Progress 12/01/08 to 09/30/13
Outputs
Target Audience: Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project. Changes/Problems: Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project.
Publications
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Progress 01/01/12 to 12/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Activities-For this project, data was gathered using a third-party audit, surveys and observations. Three grocery concepts were used representing, by sales, a large, medium and small concept. The researchers from Ohio State handled the study for the large concept, 15 stores, and also conducted observations and audits for the small grocery concept (5 stores) on the East Coast. The researchers from Texas Tech University handled the study for the medium concept, 15 stores, and also helped with 10 stores from the small concept. The instruments were pilot tested. Researchers spent one day at each grocery store. During the visit the researchers conducted a third-party audit of the prepared foods area of the grocery store which involved conducting what would be compared to as a health inspection report for all areas of the kitchen and storage areas. Covered were such items as cleanliness of the facility, how food and equipment were being stored, how incoming products were being treated, knowledge of employees, and other food safety items (handwashing, pH of dish washing water, etc). Employees and managers in the prepared foods area were also given a knowledge survey to complete. Managers were asked more questions pertaining to the operation of the department while employees were asked more questions concerning their employment and food safety training. Finally observations were conducted of employees setting up, maintaining, and tearing down the hot/cold food bars. This included observing the employee performing such duties as; changing pans, cutting and preparing fruits and salads, taking temperatures at proper intervals, wiping down, cleaning and sanitizing the bar. After the initial store visit, half of the managers from the prepared foods areas were trained in food safety using the SafeMark program, conducted by certified SafeMark trainers. Half of the managers were trained so researchers could test and verify the training program as well as ascertain which knowledge items and standards need to be emphasized in the training modules to be developed. After the training all three items were repeated. SERVICES-No services are being provided by this project. PRODUCTS-No products have been developed as of this time. The researchers will soon be meeting to develop the online training program. DISSEMINATION-Preliminary data has been presented at the International Association for Food Protection conference and the National Environmental Health Association. Other plans include the online training modules for anyone who wants to gain food safety knowledge, but especially for employees of the prepared foods area of grocery stores. The consumer information that will be developed will be for grocery stores to place in the prepared foods area and on the hot/cold food bars. This information will be available through the International Center for Food Industry Excellence at Texas Tech University or through other grocery/industry sites as the Food Marketing Institute and the National Grocers Association. PARTICIPANTS: INDIVIDUALS-There are three PIs on this project as well as one other professor at Texas Tech. Dr. Christine Alvarado at Texas A&M, Dr. Margaret Binkley at Ohio State and Dr. Leslie Thompson at Texas Tech are the lead PIs handling the project in the respective state. Drs. Alvardo and Binkley wrote the USDA grant that was funded for this project. These three, plus Dr. Scott Burris at Texas Tech developed the research instruments for the project which included the third-party audit, the survey and the observation instrument. Drs. Binkley and Alvarado recruited the grocery stores chains that participated in the project. They, along with their graduate research assistants conducted the site visits to all of the grocery stores. Dr. Burris will take the lead on developing the online training modules for the project. The other three professors will confer with him on the content of the modules. Dr. Burris also has one graduate student assigned to him that helped in the development of the survey and will also help with the development of the training modules. All PIs on the project will work on the data analysis and results as well as preparing abstracts for conferences and manuscripts for publication. Since this project is funded by a USDA grant, all salaries/expenses will be coming for the grant. Drs. Burris, Binkley and Thompson will be receiving 2-months of summer salary each. Dr. Alvarado is a 12-month professor and is not receiving payment from the grant. The grant also is funding three graduate students, one each for Drs. Alvarado, Binkley and Burris. All three are funded 12 months in year one and nine months in year two. They receive tuition and fees as well as a monthly stipend. Dr. Rich Linton from North Carolina State University and Dr. David McSwane from Indiana University, Purdue University at Indianapolis were contracted and conducted the SafeMark training sessions. PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS-Texas Tech University is the lead institution for this project and Ohio State University is the subcontract. There are three grocery chains that are involved in this project. This project is funded by the USDA. COLLABORATORS AND