Application of the Ecological Framework to investigate food safety behaviour in the food service sector

Objectives: Safeguarding consumers from foodborne illness through adherence to food safety recommendations is paramount in the food-service environments. To understand food safety compliance and to improve food safety practices, it is vital to consider the complexity of food-service environments in terms of social, organisational and cultural structures, and to identify the factors which may influence food-handler behaviour.
Design: The Ecological Framework was used to structure an online quantitative questionnaire according to predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors associated with food safety behaviour.
Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to food-service managers/food-handlers (n=68) ; a descriptive analysis facilitated comparison of management and employee responses; and key factors influencing food safety behaviour were identified.
Results: Although some positive attitudes to food safety were identified among all participants (100%) (predisposing factor), barriers to food safety implementation (enabling factor), such as insufficient staffing (64%), task complexity (21%) and lack of time (7%) were reported by food-handlers. Two-way communication and modelling of food safety implementation by the managers (reinforcing factors) were reported to positively influence food-handler compliance. Pride in work (100%) and sense of achievement (71%) were determined as positive drivers to appropriate behaviours.
Significance: This study demonstrated that the Ecological Framework is a valuable tool to facilitate a novel understanding of food safety behaviour in the food-service sector. Identification of the predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors influencing food safety behaviours may provide a targeted approach to designing future interventions for improvement of food safety compliance in the food-service sector.