Introduction: In order to prevent risks and provide safe food for consumers, ensuring food safety is crucial for safe and wholesome food for consumers. Agro - food facilities must have a food safety management system that operates on the principles of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system and good hygiene practice. A higher level of food safety signifies food safety culture that is introduced in a company and adopted by its employees. Purpose: The study was designed to ascertain the factors that affect the shaping of food safety culture among workers in catering facilities throughout Slovenia as well as to determine how the shaping of food safety culture among food handlers in catering facilities in Slovenia is influenced by demographic characteristics of the respondents. Methods: We reviewed the existing literature of food safety culture. We conducted a cross - sectional study that included catering facilities in Slovenia. Data were collected using validated questionnaires (Ungku Zainal Abidin, 2013). Statistical analysis of the data gathered through the questionnaires was performed using SPSS software. The data analysis contains the basics of descriptive statistics, including the standard deviation, frequency, arithmetic mean, and a presentation of the analysed data in shares. Results: The elements of food safety culture with the highest assessed level of agreement were self - satisfaction and the environment, whereas the work and risk exhibited the lowest level of agreement. Analysis of the results showed that there were statistically significant differences between participation in training courses »Hygiene minimum« and elements of food safety culture, management, communication and work. An important statistically significant difference was observed in correlation between the number of years spent on the current workplace and the environment as the element of food safety culture. Those who attended the course entitled "Hygiene minimum" show a higher level of agreement for the management element (AS 5.79; SD: 0.81) compared with those who did not attend the training (AS 5.41; SD: 0.72). Discussion and conclusion: Having carried out the study we managed to highlight the weaknesses of food safety culture in catering establishments and propose improvements in order to enhance food safety culture. We established how demographic characteristics of the respondents affect the shaping of food safety culture among food handlers in catering facilities in Slovenia. The questionnaire that was used proved to be to be an effective tool in the assessment of food safety culture among workers in the catering establishments in Slovenia. We suggest to larger and medium-sized agro - food establishments that they use it for assessing their own food safety culture.
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