CONTACTS-Collaborators on this project have included; Dr. Richard Linton, Dr. David McSwane, Larry Kohl from the Food Marketing Institute, and Bridgette Faulkenberry for the Lubbock County Health Department as well as the foods safety directors for the three grocery store concepts. TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT-This project allowed the researchers and the graduate students to be trained in SafeMark. This project will also allow for professional development allowing the researchers and the graduate students to present the research at professional conferences. The development of the online training will allow grocery store employees, or anyone interested in learning food safety, to be trained in food safety for prepared foods. The consumer information will provide consumers with food safety information that they can use, although not really considered training; it will teach the consumers how to better handle food products. TARGET AUDIENCES: TARGET AUDIENCES-The target audiences for this project are employees of grocery stores working in the prepared foods area/hot and cold self-serve bars and consumers who purchase food from this area. The online training, although structured for prepared foods of grocery stores, could be used by other audiences as health departments and other foodservice organizations. EFFORTS-The efforts for this project are the online training that will be developed for hot/cold food bars and the consumer information that will be available in grocery stores. The online training will be a formal course developed from the analysis of this project. The training will be offered through the International Center for Food Industry Excellence as a course on their website. The researchers are also negotiating with the Food Marketing Institute to have these training modules integrated into the SafeMark training program. A certificate will be offered to all those who successfully pass the training program. The consumer information that will be available in grocery stores would be considered as extension and outreach to consumers. Although this consumer information is not a major portion of the project, the researchers felt it necessary to offer a way to educate consumers on how to handle the food from hot/cold food bars after they leave the grocery store. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
The data showed that prior to training there was a strong correlation (0.68) between manager knowledge and employee knowledge, but the post-training correlation decreased to moderate relationship (0.356). This suggested that after the training session, knowledge wasn't transferred from the managers to the employees. The information gained from the post-training performance and knowledge scores was used to determine the food safety training needs. These scores indicated that training materials covering practices related to food temperature, utensil usage, product handling proper cleaning/sanitizing, and general food safety principles should be developed. The observational scores for the control and trained stores pre-training and post-training were compared. The information from the observations indicated that the training did not cause a significant change in store performance for a majority of the observed categories. From the results it was determined that assessment categories of personnel (0.358), food handling (0.316), and storage (0.384), as well as the observational category of food temperature (0.350) were moderately related to the managers' knowledge on performance-based questions.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/11 to 12/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Activities-Data was gathered using third-party audits, surveys and observations. Three grocery concepts were used representing, by sales, a large, medium and small concept. Researchers from Ohio State handled the large concept, 15 stores, and also conducted observations and audits for the small grocery concept (5 stores) on the East Coast. Researchers from Texas Tech University and Texas A&M handled the medium concept, 15 stores, and also helped with 10 stores from the small concept. During the visit, three separate items were performed. First the researchers conducted a third-party audit of the prepared foods area. Items covered were: cleanliness of the facility, how food and equipment were being stored, how incoming products were being treated, knowledge of employees, and other food safety items (handwashing, pH of dish washing water, etc). Employees and managers were given a survey. Food safety questions on both the manager and employee surveys were identical, but other information was not. Managers were asked more questions pertaining to the operation of the department while employees were asked more questions concerning their employment and food safety training. The final piece were observations of the employees setting up, maintaining, and tearing down the hot/cold food bars. This included observing the employee performing such duties as; changing pans, cutting and preparing fruits and salads, taking temperatures at proper intervals, wiping down the salad bar, and cleaning and sanitizing the bar. After the initial store visit, half of the managers from the prepared foods areas were trained using the SafeMark program. Two training sessions were held, conducted by certified SafeMark trainers, for each grocery concept. Half of the managers were trained so researchers could test and verify the training program as well as ascertain which knowledge