IMPLEMENTATION OF FOOD SAFETY STANDARD AMONG CANTEEN CONCESSIONAIRE AT BESTLINK COLLEGE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Abstract

The school canteen promotes healthy eating, food safety, and hygienic practices, which are especially important in schools because children are more susceptible to foodborne illnesses. Food safety is critical, especially in school canteens, in order to protect the health of students. The scientific field of food safety explains how to handle, prepare, and store food in a way that prevents foodborne illness. In order to safeguard consumers, food safety and food defense often overlap. The researchers used a descriptive approach. Based on S. L. Siedlecki (2020), one variable or many variables can be used in descriptive research. One special feature of descriptive designs is their capacity to focus on a single variable of interest. There are only variables of interest rather than independent or dependent variables because this approach does not involve hypothesis testing. Ensuring that the operational definition aligns with the conceptual definition of each variable is crucial when defining them. Table 1 shows that 85 out of 150 respondents (56.67 percent) were 19 to 20 years old, 62 respondents were aged 21 to 26 years (41.33 percent), and 3 respondents were aged 27 and above (2 percent). According to Nurtama B. (2020), the purpose of this study was to determine Jordanian consumers' level of awareness regarding food safety at each stage of the food handling process, including buying, storing, and cooking. Between May and October of 2020, a sizable sample of Jordanian consumers (n = 2500) was contacted at random as part of this multistage national representative study. A total of 1612 customers (64.5 percent response rate) offered their voluntary participation in the study by responding to a self-administered survey. The demographic profile of the respondents shows a varied distribution across age, biological sex, and year level. In terms of age, the data indicate that 85 out of 150 respondents (56.67 percent) were 19 to 20 years old, 62 respondents (41.33 percent) were 21 to 26 years old, and 3 respondents (2 percent) were 27 and above. For biological sex, the results show that 47 respondents (31.33 percent) were male and 103 respondents (68.69%) were female. Regarding year level, 51 respondents (34%) were first-year students, 52 respondents (34.67 percent) were second-year, 17 respondents (11.33 percent) were third-year, and 30 respondents (20 percent) were fourth-year. These findings provide an overview of the population surveyed and serve as a basis for understanding how different groups perceive and experience the implementation of food safety standards within the school canteen.