Sanitary-hygienic control of two collective catering units in north of Portugal
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The catering units provide food and beverages to kindergartens, schools, hospitals, etc., being extremely important to guarantee the quality and safety of the meals prepared on these units. The compliance of Prerequisite Programs regarding good hygiene practices, plans for cleaning and disinfection, equipment, infrastructures, among other issues, is obligatory. Some works have been done in order to identify weaknesses in food safety management systems by the evaluation of the knowledge and attitudes of food handlers (Garayoa et al., 2011; Pereira et al., 2015), and by microbiological quality of work surfaces, operators’ hands and meals (Petruzzelli et al., 2018).
The catering units provide food and beverages to kindergartens, schools, hospitals, etc., being extremely important to guarantee the quality and safety of the meals prepared on these units. The compliance of Prerequisite Programs regarding good hygiene practices, plans for cleaning and disinfection, equipment, infrastructures, among other issues, is obligatory. Some works have been done in order to identify weaknesses in food safety management systems by the evaluation of the knowledge and attitudes of food handlers (Garayoa et al., 2011; Pereira et al., 2015), and by microbiological quality of work surfaces, operators’ hands and meals (Petruzzelli et al., 2018).
In the present work, a total of 17 inspections were performed on two collective catering units in the North of Portugal (Units A and B) during the period 2015 – 2018. During these visits, some nonconformities were observed. These catering units have the HACCP system implemented, approximately ten (Unit A) and three years ago (Unit B). In both units, the highest number of nonconformities were detected concerning cleaning and disinfection (33.7% - Unit A and 33.6% - Unit B), and good manufacturing practices (21.0% - Unit A and 22.7% - Unit B). Simultaneously, a total of 34 food and 135 surface samples, as well as swabs of food handler hands (68), were taken and examined for microbiological quality. In the units A and B, 12.5 and 23.8% of the total work surfaces, equipment and kitchenware analyzed, showed to be contaminated, respectively (Table 1). Nonconformities were also detected in the hands of the food handlers (19.4 and 18.8%) and among the food samples (salads, desserts and fully cooked food), only the salads showed unsatisfactory results. These data indicate that the cleaning and disinfection activities of surfaces, equipment, kitchenware and hands of food handlers must be improved.