items and standards need to be emphasized in the training modules to be developed. EVENTS-One poster was presented at IAFP 2011 SERVICES-No services are being provided by this project PRODUCTS-No products have been developed as of this time. DISSEMINATION-Preliminary data has been presented at the International Association for Food Protection conference. The online training modules are being developed now. This training will be for anyone who wants to gain food safety knowledge, but especially for employees of the prepared foods area of grocery stores. The consumer information will be for grocery stores to place in the prepared foods area and handle food safety topics on the hot/cold food bars. This information will be available through a website that has been developed on the Texas A&M server. The researchers will continue to disseminate the information at various conferences as the International Association for Food Protection and the National Environmental Health Association as well as industry meetings as the Food Marketing Institute annual show. The researchers will also be publishing the results in journals as the Journal of Food Protection as well as writing articles for industry publications as Progressive Grocer. PARTICIPANTS: INDIVIDUALS-There are three PIs on this project as well as one other professor at Texas Tech. Dr. Christine Alvarado at Texas A&M, Dr. Margaret Binkley at Ohio State and Dr. Leslie Thompson at Texas Tech are the lead PIs handling the project in the respective state. These three, plus Dr. Scott Burris at Texas Tech developed the research instruments which included the third-party audit, the survey and the observation instrument. Drs. Binkley and Alvarado recruited the grocery stores chains that participated. They, along with their graduate research assistants conducted the site visits to all of the grocery stores. Dr. Burris is working on the development of the online training modules. The other three professors will confer with him on the content of the modules. All PIs on the project will work on the data analysis and results as well as preparing abstracts for conferences and manuscripts for publication. Salaries are covered by the grant with Drs. Burris, Binkley and Thompson receiving 2-months of summer salary each. Dr. Alvarado is a 12-month professor and is not receiving payment from the grant. The grant also is funding three graduate students, one each for Drs. Alvarado, Binkley and Burris. All three are funded 12 months in year one and nine months in year two. Dr. Rich Linton from Ohio State University and Dr. David McSwane from Indiana University, Purdue University at Indianapolis were contracted and conducted the SafeMark training sessions. TARGET AUDIENCES: TARGET AUDIENCES-The target audiences for this project are employees of grocery stores working in the prepared foods area and consumers who purchase food from this area. The online training, although structured for prepared foods of grocery stores, could be used by other audiences as health departments and other foodservice organizations. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
CHANGE IN KNOWLEDGE-Percentage scores for the knowledge questions pre- and post-training were recorded for both managers and employees. Managers had a median score of 83.4% pre-training and 93.8% post training. Employees had a median score of 70.6% pre-training and 76.3% post-training. It should be noted here that scores of 74% or lower are not high enough to pass the SaveMark certification. It was found there were six questions that were low-performing on both the pre- and post-training assessments and were identified as critical items: time/temperature control for food safety, temperature danger zone, food holding temperatures, frequency of temperature measurements, cross contamination, and bacteria growth temperatures. Five other items were noted as low-performing: refrigeration temperatures, foodborne illness outbreaks, HACCP principles, food safety management programs, and proper storage practices. The temperature control category was found to be most frequently identified as critical items. All of these questions should be addressed in future food safety training curriculums. CHANGE IN ACTIONS-Observations of employees occurred both before and after training. When comparing the knowledge scores to the observational scores, it was discovered that a majority of the relationships increased slightly after the training. When looking at taking temperatures, the training did not increase the stores performance. For utensil usage and cleaning and sanitizing, the relationship after the training increased slightly. For product handling, the relationship after training was actually negative which showed a slight decrease in performance. This shows that although current food safety training may increase knowledge is did not transfer over into improved food safety practices. Correlations were also used to determine if the difference in knowledge had an effect on performance. The correlations showed that performance was more related to the manager's knowledge and behavior. It also suggests that even though the knowledge was not being transferred, the managers' behaviors were being imitated. TRAINING NEEDS-This information was used to identify food safety training needs. A score of 75% or better on the surveys and audits would indicate that the current food safety training practices sufficiently met the needs of that category and scores below 75% were areas that needed imrpovement. For the audits, categories for food temperature and warewashing scored below 75%. For the observations, categories for food temperature, utensil usage and product handling scored below 75%. From this information, it was decided that new training materials should cover time and temperature controls, proper utensil usage, proper product handling practices, proper cleaning and sanitizing (warewashing), and general food safety knowledge principles (from the knowledge survey) such as time and temperature control, good personal hygiene, and cross contamination.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/10 to 12/31/10
