Prerequisites as a Deterrent of Adopting Food Safety Management Systems by Public Universities Catering Facilities in the Mount Kenya and Aberdare Regional Bloc

Abstract

The public needs an assurance that the food they are consuming is safe and free from contaminants which can be achieved by taking adequate food safety measures, especially by adopting of food safety management systems. However, there have been various constraints that have deterred public universities catering facilities from adopting food safety management systems. This cross-sectional survey was carried out to assess the effects of prerequisites on the adoption of food safety management systems by public universities catering facilities in the Mount Kenya and Aberdare regional bloc. The 11 public university catering facilities in the bloc were purposively sampled through which 187 catering staff on permanent and pensionable terms of service were enumerated through the census. A structured questionnaire with a Cronbach’s coefficient of 0.79 was administered paving the way for the collection of data which realized a response rate of 80.7%. Descriptive and inferential analysis was executed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 26. Findings revealed that there was a moderate positive correlation between prerequisites (r = 0.475, p-value = 0.000 < 0.05) and adoption and that 22.6% of the variations in adoption were caused by prerequisites and had a significant effect on adoption of FSMSs (β1 = 0.582, t = 6.590 and a p-value 0.000 ≤ 0.05) by the public universities catering facilities in the Mount Kenya and Aberdare regional bloc. It is recommended that a longitudinal research design be used to conduct research on the adoption of prerequisites to gain further insights into whether the practices are carried out correctly or not.