Food borne illness is a serious and underreported public healthy and financial costs. Internationallly, food borne disease are a major healthy burden leading to high morbidity and mortality. The most common clinical symptoms of food born illnesses are diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, headache and nausea [1]. The global burden of infectious diarrhea involves 3-5 billion cases and nearly 1.8 million deaths annually, mainly in young children, caused by contaminated food and water. Especially developing countries are more vurnerable to food borne infection and intoxification. The population in developing counties is more prone to suffer from food borne illnesses because of multiple reasons, including lack of access to clean water for food preparation; inappropriate transportation and storage of foods; and lack of awareness regarding safe and hygienic food practices [2]. Moreover, majority of the developing countries have limited capacity to implement rules and regulations regarding food safety. Also, there is lack of effective surveillance and monotoring systems for food borne illness, inspection systems for food safety and educational programms regarding awaress of food hygiene [2]. Food can get comtamination from plant surfaces, animals, water, sewage, air, soil or from food handlers during handling and proccessing. Among the diverse sources of food contamination, food handlers serve as important source of food contamination either as carriers of npathogens or through poor hygienic practices [4]. Several food borne disease outbreaks are associate with poor personal hygiene of people handling foodstaffs. Lack of personal hygiene and environmental sanitation are among the key factors in the transmmission of food borne diseases [5,6], With the increase in urbanization, industrialization and tourism, food and drinking establishments are becoming increasingly popular in both industrialized and developing countries. This needs to ensure hygienic food handling and preparation practices in such public food establishments [7]. Despite of the above fact, there were poor hygienic practices, icrement of street food, inactive food legislation, bioterrorizim, consumer demand, increase subseptabele population, changes in food, increase internation trade, inadequate sanitary facility, improper handling and storage of food and food utensils, poor personal hygiene, improper waste storage and disposal, were the major findings. In addition, hand wash facility availability, having training on food safety, knowledge on food safety and availability of potable water were the main factors. In evidence of this, health and hygiene of food worker is major determinant factors for food safety [8-12]. As a result the objective of this study were to investigate view of the manager, the extent of food safety awareness and basic food safety practices by food handlers in Cafes and Restaurnts of Guder, Ambo, and Ginchi towns.

The study was caried out in Guder, Ambo and Ginchi towns of West Shoa zone of Oromia national regional state, Ethiopia. Both primary and secondary data were used to collect data. Primary data were collected from food handlers, cafe managers and restaurant managers using semi-structured questionnaire, observation and interview.Secondary data sources were Hotel and Tourism offices of Guder, Ambo and Ginch towns, different and relevant published reports, bulletins, and websites to generate relevant data on food safety awariness and practices. Stratified sampling technique was used to determine sample size of the study. Accordingly, Gudar, Ambo and Ginchi towns were purposely selected by considering the potential of cafes and restaurants, the time concern, the cost allocated for the research and availability of data. From the 3 towns, 120 of respondents were selected as sample size using systematic random sampling technique from the total population of 235. The sample size was proportionally determined as follows: from Ambo town 57 among 112, from Ginchi town 28 among 55 and from Gudar town 35 among 68. Data collected were coded, entered, edited and analyzed by using software of SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics such as tabulation, frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the survey data collected from respondents. Incomplete questionnaires were not considered for data analysis.

Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Food Handlers

As indicated in Table 1, among the interviewed food handlers 83 (69.2%) were male while the remaining 37 (30.8%) were female.Most studies report a higher proportion of females [13]. More than half (54.2%) of respondents’ was between 16-25 years and there were only 15 respondents whose ages were 36 and above. Respondents with the 1-10 education background were more 60.8 and only four respondents had completed their BSc. Greater number (95) of respondents had no field of study and none of the respondents were trained in the field of food safety and quality management system. Even if the respondents with <1 year of experience were more, the number of years spent in the food business was varied. Respondents were found to have worked in the food business for an average of 2.23 years.

Table 1: Socio-demographic characteristics of respondents.