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Activities-Data was gathered using third-party audits, surveys and observations. Three grocery concepts were used representing, by sales, a large, medium and small concept. Researchers from Ohio State handled the study for the large and small concept. The researchers from Texas Tech University handled the study for the medium concept. Surveys used were pilot tested at Texas Tech. Researchers spent one day at each grocery store. During the visit researchers conducted a third-party audit of the prepared foods area of the grocery store which involved conducting what would be compared to as a health inspection report for all areas of the kitchen and storage areas. Employees and managers in the prepared foods area were also given a survey to complete. The food safety questions on both the manager and employee surveys were identical, but other information was different. Managers were asked more questions pertaining to the operation of the department while employees were asked more questions concerning their employment and food safety training. Observations of the employees were then conducted while setting up, maintaining, and tearing down the hot/cold food bars. After the initial store visit was conducted, half of the managers from the prepared foods areas were trained in food safety using the SuperSafeMark program. There were two training sessions, conducted by certified SuperSafeMark trainers, for each grocery concept. Half of the managers were trained so researchers could test and verify the training program as well as ascertain which knowledge items and standards need to be emphasized in the training modules to be developed. After the training all three items were repeated. EVENTS-Two posters were presented from this project at IAFP 2010 SERVICES-No services are being provided by this project. PRODUCTS-No products have been developed as of this time. The researchers will soon be meeting to develop the online training program that will be used. DISSEMINATION-Preliminary data has been presented at the International Association for Food Protection conference. Other plans include the online training modules that will be developed. This training will be for anyone who wants to gain food safety knowledge, but especially for employees of the prepared foods area of grocery stores. The consumer information that will be developed will be for grocery stores to place in the prepared foods area and on the hot/cold food bars. This information will be available through the International Center for Food Industry Excellence at Texas Tech University or through other grocery/industry sites as the Food Marketing Institute and the National Grocers Association. The researchers will continue to disseminate the information at various conferences as the International Association for Food Protection and the National Environmental Health Association as well as industry meetings as the Food Marketing Institute show. The researchers will also be publishing the results of the study in journals as the Journal of Food Protection as well as writing articles for industry publications as Progressive Grocer. PARTICIPANTS: INDIVIDUALS-There are three PIs on this project as well as one other professor at Texas Tech. Dr. Christine Alvarado at Texas A&M, Dr. Margaret Binkley at Ohio State and Dr. Leslie Thompson at Texas Tech are the lead PIs handling the project in the respective state. Drs. Alvardo and Binkley wrote the USDA grant that was funded for this project. These three, plus Dr. Scott Burris at Texas Tech developed the research instruments for the project which included the third-party audit, the survey and the observation instrument. Drs. Binkley and Alvarado recruited the grocery stores chains that participated in the project. They, along with their graduate research assistants conducted the site visits to all of the grocery stores. Dr. Burris will take the lead on developing the online training modules for the project. The other three professors will confer with him on the content of the modules. Dr. Burris also has one graduate student assigned to him that helped in the development of the survey and will also help with the development of the training modules. All PIs on the project will work on the data analysis and results as well as preparing abstracts for conferences and manuscripts for publication. Since this project is funded by a USDA grant, all salaries/expenses will be coming for the grant. Drs. Burris, Binkley and Thompson will be receiving 2-months of summer salary each. Dr. Alvarado is a 12-month professor and is not receiving payment from the grant. The grant also is funding three graduate students, one each for Drs. Alvarado, Binkley and Burris. All three are funded 12 months in year one and nine months in year two. They receive tuition and fees as well as a monthly stipend. Dr. Rich Linton from Purdue University and Dr. David McSwane from Indiana