Evaluation of Food Safety Performance and Food Storage Condition in Restaurants against Climate Change

This study was conducted to investigate the current status of hygiene performance and food preparation/storage condition in restaurants during the summer season in order to evaluate the sanitary management systems in restaurants against climate change. Total 30 restaurants located in Gyeonggi participated in a survey in which they were asked current hygiene performance, food preparation/storage condition, and purchasing practices for 5 food ingredients. As results, regarding the performance degree of respondents on food hygiene management, the average scores of 9 questions were well over 4 points. However, only 6.83% of the respondents claimed that they use sanitizers (chlorine) to disinfect food ingredients. About food storage condition, a high proportion of respondents said that they store food materials in plastic bags or airtight containers following pretreatment and use refrigerator for the storage of pretreated food materials. However, 5.55% and 14.85% of respondents answered that they store pretreated food materials in the kitchen or inside of dining room, respectively. Respondents (21.50%) answered that they store pretreated food materials for more than 6 hours before cooking. Therefore, food materials need to be disinfected properly with sanitizer to remove microbial contamination and stored at refrigerator using closed bags or containers before cooking in order to prevent foodborne disease in restaurants especially during summer season.