Food Protection Trends - January/February 2023 - 71

and procedures to control food safety. Because casual dining
and fine dining restaurants accounted for 46.7 and 5.6% of
the investigated restaurants, this finding may need further
investigation. Previous research explained that leadership is
often linked to the success or failure of a food safety culture,
because managers are vested with spreading the beliefs and
values that shape the organizational culture (62).
Establishing a food safety culture starts with owners and
senior management setting strategies and creating policies
and documentation (13). Deficiencies in food safety
leadership, represented by a lack of policies, supervision, and
managers serving as role models, resulted in poor food safety
practices by employees (14).
Leadership was also rated higher by food handlers in
Chinese restaurants compared with those in Mexican
restaurants. " Face " is one of the Chinese cultural values
and represents the reputation someone establishes in the
community (25). This could explain the role of managers
and owners of Chinese restaurants in upholding a food safety
culture as perceived by their employees. Previous studies
explained that Hispanic and Chinese food handlers tend to
value collectivism rather than individualism and thus are
likely to follow proper food safety practices if food safety
training highlights the benefits to their restaurants (3, 24).
Food handlers in Chinese restaurants gave more favorable
perceptions regarding environmental support (physical environment,
training, time, and resources) than those in Mexican
restaurants. This result is consistent with Wiśniewska et al. (57),
who found a significant difference among food handlers regarding
their assessment of their work environment, including the
availability of equipment and tools to comply with food safety
principles and the availability of training tools for managers.
The work environment is usually essential to maintaining a food
safety culture. Several studies' findings highlighted the work
environment's role in supporting proper food safety practices (7,
40, 48, 62). Inadequate resources and supplies, lack of training,
and lack of time were significant barriers to effectively performing
and documenting food safety practices (12, 14, 36, 61).
Food safety culture was described as a jigsaw of various subcomponents
that work in tandem (14). In a previous study, leadership,
communication, and environmental support appeared
to have shortcomings in the investigated foodservice operations
despite the food safety training provided and the hygiene
auditing that existed (14). The top management has a significant
role in assigning resources, establishing and implementing
work methods, and influencing the overall culture of the work
environment (14). Therefore, managers need to strengthen their
food safety leadership and show commitment to creating a feeling
of involvement, attachment, and responsibility, which results
in more positive food safety practices (4, 7).
CONCLUSIONS
An interesting finding from this study is the importance
of food safety education but not necessarily certification.
Although the knowledge to pass a certification exam is
essential, perhaps equally and maybe more important for
ethnic populations unfamiliar with the food customs in the
United States is completing a training class. Such a class can
orient them to U.S. customs and expectations and expose
them to the hazards of preparing and serving food, which
they may have never considered.
Food safety training may also play an essential role in
building the food safety culture in an organization, especially
with ethnic populations. Requiring employees to attend
training shows the employees the importance owners and
managers place on food safety education. This commitment
is demonstrated when they need and pay for employees
to attend training and when they encourage employees to
pass the certification exam. Although passing the exam is
essential to show knowledge acquisition, the support of
food safety education may be enough to instill in employees
the importance of food safety to the management team
in the organization. Further research could explore this
phenomenon.
Although the results of this study showed that commitment
as an element of food safety culture was perceived differently
by food handlers of different ethnicities, questions
remain unanswered to fully understand the role ethnicity
plays in safe food practices and the development of a food
safety culture. Operators of Mexican and Chinese restaurants
would benefit from establishing and demonstrating a
commitment to a positive food safety culture that considers
the significance of the ethnic background and culture of
their employees.
This study showed that Chinese and Mexican restaurants
perceived leadership and environmental support regarding
food safety significantly differently. This suggests that the
owners'/managers' leadership plays a vital role in supporting
a positive food safety culture and providing adequate
resources, equipment, and motivation to reinforce proper
food safety practices.
The anonymity of respondents and their answers was
ensured in the design of the survey instrument and data
collection to reduce the effect of evaluation apprehension
and social desirability bias. However, the computed mean
values of most items of the elements of food safety culture
were higher than 4 on the 5-point scale. Herman's singlefactor
test was used to diagnose whether a single factor can
explain most of the variance. The unrotated factor solution of
all scale items indicated that a single factor did not account
for the majority of variance (<50% of the variance) (37).
Future studies are encouraged to investigate any potential
link between the recent inspection results of Mexican and
Chinese restaurants and the prevalent food safety culture.
In this study, the sample consisted of food handlers in
independent and chain Mexican and Chinese restaurants in
two metropolitan cities in Ohio and Texas. Therefore, the
results may not be generalized to other ethnic restaurants.
January/February Food Protection Trends
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Food Protection Trends - January/February 2023

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