Literary Review: Food Safety Practices and Managerial Perceptions

This report presents a literary review on food safety management within the food service industry, focusing primarily on the perceptions and practices of managers in restaurant settings. The review synthesizes findings from various research papers, including a qualitative study examining food safety practices and managers' perceptions, which highlights the importance of food safety training, managerial duties, and the challenges faced by managers, such as high staff turnover. The research underscores the significance of upper-level management support, staff training programs, and the implementation of new technologies to enhance food safety protocols. The review also discusses the impact of foodborne illnesses, emphasizing the need for effective food safety measures to protect public health and minimize the risks associated with contaminated food. The analyzed studies suggest that managers need to consider safety protocols for their employees in order to maintain a safe food standard in restaurants. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of continuous improvement in food safety practices and the role of managers in ensuring the health and safety of consumers.

Running head: FOOD SERVICE MANAGEMENT
FOOD SERVICE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Literary review
Arendt, S. W., Paez, P., & Strohbehn, C. (2013). Food safety practices and managers'
perceptions: a qualitative study in hospitality. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 25(1), 124-139.
Good food and nutrition is a part of the healthy lifestyle. combined with the physical
activities , proper diets and nutrition can actually help one to maintain a healthy body mass
index, reduce the risk of chronic diseases can promote an overall healthy status. Food safety
managers are the one who are responsible for making sure that the employees follow safety
protocols such that the customers do not fall ill by consuming unsafe foods (Arendt et al., 2013).
It is the food safety managers that will be able to develop and oversee all the norms and
the regulations of the food safety policies and programs including the packaging operations.
They are the one that provide training regarding the preservation of the food safety quality
requirements. A duty of a manager lies in the development and the maintenance of the policies,
manuals related to food safety. The role of a manager lies in conducting the safety audits and
monitoring the activities for ensuring that the products coming in and out of the facility meets the
food safety standards (Osaili et al., 2013). According to the National restaurants association,
about 12.7 million of people are currently employed in the industry and very few have actually
received food safety training. These article aims to focus on the perception of the managers
regarding food and safety (Kafetzopoulos et al., 2013).
These article uses two data analysis methods in order to answer the question about what
would make the managers efficient to ensure that proper food and safety measures are being
followed in a restaurant setting. In order to do that, interviews were conducted among the focus
groups involving some of the food service managers, both the future and the current ones. This
allowed providing depth in the data reflecting on the current perception of both the recent and the
newly graduated managers (Arendt et al., 2013). The focus group question was like, how the
managers cater to the roles of food safety? How the managers can be more effective in their

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roles. Following the discussion of the managers, the researchers had grouped some hand coded
themes and four categories were identified such as the training for the food safety, the manager's
duty and the barriers faced by the managers. A soft ware application Atlas.tiTM has been used to
analyze the transcripts of the focus groups and make a visual representation of the collected data
(Arendt et al., 2013). The findings of focus groups provided an explanation of the manager's role.
It was found that the managers are more concerned with the work environment of the food
service setting such as high turnover of the staffs. The managers have also admitted the fact that
there lies the role of the upper level managers to maintain a safety food climate. The transcript of
the discussion also indicated towards the fact that there should be new technologies for providing
training to the workers. Rewards and recognition could motivate the workers to abide by the
safety protocols.
The identified codes for improving food, health and safety are the support of the upper
level management, turnover of the employees, staff training, rewards and the benefits on
completion of the training, training tools, varied communication (Arendt et al., 2013).
The limitation of the study is that the focus group consists of the current and the future managers
and not the staffs. Hence the overall perception of the staffs regarding food safety regulations are
not understood, neither the extent of their knowledge regarding the codes could be understood.
Food safety had been a global problem and government all over the world is trying their
best to eradicate the food related diseases (Osaili et al., 2013). The findings from the papers help
to understand that manager needs to consider for making their employees to follow the safety
protocol.
The significance of the study is that the paper helps to understand why the safety
protocols, training, reward of completion of training, new technologies actually helps in maintain
the food standard in a restaurant. The centre of disease control have published a data that showed
that every year, about 9.4 millions of illnesses, 71,878 hospitalizations and deaths of about 1686
occurred in US due to the consumption of contaminated food (Kafetzopoulos et al., 2013). The
data varies from countries to countries. The recommendations after the study would definitely
help the managers to augment their efficacy in the field of food and safety in restaurants.

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References
Arendt, S. W., Paez, P., & Strohbehn, C. (2013). Food safety practices and managers'
perceptions: a qualitative study in hospitality. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 25(1), 124-139.
Kafetzopoulos, D. P., Psomas, E. L., & Kafetzopoulos, P. D. (2013). Measuring the effectiveness
of the HACCP food safety management system. Food Control, 33(2), 505-513.
Osaili, T. M., Jamous, D. O. A., Obeidat, B. A., Bawadi, H. A., Tayyem, R. F., & Subih, H. S.
(2013). Food safety knowledge among food workers in restaurants in Jordan. Food
Control, 31(1), 145-150.