Food Safety and Hygiene: Knowledge, Attitude and Practices among Food Handlers

The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) aims at supplying nutritious supplementary meals to schoolchildren in order to improve education outcome by elevating learning ability, school attendance, and punctuality. However, in South Africa there is an increasing number of food poisoning reports, especially in schools under the NSNP. This study seeks to assess knowledge levels of food safety and hygiene practices among NSNP food handlers in Gauteng. A qualitative research approach employing a semi-structured individual interview process was used for data collection. The results showed that lack of education and knowledge was one of the reasons behind food handlers’ non-adherence to food safety and hygiene practices. The findings also revealed that training should be a requirement for food handlers under the NSNP, in order to prevent foodborne diseases and reduce pathogen spread (cross contamination) during food preparation. The findings of this study recommend that the NSNP strengthens training programmes, evaluation and monitoring measures as these are crucial for food safety.