Access of training on food safety and practices

Food handlers in the food establishments were asked about their training on food safety and practices as depicted in Table 2. Data response indicated that 102 (85%) of the respondents had no any training of food safety practices, and yet food safety training is very important for food handlers. The study carried out in Jimma town by [14,15], have been found similar result. Food handlers should receive training before starting work in any food establishment, with a periodic refreshing training [16]. Among the food handlers interviewed only 16 (13.3%) of the respondents had one times training and 3 (2.5%) of the respondents had two times training on food safety. Generally, about 19 (15.8%) of the food handlers had undergone food safety training. This is similar with findings from Bahirdar (21.8%), and Mekelle (15.7%) by [17, 18]. The study established that lack of food safety practices by food handler would create risk of food borne pathogen and lack of trust by customers. The research also showed lack of training, and that the respondents had not received a sufficient amount of information with regards to food safety [19]. 

Table 2: Access of training on food safety and practices.

Source: Computed from survey data (2017).

Food Safety Awareness of Food Handlers

Assessment of food safety awareness of food handlers in different cafes and restaurants have been carried out as depicted in Table 3. Service year, age and educational level of the respondents can affect food safety awareness of the food handlers. On the other hand, the availability of shower of the respondents substantially influenced their responses to food handling and health problems which is related to owner. Food handlers should always wash their hands when their level of cleanliness may affect food quality; for example: just before food handling, after any interruption, after touching contaminated material, after using the bathroom and whenever else needed. They should not smoke, sneeze, spit, cough, eat, handle money or engage in any act that could contaminate the food during the performance of their activities [20]. Even though respondents were not having perfect knowledge of food born disease, respondents had acceptable awareness of all basic food safety requests. However, problem can be solved through training and education on appropriate food safety prerequisite program and food borne illnesses [21-23].  Dettenkofer and Spencer reported hand hygiene being considered more critical in the pathogens control than cleaning and disinfection of surfaces. Some researchers [24,25], have revealed that most food handlers had poor knowledge of pathogens. The hands of food handlers can be the vector to spread harmful microorganism through cross contamination, and during or after they experience gastrointestinal infection. An employee might contaminate his/her hands when using toilet, or bacteria might be spread from raw foods, from contaminated equipment’s, and environment [26]. Another study result also showed lack of training, and that the respondents had not received a sufficient amount of information [27]. “Result from interview showed that the factors that affect food safety awareness are availability of running water, lack of shower, lack of soap/detergent for hand washing, lack of more than one uniform, educational status of the food handler, lack training about food safety and food laws, lack of space for exchange of cloth, lack of hot water in the kitchen, hygiene of garment, lack of separate waste disposal, lack of detergent for toilet washing, inappropriate layout of food  establishment, lack of follow up by responsible body and lack of   space for waste disposal”.

Table 3: Food safety awareness of food handlers.

Source: Computed from survey data (2017).

Food Safety Practices of Food Handlers

Food handlers in the food establishments were asked about their opinion on food safety practices related issues as displayed in Table 4. Service year, age and educational level of the respondents did not affect some of the food safety practices of the food handlers. As a result, the use of gloves 8 (10.8%), wash hand before wearing the gloves 7 (9.5%), wear complete shoes during work 19 (25.7%), use mask during distributing the food 18 (24.3%) and wash hand by detergent before handling the food if you anoint your body by body oil/lotion 25 (33.8%) of the  respondents considerably influenced their responses to food handling and health problems. Similar result has been found by  [26,27] found contrary results in their study, in which 82.9% of the staff wears caps, masks and gloves during food production. Food handlers are an important vehicle for microorganisms, and improper handling practices may cause food contamination and consequently food borne diseases, which pose a potential risk to public health Gudeta. Powell had proposed the concept of a food safety culture to correct and maintain proper practices, in which establishing a strong culture of food safety would be of help, including communication among employees, managers, and employers; encourage employers; consensus on food safet

Depending on the findings the following conclusion is drawn. The study has focused on assessment of food safety awareness and practices of the specified study areas. It was observed that respondents were not fully knowledgeable about food safety awareness and food safety practices which are not the objective of the international codes of practices. It was also found that over half of the respondents of food handlers in the Cafes and Restaurants were males, mostly being young adults with formal education and professionally not qualified. The food safety awareness and the lack of professional qualification indicate that foods from these cafes and restaurants would not be safe and suitable for consumption as well as decrease the reputation and consumer confidence of the restaurants.

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