A Study of Food Safety Knowledge for Sustainable Foodservice Management of Childcare Centers in South Korea Using Importance–Performance Analysis

This study aims to evaluate the importance and performance level of knowledge about sanitary management among foodservice employees in childcare centers that were registered at Center for Children’s Food Service Management in Chungju city according to their work duration, type of childcare center, and number of enrolled children. The self-administered questionnaire was conducted to examine food safety attributes of sanitary management at 150 childcare centers without qualified dietitians registered at Center for Children’s Food Service Management of Chungju city. The questionnaire consisted of 15 questions about perceived importance and performance regarding sanitation management (personal hygiene, ingredient control, temperature control of food, facility, equipment, and utensils sanitation) using IPA (importance–performance analysis). The results show that overall mean scores of the importance and performance of sanitary knowledge were 4.71 and 4.67 out of 5, respectively. ‘Checking the center temperature at 75 °C for 1 min in the thickest part of meat (3 times or more check for each serving)’ (p = 0.047) and ‘Keeping preserved meals (at least 100 g of each menu) for 144 h. with −18 °C or less’ (p < 0.001) show significantly lower scores of performance than those of importance. The results of importance and performance for sanitary management according to work duration of foodservice employees show that those who have worked more than 10 years had the highest scores of importance and performance for overall sanitary management among them. For the types of childcare centers, the overall performance scores of national/public employees for sanitary management were lower than those of private or home type (p < 0.001). Additionally, the result showed that the overall importance (p < 0.001) and performance scores (p < 0.001) of employees for sanitary management in centers with <50 children were higher than those in centers with ≥50 children. This result should provide more useful information to develop food safety programs for employees and sustainable foodservice management in childcare centers.