Level of food safety knowledge among hospitality professionals: An empirical investigation from India

Abstract

Hospitality professionals with insufficient food safety knowledge (FSK) poses a major risk to food safety in their respective organisations. This study aims to investigate the level of food safety knowledge of hospitality professionals, as well as the attributes influencing food safety knowledge and their corresponding relationships. A total of 862 hospitality professionals working in hotels, restaurants, cafes, universities and colleges located in two different cities in India participated in a cross-sectional study between July 2022 and August 2022. A self-administered questionnaire consisting of 20 items related to food safety knowledge was used to collect the data. Both descriptive (frequency distribution, central tendency, norms) and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient) were conducted in this study to investigate the level of food safety knowledge and measure the association between food safety and educational qualification, age, experience and adoption of training related to food safety. The findings of this study contribute to the current literature about mitigating food-borne illnesses through creating a level of knowledge with proper education, experience and training among hospitality professionals.