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questionnaire was distributed, in two installments, by using
Survey Monkey® to members of organizations in retail food
operations, including the restaurant, grocery, and C-store
industries. Invitations to participate in the survey were sent
via a large listserv.
Sample selection
The online survey targeted individuals in senior positions
(i.e., directors, vice presidents, and senior vice presidents)
and owners and operators who were responsible for food
safety at retail food organizations. The anonymity of the
participants and their respective brands was ensured. The
targeted sample consisted of 538 participants, with 209 from
restaurants, 168 from groceries, and 161 from C-stores.
Survey development
The project was initiated in December 2020, and food
safety professionals from various trade associations, including
the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail
Federation Food Safety Task Force, the National Association
of Convenience Stores, and the Food Marketing Institute,
were involved in the survey development. Several versions
of the survey were reviewed and vetted by industry experts,
the Association of Food and Drug Officials, and the FDA to
ensure the representation of all stakeholders and eliminate
unintentional bias. The final version of the survey was
approved in July 2021, and it was divided into four parts: (1)
food safety culture, (2) employee health policy, (3) active
managerial control, and (4) FSMSs. In total, 103 questions
were included in the final survey. To minimize survey fatigue,
the questionnaire was administered in two installments.
Installment I consisted of parts 1 and 2 (61 questions) and
installment II consisted of parts 3 and 4 (42 questions). The
results from installment I part 2, pertaining to employee health
policy (29 questions), are reported in this article; the results
from other parts of the survey are published elsewhere (21).
Expert panel review and pilot test
Before conducting the pilot testing, an expert panel
consisting of 10 professionals with expertise in food safety
programs and enterprise leadership reviewed the questionnaire
to ensure content and face validity. The panel provided
feedback and suggestions that were incorporated into the
final questionnaire.
To minimize respondent fatigue, some questions were
revised by providing potential response options for selection,
supplemented by an " other " category to capture responses
not listed. To avoid any potential for social desirability and
conformity biases, some questions were altered to ensure a
consistent neutral tone.
Survey distribution
The electronic questionnaire was developed and
distributed via Survey Monkey. The questionnaire was
262 Food Protection Trends July/August
designed to take each participant approximately 30 min to
complete. It was important to address respondent fatigue,
particularly in the case of lengthy questionnaires (1, 6);
hence, the reason for distributing the questionnaire in two
installments with a break between. Previous research has
shown that offering incentives can motivate participants (8);
therefore, to increase response rate, an incentive was offered
(e.g., gift card).
Data analysis
Most of the questions on the survey were close-ended
questions, but some required narrative responses to
understand the participants' intentions and opinions.
The data from close-ended questions were analyzed using
Excel and IBM SPSS 26, and descriptive information
was summarized using frequencies and percentages. The
qualitative data from the open-ended questions were
manually coded by two independent and experienced
researchers. Categories were created, and themes were
derived based on the methodology proposed by Creswell and
Poth (7) and Merriam and Tisdell (20). Intercoder reliability
was assessed to establish the survey's credibility according to
the guidelines set forth by Creswell and Poth (7).
RESULTS
Demographics
There were 114 returned surveys and of those, 76 (14%
response rate) were complete and represented 33 restaurant
participants, 19 grocery participants, 20 C-store participants,
and 4 others. In total, the sample represented 336,268 retail
outlets. The majority of participants represented chain or
franchised operations with >100 units. Participants and
company demographics are shown in Table 1. A wide range
was reported for the number of full-time employees that
each participant's business had; most of them (34.5%)
reported that they had 10,000-99,999 employees. Regarding
the number of food safety or quality assurance (QA)
professionals, the majority (57.7%) had <10, whereas 32.4%
had 10-99 and 9.9% had ≥100 food safety/QA professionals.
The majority of the participants (74.2%) held a food safety
managerial position of either manager or director. For
tenure as a food safety professional, the largest percentage
of participants had 10-19 years (34.8%), followed by 20-29
years (33.3%). Half of the participants (50.7%) indicated
that they had professional credentials such as certified
professional-food safety or certified food protection manager.
Employee health policy
The results showed that almost all of the participants
(98.4%) reported that they had a written employee health
policy (Table 2), with most policies based on the FDA's
Model Food Code and Annex. The industry segment
breakdown for those that reported having written policies
is as follows: restaurant was 100% (27/27), grocery store
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