University, Purdue University at Indianapolis were contracted and conducted the SuperSafeMark training sessions. PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS-Texas Tech University is the lead institution for this project and Ohio State University is the subcontract. There are three grocery chains that are involved in this project. This project is funded by the USDA. COLLABORATORS AND CONTACTS-Collaborators on this project have included; Dr. Richard Linton from Purdue University, Dr. David McSwane from IUPUI, Larry Kohl from the Food Marketing Institute, and Bridgette Faulkenberry for the Lubbock County Health Department as well as the foods safety directors for the three grocery store concepts. TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT-This project allowed the researchers and the graduate students to be trained in SuperSafeMark. This project will also allow for professional development allowing the researchers and the graduate students to present the research at professional conferences. The development of the online training will allow grocery store employees, or anyone interested in learning food safety, to be trained in food safety for prepared foods. The consumer information will provide consumers with food safety information that they can use, although not really considered training; it will teach the consumers how to better handle food products. TARGET AUDIENCES: TARGET AUDIENCES-The target audiences for this project are employees of grocery stores working in the prepared foods area and consumers who purchase food from this area. The online training, although structured for prepared foods of grocery stores, could be used by other audiences as health departments and other foodservice organizations. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
No outputs/impacts as of yet on this project. Data just now being analyzed.
Publications
- McCoulloch, A., Burris, S., Alvarado, C. & Binkley, M. 2010. Are Hot/Cold Self-Serve Food Bar Employees Food Safety Savvy Proceedings of the IAFP 2010, Anaheim, CA, August 1-4, 2010. Poster and Proceedings p. 84.
- Dow, A., Binkley, M., Alvarado, C., & Burris, S.2010. Evaluation of Food Safety Compliance for Hot/Cold Self-serve Bars. Proceedings of the IAFP 2010, Anaheim, CA, August 1-4, 2010. Poster and Proceedings p. 84.
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Progress 01/01/09 to 12/31/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Activities-Data was gathered using third-party audits, surveys and observations. Grocery stores in both Columbus (8) and Cleveland were used (7). During visit, three separate items were performed.The researchers met at Texas Tech University to conduct inter-rater reliability for the instruments. First, researchers conducted third-party audit of prepared foods area, could be compared to health inspection report. This involved such items as cleanliness, are food/equipment properly stored, how incoming products are being treated, knowledge of employees. Employees and managers in the prepared foods area were given survey. The food safety questions were identical.Managers were asked more questions pertaining to the operation while employees were asked questions about employment and food safety training. Observation of employee setting up hot/cold food bars and maintaining it were conducted. This included observing employee performing duties as; changing pans, cutting and preparing food, taking temperatures, wiping down bar, and cleaning/sanitizing. Half of the managers were trained in food safety using SuperSafeMark. Half were trained to test and verify training program to develop online training. After training all items were repeated. Researchers are in process of entering data for analysis. All phases of project have been completed for two of three grocery chains. EVENTS-None performed SERVICES-None performed. PRODUCTS-No products have been developed as of this time. The researchers will soon be meeting to develop the online training program that will be used. Signs will be developed to be posted on bars to inform consumers of best practices to reduce contamination when serving themselves. DISSEMINATION-Dissemination has not yet occurred. The plans include the online training that will be developed. This training will be for anyone who wants to take the class, but especially for employees of the prepared foods area of grocery stores. The consumer information that will be developed will be for grocery stores to place in the prepared foods area and on the hot/cold food bars. This information will be available through the International Center for Food Industry Excellence at Texas Tech University or through other grocery/industry sites as the Food Marketing Institute and the National Grocerers Association. The researchers will also disseminate the information at various conferences as the International Association for Food Protection (where the research will be presented in a retail food symposium), and the National Environmental Health Association as well as industry meetings as the Food Marketing Institute show. The researchers will also be publishing the information in journals as the Journal of Food Protection as well as writing articles for industry publications as Progressive Grocer. PARTICIPANTS: INDIVIDUALS-There are three PIs on this project as well as one other professor at Texas Tech. Dr. Christine Alvarado at Texas Tech and Dr. Margaret Binkley at Ohio State are the lead PIs handling the project in the respective state. Drs. Alvardo and Binkley wrote the USDA