: general
food safety, prerequisite programs, and hazard analysis and
preventive controls (HAPCs). The response for knowledge
questions was " agree, " " disagree, " or " don't know. " For
statistical assessment, " don't know " reflected a lack of
knowledge and was considered an incorrect answer (10, 11).
Subject mastery at 80% was used to determine the knowledge
base of diverse audiences (10, 11). Attitudes were evaluated
toward the importance of (i) food safety practices related
to food manufacturing, (ii) producing a safe product, and
(iii) perceptions of regulatory compliance. In addition,
respondents were asked to rate their confidence conducting
specific food safety practices related to processing. These
statements were rated on a 5-point Likert scale, with 1 =
strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The training and
resource needs section was designed to determine the type
and format of food safety or other food-related educational
and training opportunities this target audience would like to
receive, their willingness and ability to invest in food safetyrelated practices, barriers or challenges encountered during
the implementation of food safety practices, and compliance
with state or local and federal regulations.
The protocol and questionnaire were approved by the
University of Rhode Island Institutional Subjects Review
Board. Before implementation, the survey items were
reviewed by eight food safety experts for content validity and
clarity. Experts were solicited from land grant cooperative
extension programs, academic institutions, and the advisory
board. The advisory board consisted of nine individuals
representing food manufacturers, regulatory agencies, and
academic institutions. The questionnaire was revised before
distribution based on their recommendations.

Food Protection Trends - January/February 2021

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