Food Protection Trends - September/October 2021 - 508

About 54.5% of respondents had taken food safety
training. However, training had no influence (P > 0.05) on
the food safety knowledge status of the respondents. This
finding contradicts with the report of Bas et al. (9), which
indicated that trained food handlers had a significantly higher
knowledge score compared with untrained food handlers.
Thus, the efficacy of current food safety training is uncertain,
because some document files (the training package) of the
abattoirs indicated that trainings mainly focused on the art of
slaughtering, stunning, splitting, and hide removing. Hence,
there is a need to incorporate appropriate food safety training
in the package as an effective food safety management strategy.
About 45.7% of the respondents had a disagreement
about the statement " diarrhea does not affect my job. " Such
attitudes may lead to risky practices such as touching meat
while presenting active sickness, potentially leading to
contamination with bacterial and viral pathogens frequently
involved in foodborne outbreaks (5). In addition, 48.3% of
the respondents disagreed with the statement " you should
not take money and touch meat with the same hand. "
This attitude is concerning, because different studies have
indicated that physical money can act as a vehicle of crosscontamination
and simultaneous handling of food and
physical money could result in foodborne infections (8, 19).
Approximately 42% of respondents disagreed about the
use of regular training to improve meat safety and hygienic
practice. The participants did not seem to value the role
of training. As highlighted by Seaman (35), training may
be perceived as a waste of time for the food handlers. This
issue highlights the need for creative and interactive training
programs to improve meat safety and hygienic practices of the
workers. As stated by Todd et al. (38), during various daily
activities at work, hands quickly become contaminated from
various sources and can contaminate meat. However, the
findings of this study indicated that approximately (35%) of
respondents had a disagreement with the statement " we should
not rub our hands on our nose, face, hair, etc., while working. "
This study identified poor hygiene practices. About 66.8%
of the participants responded that they clean the working
space before and after work only sometimes. In contrast, a
report by Abdul-Mutalib et al. (1) indicated good practices of
food handlers on hand washing and cleaning of the working
area. Poor hygiene practices require attention, because
Alhaji and Baiwa (4) identified that cleaning of equipment
and surfaces as the most preventive hygienic practice in
meat processing. This study also revealed that 52% of the
participants claimed they sometimes clean their protective
clothes. The same practice was reported in slaughtering
houses of South Africa (30).
The participants' practice of wearing protective clothing
was not satisfactory. The personal protective clothing supply
and their cost might be limiting factors, because the selected
abattoirs are owned by the federal government and are
nonprofitable service provider enterprises; thus, there is a
508 Food Protection Trends September/October
budget limitation to fulfill the personal protective equipment
requirement for all workers. Similarly, a study conducted in
Kenya by Cook et al. (15) reported that the cost of protective
clothing is the limiting factor and less than 50% of workers
wore protective equipment at all times. In this study, most
participants claimed that they never eat, drink, and smoke in
the workplace. Such practices were common in reports of a
similar study in Iran meat processing plants (6).
Analyzing the associations in KAP, a significant positive
correlation was observed (P < 0.0001) that indicates that
the food safety knowledge level of abattoir workers possibly
influences their attitudes and practices in meat safety.
These findings are supported by Al-Kandari et al. (3), who
demonstrated a significantly positive correlation among the
three variables. The respondents with primary school and
informal education were more likely to have poor knowledge
compared with those who had a higher level of education
(P < 0.0001). This is in agreement with the study by Lee et
al. (26) that showed education level had different degrees of
impact on food safety knowledge.
The respondents with primary school education (P =
0.013) and informal education (P < 0.0001) were more likely
to have poor attitudes toward food safety. However, these
findings contradict a report that indicated that respondents
with higher educational levels do not necessarily have good
attitudes (1). Finally, respondents with poor knowledge
(P = 0.001) were more likely to have poor practices. These
findings agreed with evidence from Italy that showed having
good knowledge leads to good practices (5).
The limitations of this study include (1) data were based
on self-response, (2) model and behavioral theory were
not used to explain food safety KAP, and (3) the study only
focused on three selected abattoirs in Ethiopia; thus, results
should not be generalized to the nation and other abattoirs.
The findings of this study demonstrated that respondents
had generally poor KAP toward meat safety. Specially, most
workers were identified as having poor knowledge about
foodborne illness and meat storage temperature. Therefore,
the following are recommended: (1) development of
training modules focusing on food safety KAP for abattoir
workers and (2) creation of a training-of-the-trainer
program, including topics such as personal hygiene, meat
safety, sanitation, and temperature management, for abattoir
workers and managers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge data collectors, study participants,
and abattoir administrators for their unreserved contributions
to the success of this study. This work was funded by the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for
Food Security under Agreement AID-OAA-L-15-00003 as part
of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations
expressed here are those of the authors alone.
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