Sanitation And Hygiene In The Food And Beverage Industry

Introduction

Without a doubt, food is one of the better things in life. If people didn’t eat, they will go hungry. If they don’t eat for too long, they will die. If they don’t eat, they will miss out on all the great gastronomic experiences that life can bring them. From ages unknown, man has realized that to be healthy, they have to eat the right foods. According to The New book of Knowledge (S) by Grolier International (1981) on page 330, healthy individuals live longer, are stronger, faster and therefore better feed and more comfortable. After all, the first instinct of everyone is self-preservation right?

The food and beverage industry has evolved a great deal from when man saw fire, put some meat on it and then said: “Ooo, tasty!” Man now has involved and intricate procedures when serving meals. How chefs will prepare them, when certain foods are eaten, how they should be eaten. Even restaurants are ever changing. New concepts, new dishes are being thought up everyday. For instance, the newest food and beverage trend in Malaysia is the “kopitiam” although Mr.Tham cannot for the life of him think why as he made very clear in class on the 27/2/2008.

It is important to understand what food safety and hygiene means. The quality of food has been something that has always been held in high regard. But in the past few decades, food sanitation and hygiene has been a growing concern among the public. This is because we are now better educated and aware of the dangers of eating contaminated foods.

This article defines sanitation as �the design and maintenance of an environment that is clean and healthy. On the other hand, www.answers.com defines hygiene as �Conditions and practices that serve to promote or preserve health: hygiene in the workplace; personal hygiene.’ In other words, food sanitation and hygiene means the upkeep and design of an environment where conditions ad practices are put in place to preserve and promote health.

According (Jurnal Pengguna Malaysia December 2002 Jilid 4 - Norhasmah Sulaiman, Shamsul Azhari, Zainal Badari,2008), �consumers require food that is prepared in clean conditions. They also place priority on the level of service, quality and value.’ The same article also stresses the fact that food service outlets present a high risk of causing food-related diseases. The websites also states that the workers and managers of the outlets have to undergo training to ensure that there are capable of handling the food in a safe manner. Concurrently, consumers have high expectation for the quality of food that is bought; especially food that has been washed and prepared so that the consumers will feel comfortable and safe to consume it (Wallin and Haycook, 1998).

That is why this paper will be to research and report on the evolution of the food and beverage industry with the main focus being on food safety and hygiene. This paper will focus not only on the trends and common practices of workers in the industry but on the consumers as well. On that note, eating good food that is dirty or infected with some disease is really not the best way to go about trying to stay alive isn’t it?

In 2001, there were 7137reported cases of food poisoning throughout Malaysia according to the Disease control Division of Malaysia’s Health Ministry. The Scottish office reports a 21% increase in reported food poisoning cases between 1994 and 1995. The World Health Organization claims that food and waterborne diarrhoeal diseases are leading causes of illness and death in less developed countries, killing approximately 1.8 million people annually, most of whom are children.

Efforts to reduce the incidence of food poisoning concentrate on three areas - investigation, legislation and education (Gilbert, 1983; Griffith et al., 1995; Wheelock, 1989).

Methods

The authors did a large part of the research for this report on the internet, looking into government websites and websites of various other worldwide organizations.

The authors also looked into various books, newspapers and journals which were found both on and off the internet. The authors used online journal databases as the main source for the information. The report is based mostly on the findings of the papers written and only a small part on the authors’ personal experience. The larger part of this report is written based on secondary research.

Primary research was not performed in the course completing the assignment as the authors felt that secondary information was sufficient and that it could well justify the points that were to be made in the paper.

Findings

About Food Sanitation and Hygiene

When on the subject of food sanitation and hygiene, we have to talk to being clean and safe all the way from the supplier to the time when the food reaches the table of the customer. This involves how the raw products were grown, raised, manufactured, whatever. We also have to look at how the were stored, transported, prepared and served. It is not easy to maintain the highest levels of sanitation and hygiene throughout the entire process but we certainly must try.

Our present standard of living causes s to take many things for granted. Going to a restaurant, we assume that the food served to our table is safe to eat and properly cooked. We may have different expectations for different places but generally we just eat what is put in front of us. Most of us do not stop to think what has needed to be done to make sure if the food on the plate is safe to eat. Over the past few years, many procedures and standards have been developed to help keep the quality of our food as high a possible. Legislations have been passed requiring food and beverage outlets to meet certain criteria before being allowed to open for business. Are all these really necessary? Do these efforts actually make a difference or are they just the results of an increasingly paranoid society?

When talking about food hygiene and safety, one of the most well known methods of controlling the food preparation process is the HACCP program.

HACCP (The HACCP Food Safety Manual, Joan K. Loken, 1995)

In the 1960’s, the Pillsbury company developed the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point or HACCP. This program was to ensure that the food eaten by the astronauts in space would have as little chance of contamination as possible. This program was used to predict and