Food safety knowledge levels of gastronomy/culinary arts students and food workers in Southern Turkey

This research was aimed to analyze the food safety knowledge levels between gastronomy and culinary arts students and food work-ers in the Çukurova Region of Turkey. A total of 155 participants (80 students, 75 food workers) have partici-pated in this cross-sectional study. The overall knowledge scores of food workers and the students were 89.33% and 78.89% respectively, and food workers have more scores in all sections (p<0.001). Hy-giene certification, occupa-tion, and working estab-lishments had a significant association with total food safety scores; however, gender, marital status, age, education level, frequency of hygiene education, work-ing experience, monthly in-come had no significant as-sociation with their scores (p>0.05). A positive correla-tion was found between gender, education status, hygiene certification, and frequency of receiving hy-giene education; but no cor-relation was found between working in any food busi-ness, graduated high schools, and age of the stu-dents (p>0.05). More knowledge gaps of both groups have been found about time-temperature con-trol, holding/storage tem-perature, and cross-contamination. Finally, it is important to measure the reflection of the hygiene training on practices and to make it regular in ensuring food safety.