The level of food safety knowledge among meat handlers

Purpose - The purpose of this paper was to evaluate food safety knowledge of among meat handlers in Serbian meat establishments along the meat chain, i.e. in slaughterhouses, meat processing plants and retail stores. Design/methodology/approach - A structured, self-administrative questionnaire was designed and used to assess the level of food safety knowledge among handlers in different meat establishments. In total, of 352 meat handlers were involved in this study, with 110 handlers from slaughterhouses (31 per cent), 125 handlers from meat processing plants (36 per cent) and 116 handlers from retail stores (33 per cent). For each participant, the knowledge score was calculated by dividing the sum of correct answers by the total number of correct responses. Additionally, knowledge gaps among meat handlers were identified for each question across the three types of establishments (slaughterhouses, meat processing plants and retail stores). Findings - The average knowledge score for all participants was 64 per cent, whereas handlers from slaughterhouses and meat processing plants obtained significantly better scores (65 per cent and 66 per cent, respectively) than handlers from retail (60 per cent, p<0.05). The knowledge score among all meat handlers was significantly associated with the age, education and previous food safety trainings. Results indicated that 57.9 per cent meat handlers could identify that bacteria will readily multiply at 25 degrees C, but they do not understand the manifestation of bacterial growth and incidence in food, as only 5.5 per cent of all meat handlers knew that food contaminated with food poisoning bacteria cannot be recognized by visual, olfactory or taste checks. Originality/value - This is the first research aimed to investigate the food safety knowledge among meat handlers in Serbia and also the first research performed to determine food safety knowledge among workers operating in different phases of the meat chain, namely meat handlers from slaughterhouses, meat processing plants and retail stores.