Cargando…

Food safety culture in food companies amid the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic

The challenges to food safety in Lebanon are many and have worsened due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Lebanese economic crisis. Against a backdrop of loosely enforced food laws and regulations, a cross-sectional study was carried out in 23 Lebanese food companies on 204 participants using a valid...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Nakat, Zeina, Tayoun, Vera, Merhi, Samar, Bou-Mitri, Christelle, Karam, Layal
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10559281/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37810006
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19885
_version_ 1785117464441389056
author Nakat, Zeina
Tayoun, Vera
Merhi, Samar
Bou-Mitri, Christelle
Karam, Layal
author_facet Nakat, Zeina
Tayoun, Vera
Merhi, Samar
Bou-Mitri, Christelle
Karam, Layal
author_sort Nakat, Zeina
collection PubMed
description The challenges to food safety in Lebanon are many and have worsened due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Lebanese economic crisis. Against a backdrop of loosely enforced food laws and regulations, a cross-sectional study was carried out in 23 Lebanese food companies on 204 participants using a validated online food safety culture self-assessment tool consisting of 28 indicators. Food safety motivation, burnout/job stress and conscientiousness and their impact on food safety culture were also investigated. Overall, the perceived food safety culture was “good” with a mean value of 119.1 over 140 (equivalent to 4.3/5). A young workforce, the female gender, a science background, and a university degree were associated with a higher food safety culture. The food safety culture score was also perceived higher among participants who attended food safety trainings, and among those working at the managerial level and in the quality department. In addition, the results showed that the food safety culture was significantly better in companies exporting their goods than companies with no international market exposure (121.6 vs 118.1). Moreover, Food safety motivation (mean score 4.1/5) and conscientiousness (3.5/5) were moderately associated with a positive food safety culture. However, the low burnout/job stress scores (2.8/5) may exhibit a negative impact on the food safety culture and could be related to several consequences caused by the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Further studies are to be conducted to understand better the causal effects relationship.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10559281
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher Elsevier
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-105592812023-10-08 Food safety culture in food companies amid the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic Nakat, Zeina Tayoun, Vera Merhi, Samar Bou-Mitri, Christelle Karam, Layal Heliyon Research Article The challenges to food safety in Lebanon are many and have worsened due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Lebanese economic crisis. Against a backdrop of loosely enforced food laws and regulations, a cross-sectional study was carried out in 23 Lebanese food companies on 204 participants using a validated online food safety culture self-assessment tool consisting of 28 indicators. Food safety motivation, burnout/job stress and conscientiousness and their impact on food safety culture were also investigated. Overall, the perceived food safety culture was “good” with a mean value of 119.1 over 140 (equivalent to 4.3/5). A young workforce, the female gender, a science background, and a university degree were associated with a higher food safety culture. The food safety culture score was also perceived higher among participants who attended food safety trainings, and among those working at the managerial level and in the quality department. In addition, the results showed that the food safety culture was significantly better in companies exporting their goods than companies with no international market exposure (121.6 vs 118.1). Moreover, Food safety motivation (mean score 4.1/5) and conscientiousness (3.5/5) were moderately associated with a positive food safety culture. However, the low burnout/job stress scores (2.8/5) may exhibit a negative impact on the food safety culture and could be related to several consequences caused by the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Further studies are to be conducted to understand better the causal effects relationship. Elsevier 2023-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10559281/ /pubmed/37810006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19885 Text en © 2023 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Research Article
Nakat, Zeina
Tayoun, Vera
Merhi, Samar
Bou-Mitri, Christelle
Karam, Layal
Food safety culture in food companies amid the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic
title Food safety culture in food companies amid the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic
title_full Food safety culture in food companies amid the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Food safety culture in food companies amid the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Food safety culture in food companies amid the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic
title_short Food safety culture in food companies amid the Lebanese economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic
title_sort food safety culture in food companies amid the lebanese economic crisis and the covid-19 pandemic
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10559281/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37810006
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19885
work_keys_str_mv AT nakatzeina foodsafetycultureinfoodcompaniesamidthelebaneseeconomiccrisisandthecovid19pandemic
AT tayounvera foodsafetycultureinfoodcompaniesamidthelebaneseeconomiccrisisandthecovid19pandemic
AT merhisamar foodsafetycultureinfoodcompaniesamidthelebaneseeconomiccrisisandthecovid19pandemic
AT boumitrichristelle foodsafetycultureinfoodcompaniesamidthelebaneseeconomiccrisisandthecovid19pandemic
AT karamlayal foodsafetycultureinfoodcompaniesamidthelebaneseeconomiccrisisandthecovid19pandemic