Food Safety Knowledge and Practices among Household Food Handlers in Mangweni Village of Mpumalanga Province in South Africa

Abstract

The study aimed to assess food safety knowledge and practices among household food handlers in Mangweni village, South Africa. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 households selected using systematic random sampling. Women over 18 years of age who were responsible for preparing food in the selected households were eligible for inclusion in the study. A simple random sample was used to select 15 from the 120 food handlers to observe their food handling practices. SPSS version 27 was used to run the descriptive statistics. Food handlers were between 19 and 43 years of age, with a mean age of 29.9 ± 1.39. Most food handlers had high school (58.3%) or university or college (33.3%) educations. Levels of food safety knowledge were found to be poor (44.5%), good (53.9%), and excellent (1.6%). Our findings show the need for an intervention to improve food safety knowledge and practices among food handlers.