grant that was funded for this project. These two, plus Drs. Burris and Thompson at Texas Tech developed the research instruments for the project which included the third-party audit, the survey and the observation instrument. Drs. Binkley and Alvarado recruited the grocery stores chains that participated in the project. They, along with their graduate research assistants conducted the site visits to all of the grocery stores so far in the project. Dr. Burris will be the lead on developing the online training modules for the project. The other three professors will confer with him on the content of the modules. Dr. Burris also has one graduate student assigned to him that helped in the development of the survey and will also help with the development of the training modules. All PIs on the project will work on the data analysis and results as well as preparing abstracts for conferences and manuscripts for publication. Since this is a funded USDA grant, all salaries/expenses will be coming for the grant. Drs. Burris, Binkley and Thompson will be receiving 2-months of summer salary each. Dr. Alvarado is a 12-month professor and is not receiving payment from the grant. The grant also is funding three graduate students, one each for Drs. Alvarado, Binkley and Burris. All three are funded 12 months in year one and nine months in year two. They receive tuition and fees as well as a monthly stipend. Dr. Rich Linton from Purdue University and Dr. David McSwane from Indiana University, Purdue University at Indianapolis were contracted to conduct the SuperSafeMark training sessions. Dr. John Rupnow from the University of Nebraska will be a consultant for the online training modules. PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS-Texas Tech University is the lead institution for this project and Ohio State University is the subcontract. There are three grocery chains that are involved in this project. This project is funded by the USDA. COLLABORATORS AND CONTACTS-Collaborators on this project have included; Dr. Richard Linton from Purdue University, Dr. David McSwane from IUPUI, Larry Kohl from the Food Marketing Institute, and Bridgette Faulkenberry for the Lubbock County Health Department. TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT-This project allowed the researchers and the graduate students to be trained in SuperSafeMark. This project will also allow for professional development allowing the researchers and the graduate students to present the research at professional conferences. The development of the online training will allow grocery store employees, or anyone interested, to be trained in food safety for prepared foods. The consumer information will provide consumers with food safety information that they can use, although not really considered training, it will teach the consumers how to better handle food products. TARGET AUDIENCES: TARGET AUDIENCES-The target audiences for this project are employees of grocery stores working in the prepared foods area and consumers who purchase food from this area. The online training, although structured for prepared foods of grocery stores, could be used by other audiences as health departments and other foodservice organizations. EFFORTS-The efforts for this project is the online training that will be developed for hot/cold food bars and the consumer information that will be available in grocery stores. The online training will be a formal course developed from the analysis of this project. The training will be offered through the International Center for Food Industry Excellence as a course on their website. A certificate will be offered to all those that successfully pass the training program. The consumer information that will be available in grocery stores would be considered an extensions and outreach to consumers. Although this consumer information is not a major portion of the project, the researchers felt it necessary to offer a way to educate consumers on how to handle the food from hot/cold food bars after they leave the grocery store. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
At the present time, there are no outcomes or impacts to report. The researchers are currently finishing the second round of observations, will be downloading data in the data base for the pre- and post-surveys. Once observations are completed, the researchers will be able to see the outcomes and impacts that the research has had on the grocery employees. The outcomes that are expected, after the learning intervention, is that employees will better understand food safety in grocery stores, that they will be better able to perform the duties in the prepared food departments to the standards of a health inspection. Also expected from the observation: that employees will be able to better handle the set-up and tear-down of the hot/cold food bars; be better educated on how, why and when to take the temperatures of the food;to understand the proper sanitation of the bars; to understand how food should be handled on the bars; and how important it is to provide food safety information for the consumers. This should have a huge impact on the food safety and sanitation of the facilities that were used in the study. Once the online trainind modules are developed and put in place, these should also be able to benefit any grocery store across the country that chooses to use the training methods as well as provide safer food to the public.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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