KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF FOOD HYGIENE AMONG FOOD VENDORS IN EVANGEL UNIVERSITY AKAEZE, EBONYI STATE.
Abstract
Food hygiene practices is a subject of wide scope and it is a broad term used to describe the
preservation and preparation of foods in a manner that ensures the food is safe for human
consumption. Food hygiene deals with the prevention of contamination of food stuffs at all
stages of production, collection, transportation, storage, preparation, sale and consumption. This
study was carried out to assess the knowledge and practice of food hygiene among food vendors
in Evangel University Akaeze, Ebonyi State. The objectives were: to assess the knowledge of
food hygiene among food vendors, to assessl the practice towards food hygiene among food
vendors even while running their businesses in Evangel University Akaeze, and to identify the
sources of water supply to food vendors. The research study used a Cross-sectional Nonexperimental descriptive survey using quantitative method of data collection. The population of
study was thirty (30) food vendors in Evangel University Akaeze, Ebonyi State. The instrument
used for the collection of data for the study was structured questionnaire and the data collected
were analyzed using frequency counts and percentage. Findings of the study reveals that about
82% of food vendors in Evangel University Akaeze has good knowledge of food hygiene while
18% does not. 54% of food vendors has good practice towards food hygiene even while running
their businesses while 46% does not and 93.3% of food vendors uses tap water to prepare food
and wash plates while 6.7% does not. The study showed that most food vendors had good
knowledge of food hygiene, their practice of food hygiene was quite good and their sources of
cooking water was more of well water than other sources. It is therefore recommended that
health education should be done to the food vendors, training of food vendors about good
practices of food hygiene, inspection of food should be done by the management of Evangel
University Akaeze.
Full-Text Access Notice
In accordance with the NERD Policy on promoting peer-reviewed publication, public access to the full text of a project, thesis or dissertation is restricted for three years, allowing the author and supervisors sufficient time to pursue peer-reviewed publication.
During this period, researchers with legitimate academic or research purposes may request authorisation directly from the author to enable NERD to release the indexed full texts of the work using the form below.